Stakeholders Management, WHAT, WHY, and HOW?

March 7, 2018November 10, 2018Mohamed Sami

Each one of us is surrounded by people, for example, families, friends, coworkers, or clients. These people are affecting our lives in a positive or negative way that shapes our personality as well. This kind of relationship with people needs proper communication and management since this communication takes a big percentage of our life. Some studies point out that we spend an average of 70% of our day listening to others and an average of 30% speaking to them.

Similarly, strategic planning, architecture, project management, and other fields are powered by people, people who envision, plan, analyze, design, manage, execute, operate, …etc. Communication with those kinds of people should be managed effectively to ensure that every person not only informed but also involved and contributing to the process whatever it is. We mainly aim to those people as the stakeholders.

In this article, we will discuss who are the stakeholders, and why managing them is important, and how we should do that.

5 Steps to Software Development Effort Estimation

January 15, 2018November 10, 2018Mohamed Sami

The software development effort estimation is an essential activity before any software project initiation. In this article, I will illustrate how to easily estimate the software effort using known estimation techniques which are Function Points Analysis (FPA) and Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO).

Software Scope vs. Requirement specifications

May 14, 2017October 19, 2019Mohamed Sami

Did you face any situation where you have been confused between the software scope and its requirements? If YES, I think you are not alone, There are a lot of misunderstanding in software engineering practices between software scope and its requirement specifications. Most of the time, the software project missed the scope and fall in scope creep dilemma without any notice, and without the alignment with the software scope which turns the project and software to be unsuccessful.

Choosing the right Software development life cycle model

March 21, 2012December 16, 2020Mohamed Sami

Selecting a Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) methodology is a challenging task for many organizations and software engineers. What tends to make it challenging is the fact that few organizations know what are the criteria to use in selecting a methodology to add value to the organization. Fewer still understand that a methodology might apply to more than one Life Cycle Model. Before considering a framework for selecting a given SDLC methodology, we need to define the different types and illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of those models (please see the Software Development Life Cycle Models and Methodologies).

Software Development Life Cycle Models and Methodologies

March 15, 2012December 29, 2021Mohamed Sami

Introduction

Software development life cycle (SDLC) is a series of phases that provide a common understanding of the software building process. How the software will be realized and developed from the business understanding and requirements elicitation phase to convert these business ideas and requirements into functions and features until its usage and operation to achieve the business needs. A good software engineer should have enough knowledge on how to choose the SDLC model based on the project context and the business requirements.

Therefore, it may be required to choose the right SDLC model according to the specific concerns and requirements of the project to ensure its success. I wrote another article on how to choose the right SDLC, you can follow this link for more information. Moreover, to learn more about Software Testing life cycles and SDLC phases you follow the links highlighted here.

In this article, we will explore the different types of SDLC models and the advantages and disadvantages of each one, and when to use them.

Interviewing Techniques and Practices

February 24, 2012May 19, 2023Mohamed Sami

Interviewing is one of the most important and popular requirements elicitation and requirements discovering techniques. Therefore, before making any interview, we should prepare for it. The preparation of the interview is an important factor for increasing the chance of making a successful interview and successful business analysis.

Best Practices listening Skills for analysts

February 23, 2012August 16, 2019Mohamed Sami

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” Epictetus quotes (Greek philosopher associated with the Stoics, AD 55-c.135)

In human natural life, we are listening most of the time more than we speak, while this is called discriminative and passive listening which you are listening to voices with different level of sound and including the body language, but we need to control how to listen and when to concentrate on listening by managing and understanding listening skill especially on a career like analyst.

5 Core competencies every Business Analysts MUST have

February 21, 2012August 16, 2019Mohamed Sami

The Business Analyst is a key role in any software project and he is responsible mainly for the output from the analysis which phase is critical for the software project success, in this article we will discuss 5 core competencies that business analyst should have. let us go through them.

Creative thinking

Creative thinking is the process by which we generate new ideas, imagine possibilities, and find relationships among seemingly unrelated concepts.