The BA career blog

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  Series · 2 lessons · 19 October 2026

  API Literacy for Business Analysts: What You Need to Know to Specify, Read and Test an Integration, With No Code

  1. Day 1: What an API Actually Is, and Why You Get Pulled Into Them
  2. Day 2: Reading API Documentation Without Being a Developer
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  Series · 5 lessons · 12 October 2026

  Lean Six Sigma for BAs Who Aren't Black Belts: The Parts That Transfer Straight Into Everyday BA Work

  1. Day 1: Lean Six Sigma Without the Belts
  2. Day 2: Define: What Does the Customer Count as a Defect?
  3. Day 3: Measure: Get a Baseline Before You Believe Anyone
  4. Day 4: Analyse and Improve: The Average Is Hiding the Problem
  5. Day 5: Control: Making the Gain Stay
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  Series · 5 lessons · 5 October 2026

  Systems Thinking: Seeing the Whole Problem Before You Touch Any Part of It

  1. Day 1: The Obvious Fix That Makes Things Worse
  2. Day 2: Mapping the Whole System Before You Touch Any Part of It
  3. Day 3: Feedback Loops: The Pattern Behind Most "Mystery" Problems
  4. Day 4: Second-Order Effects: What Happens After What Happens
  5. Day 5: Thinking in Systems as a Daily BA Habit
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  Series · 5 lessons · 28 September 2026

  Facilitation Skills: Running a Workshop That Actually Produces Decisions

  1. Day 1: Why Most Workshops End in a Nod, Not a Decision
  2. Day 2: Designing a Workshop Backwards From the Decision
  3. Day 3: Reading and Managing the Room
  4. Day 4: Closing Every Agenda Item With an Actual Decision
  5. Day 5: From Workshop to Follow-Through
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  Series · 5 lessons · 21 September 2026

  The Discovery Phase: Setting a Project Up to Succeed Before Requirements Even Start

  1. Day 1: Why Most Projects Fail Before Requirements Even Start
  2. Day 2: The Five Things Discovery Actually Has to Answer
  3. Day 3: Framing the Problem Before the Solution
  4. Day 4: Naming the Unknowns: Scoping What You Don't Know Yet
  5. Day 5: From Discovery to a Requirements
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  Series · 5 lessons · 14 September 2026

  Requirements Prioritisation: Deciding What Gets Built First

  1. Day 1: Why "Everything Is a Priority" Is Not a Strategy
  2. Day 2: MoSCoW, Done Properly
  3. Day 3: The Kano Model: Why Satisfaction Isn't Linear
  4. Day 4: Combining Frameworks: The Value/Effort Matrix
  5. Day 5: From Priority List to Actual Commitment
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  Series · 5 lessons · 7 September 2026

  Business Process Modelling: Making BPMN Actually Useful

  1. Day 1: Why Nobody Reads Most BPMN Diagrams Twice
  2. Day 2: The Handful of Symbols That Do Almost All the Work
  3. Day 3: Map the As-Is Before You Touch the To-Be
  4. Day 4: The Mistakes That Often Make a Process Map Useless
  5. Day 5: From Diagram to Decision
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  Series · 5 lessons · 31 August 2026

  Finding (and Being) a Mentor in Business Analysis: Why Nobody Figures This Out Alone, and What to Do About It

  1. Day 1: The Mentor Gap
  2. Day 2: What a Good Mentor Actually Does (and Doesn't Do)
  3. Day 3: How to Find and Approach a Mentor
  4. Day 4: Being a Mentee Worth Investing In
  5. Day 5: Knowing When You've Outgrown Informal Mentorship
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  Series · 5 lessons · 24 August 2026

  Managing Up and Getting Visible: Making Sure the Work, and the Judgment Behind It, Actually Gets Seen

  1. Day 1: Your Manager Knows Less About Your Work Than You Think
  2. Day 2: The Weekly Visibility Habit
  3. Day 3: The Four Moments Worth Flagging
  4. Day 4: Managing Up When the News Is Bad
  5. Day 5: Internal Visibility and External Visibility Are the Same Muscle
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  Series · 5 lessons · 17 August 2026

  Certifications, Worth It and Which Ones: A Clear-Eyed Look at What Actually Moves a BA Career Forward

  1. Day 1: What a Certification Actually Signals, and What It Does Not
  2. Day 2: Decoding the Major Certifications
  3. Day 3: The Certification Fit Framework
  4. Day 4: What Actually Moves the Needle Besides Certifications
  5. Day 5: Your Certification Decision, Made
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  Series · 5 lessons · 10 August 2026

  Difficult Stakeholders and Hard Conversations: How to Handle the Conversations Most Analysts Dread

  1. Day 1: Most Stakeholder Conflict Is Not a Communication Problem
  2. Day 2: The Four Difficult Stakeholder Archetypes
  3. Day 3: The SAID Framework for the Conversation You're Dreading
  4. Day 4: Disagreeing Without Damaging the Relationship
  5. Day 5: When to Escalate, and How to Do It Without Burning Bridges
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  Series · 5 lessons · 3 August 2026

  Building Your Brand as a BA: Getting Known For the Work You Already Do Well

  1. Day 1: The Brand You Already Have, Whether You Built It or Not
  2. Day 2: The Three Things Worth Posting About
  3. Day 3: Your Profile Is a Case File, Not a CV
  4. Day 4: Writing About Real Work Without Breaking Trust
  5. Day 5: Nobody Goes Viral on the First Post: Why Consistency Beats Confidence
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  Series · 5 lessons · 28 July 2026

  Breaking Into Business Analysis: How to Get In, Even Without a Traditional Path

  1. Day 1: How I broke into business analysis without being a developer
  2. Day 2: What a Business Analyst Actually Does
  3. Day 3: The experience you already carry, in the language of this job
  4. Day 4: The Practical Path In
  5. Day 5: The Honest Truths and the Roadmap
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  Series · 5 lessons · 20 July 2026

  The Business Analyst Career Path: From Junior to Senior, Lead, and Consultant

  1. Day 1: The Junior Analyst: Learning to Be Useful
  2. Day 2: The Senior Analyst: From Executing to Owning
  3. Day 3: The Lead Analyst: From Doing to Multiplying
  4. Day 4: The Consultant: Selling Judgment, Not Hours
  5. Day 5: The Whole Path, and How to Climb It
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  Series · 4 lessons · 13 July 2026

  Storytelling That Drives Decisions: Turning Analysis Into a Narrative Leadership Acts On

  1. Day 1: Why correct, careful analysis so often changes nothing
  2. Day 2: Every Case Is a Story With Three Parts
  3. Day 3: Numbers Don't Speak for Themselves
  4. Day 4: Speaking to the Person Who Has to Decide
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  Series · 5 lessons · 6 July 2026

  Critical Thinking: How to Be Right More Often

  1. Day 1: Why capable, experienced people get confidently wrong
  2. Day 2: How the way you state a problem controls the answers you can see
  3. Day 3: Testing the assumptions and evidence under a confident conclusion
  4. Day 4: Tools That Sharpen Judgment
  5. Day 5: The Clear-Thinking Toolkit
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  Series · 5 lessons · 29 June 2026

  Communication and Influence: Moving Decisions Without Authority

  1. Day 1: Why having no authority is not the handicap it looks like
  2. Day 2: The best idea in the room is worthless if it never lands
  3. Day 3: No one is moved by a person they do not believe in
  4. Day 4: How to move a decision you cannot make
  5. Day 5: Your Influence Playbook: The whole week on one page, and one scenario that ties it together
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  Series · 5 lessons · 22 June 2026

  Asking Better Questions - The Art of Elicitation

  1. Day 1: The first answer is almost never the real one
  2. Day 2: Not All Questions Are Equal
  3. Day 3: Reaching the knowledge stakeholders cannot reach themselves
  4. Day 4: Facilitation, and how to stop a workshop becoming noise
  5. Day 5: Your Elicitation Playbook
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  Series · 5 lessons · 15 June 2026

  Sharper, Not Smaller: The Business Analyst in the Age of AI

  1. Day 1: The Day I Stopped Fearing AI and Started Directing It
  2. Day 2: What to Hand to AI (The Safe List)
  3. Day 3: What to Never Hand Over (The Lines That Stay Yours)
  4. Day 4: Building AI Into Your BA Workflow, Step by Step
  5. Day 5: Why the Role Gets Sharper, Not Smaller
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  Series · 5 lessons · 9 June 2026

  Data Analysis for Business Analysts: How to Read It, Interpret It Honestly, and Make Better Decisions

  1. Day 1: Why Every Business Analyst Needs to Be Comfortable With Data
  2. Day 2: Reading Data: The Foundations Every BA Must Master
  3. Day 3: Interpreting Data Honestly: Avoiding the Traps That Mislead
  4. Day 4: From Data to Decision: Turning Numbers Into Analytical Judgement
  5. Day 5: The Data Analysis Toolkit: Your Practical Reference Guide
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  Series · 5 lessons · 2 June 2026

  Process Improvement Mastery: How Business Analysts Lead Change, Not Just Document It

  1. Day 1: Why Process Improvement Is a BA's Most Powerful Skill
  2. Day 2: Root Cause Analysis: Finding the Real Problem
  3. Day 3: Lean Thinking and Kaizen: The BA's Guide to Continuous Improvement
  4. Day 4: Leading an Improvement Initiative: From Discovery to Implementation
  5. Day 5: The Process Improvement Toolkit: Your Practical Reference Guide
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  Series · 5 lessons · 25 May 2026

  Agile Business Analysis: The BA's Role in Scrum, Sprints and Product Delivery

  1. Day 1: The BA in an Agile Team: What Really Changes
  2. Day 2: Writing User Stories That Actually Get Built Right
  3. Day 3: Backlog Refinement and Sprint Ceremonies: The BA's Engine Room
  4. Day 4: Working With Your Product Owner: The Relationship That Drives Delivery
  5. Day 5: Agile BA in Your Career: Mastery, Interviews and the Six Principles to Keep
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  Series · 5 lessons · 18 May 2026

  Requirements Excellence: The Craft at the Heart of Business Analysis

  1. Day 1: Why Requirements Fail & What Excellence Actually Looks Like
  2. Day 2: Elicitation Mastery: Getting to the Real Requirement
  3. Day 3: Writing Requirements That Hold Up: Functional and Non-Functional in Depth
  4. Day 4: From Discovery to Sign-Off: Managing Requirements Through the Lifecycle
  5. Day 5: Requirements Excellence in Your Career: Mastery, Interviews and the Six Principles to Keep
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  Series · 5 lessons · 11 May 2026

  Stakeholder Management Mastery: The Skill That Makes or Breaks Projects

  1. Day 1: Why Stakeholder Management Is the Most Underrated Skill in Business Analysis
  2. Day 2: Mapping Your Stakeholders: The Analytical Tools Every BA Must Know
  3. Day 3: Communication and Trust: How the Best BAs Build Relationships That Deliver
  4. Day 4: Difficult Stakeholders: Conflict, Resistance and How to Move Forward Without Losing the Relationship
  5. Day 5: Stakeholder Mastery in Practice: Career Application, Interview Prep and Your Free Toolkit
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  Series · 1 lesson · 1 May 2026

  Methodologies in Business Analysis: Waterfall vs Agile - Which is Better?

  1. Day 1: The Great Methodology Debate

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• Interview masterclass: how to answer methodology questions - Waterfall Vs Agile 8 May 2026
• Waterfall vs Agile: The hybrid model & what it actually means for BAs 7 May 2026
• Waterfall vs Agile: The Honest Comparison 6 May 2026
• Agile demystified: What it actually demands of a BA 5 May 2026
• Waterfall demystified: The BA's Complete Guide 4 May 2026
• Business processes & Improvements Part III 5 July 2024
• Business Processes & Improvements: Part II 4 July 2024
• Business Processes & Improvements Part I 3 July 2024
• Strategies for Winning Business Analysts Part 5: Converting Data into Compelling Stories for Stakeholders 21 June 2024
• Strategies for Winning Business Analysts Part 4: Crisis Management - Leading During Critical Situations 18 June 2024
• Strategies for Winning Business Analysts Part 3: Building Stakeholder Relationships 12 June 2024
• Strategies for Winning Business Analysts Part 2: The Art of Persuasion (Especially without Authority) 3 June 2024
• Strategies for Business Analysts: Maintaining Composure Under Pressure 10 May 2024
• From Novice to Expert: A Journey in Business Analysis 30 April 2024
• The Art of Business Analysis: Mastering the Skills for Success 30 April 2024
• Unlocking the Secrets of Effective Business Analysis 30 April 2024