Well, I finally got me a job. It's consultant work, but the pay's pretty good and the people I work with are great.
The job is for a large retailer with a lot of stores. My six week gig (over yesterday, 12/31/2009) was to get enough documentation together so they could price it. I initially suggested a high level functional and technical document combined with a Function Point count.
Typically I use a PowerPoint template I stole...um...borrowed...er...folk processed from a former company and Functional Requirements Document (usually around 5 to 10 pages). I usually leave the technical paper to the architect or lead developer. What do I know about which indexing system to use- typical Relational Database or Data Warehousing standards? I'd be guessing.
Turns out the Project Manager is hell on wheels and did most of the documentation. After some requirements gathering sessions, I began to understand what the business wanted: a tool to tracking and assign work to retail stores with some sideways bells and whistles. Since my previous work there had major governance issues, I figured they would use Waterfall. Hence the Use Cases.
Wrong.
The first one almost created a riot. 13 pages? Sub-Use Cases? Diagrams? And you want me to sign off on this IT stuff?
Well, first of all, between the front matter and the sign-off forms in the back, it's only 7 pages. And of those seven page, all of them are beautiful color graphics which leaves two pages of text- the Step Action table of the actual Use Case and about a dozen business rules which I inferred from our meetings.
No! A thousand times no, you pathetic excuse for a BA.
Hmmm. How about an Agile approach. I'll give you cave drawings and you sign off on them?
Yes, that's better, BA Boy.
So I created eleven major wireframes and defined all the fields, buttons and controls in a two column table, complete with bolded headers and bullet lists.
God, I love being a BA and helping people.
My manager's gonna try to get me back in for a longer contract in a week or so.
The job is for a large retailer with a lot of stores. My six week gig (over yesterday, 12/31/2009) was to get enough documentation together so they could price it. I initially suggested a high level functional and technical document combined with a Function Point count.
Typically I use a PowerPoint template I stole...um...borrowed...er...folk processed from a former company and Functional Requirements Document (usually around 5 to 10 pages). I usually leave the technical paper to the architect or lead developer. What do I know about which indexing system to use- typical Relational Database or Data Warehousing standards? I'd be guessing.
Turns out the Project Manager is hell on wheels and did most of the documentation. After some requirements gathering sessions, I began to understand what the business wanted: a tool to tracking and assign work to retail stores with some sideways bells and whistles. Since my previous work there had major governance issues, I figured they would use Waterfall. Hence the Use Cases.
Wrong.
The first one almost created a riot. 13 pages? Sub-Use Cases? Diagrams? And you want me to sign off on this IT stuff?
Well, first of all, between the front matter and the sign-off forms in the back, it's only 7 pages. And of those seven page, all of them are beautiful color graphics which leaves two pages of text- the Step Action table of the actual Use Case and about a dozen business rules which I inferred from our meetings.
No! A thousand times no, you pathetic excuse for a BA.
Hmmm. How about an Agile approach. I'll give you cave drawings and you sign off on them?
Yes, that's better, BA Boy.
So I created eleven major wireframes and defined all the fields, buttons and controls in a two column table, complete with bolded headers and bullet lists.
- I don't like these icons.
- This stuff is not at all intuitive, you need to change this (two days before my contract ended)
- Where did you get these dashboard numbers, just make them up so we could see what they looked like (yes)?
- I know we said we didn't want Admins and yes we need to turn Key Performance Indicators on and off depending on the last stop light remaining in Fartwest, Idahpo, so how are we gonna do that?
- How did you do that Admin Page so fast?
- Can we change the color of this crossbar? It's too, I dunno, too red, I guess.
God, I love being a BA and helping people.
My manager's gonna try to get me back in for a longer contract in a week or so.
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