Declan Chellar

When do you say “No” to a customer? This is a question a reader of this blog asked me in an e-mail recently. We are all familiar with the phrase “The customer is always right”, but well all know that the customer is sometimes wrong. It is likely, therefore, that at some point in your professional [...]

Why do some customers put a proof of concept into production? In part, I suspect it has to do with wanting to spend as little as possible and still end up with something that earns them revenue. But I think it is mostly because customers fail to grasp what proof of concept really means. It [...]

Here is a fabulous animation from RSA Animate, illustrating a talk by author Barbara Ehrenreich on how positive thinking can be delusional and harmful. She basically says what I said in “Reality check“, but with more eloquence and concrete examples. I dislike her already. Applause to the cartoonist also. Thanks to my friend Rowan Manahan [...]

BP have been subject to scorn and rage over the past few weeks, and rightly so. Of course, inane comments attributed to BP CEO, Tony Hayward, have not helped. “The environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest.” Unless you live in Louisiana or Florida, that is. “I want my life [...]

A friend told me the other day that at a company meeting, the directors of the company brought up the subject of work-life balance. It seems they were getting tired of the scales being tipped strongly in favour of work. The CEO’s response? “You should take up Tai Chi, it has done wonders for me.” [...]

Yesterday I had an online chat with a friend and the subject quickly turned to work stress and bullying. My friend gave me permission to reproduce the chat on my blog, so here it is, abridged, with some further comments inserted by me afterwards for your benefit. Such comments appear in green (See what I [...]

I am fond of System Use Cases as a tool for documenting functional requirements, but I am not a big fan of use case specifications. I find the textual specifications result in the kind of weighty documents that everyone hates reviewing and I continue to be amazed that so many analysts start documenting a SUC [...]

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I am a great believer in facing up to reality, regardless of the pain involved. I don’t know whether it is my experience as a senior business analyst or my character or both that causes me to step in from time to time and say: “Stop! Time for a reality check!” How many times has [...]

Junior requirements analysts sometimes have difficulty with how to document business rules, or indeed, with recognising them in the first place. I hope this short article helps. Some Definitions “A rule under which an organization operates. A policy or decision that influences a process step.” (Data Warehousing Team, Georgetown University) “A statement that defines or [...]