Archive for December, 2007

8 things you didn’t know about me

Published by
MariaMurphy
at 21 December, 2007 in about me, passion and inspire. 5 Comments

My friend Matt recently blogged about Luis Suarez and that he has written a list of eight things you didn’t know about him. It’s a meme, where the rules seem to be pretty straight forward:

  1. Link to your tagger and post these rules
  2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself
  3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names
  4. Let them know they’ve been tagged

So, I have taken up the challenge and here is my list of things you may not know about me:

  1. I was born in the Bris Vegas (Brisbane Qld) and am the middle child, but I am the oldest girl
  2.  My parents were both teachers so that prolly explains why i have way too many Degrees and a Masters as the importance of education was a key theme in my family. I continue to learn and seek knowledge so I guess Mum and Dad did something right :)
  3. I have travelled the world but mainly for work so I am trying to rectify things and start travelling as a tourist and taking my time to see the real cities (and not just the hotel conference facilities) and gain a better understanding of the history and the people.
  4. I am accidentally in Canberra but have found great friends and rewarding and challenging  work to do even though it has meant a big career shift for me.
  5. I have known great love in my life and am loved :) I am just a hopeless (hopeful) romantic.
  6. My Dad died when I was too young to appreciate his brilliance and amazing talents. He was not the kind of guy you noticed (as he was always in the background organising and supporting). He was a gentle, quite soul that was happy to let others shine and was very proud of his children’s achievements.
  7. I come from a very sporty family. We all played Tennis to a high level. At school I also played netball, volleyball, hockey, softball and in my spare time, athletics. I still play netball competitively 3 times a week.
  8. I have two wonderful children and I just hope that I am a good Mum and am always there for them when they need support and love. I love them unconditionally.

The people I’d love to know more about are:

  1. Julia Gillard — It’s great for young women to have an  inspirational role model in government and I hope she can live up to this expectation.
  2. Matthew Hodgson — My best friend who constantly challenges me to do great work and be a better person. He is also a bit of a KM (knowledge management) guru so I have lots to learn from Matt and he is the most passionate presenter you will ever see.
  3. Donna Maurer — I have only just gotten to know Donna recently on a personal level and have always respected her professionally. I look forward to getting to knwo her better.
  4. Andrew Boyd — He is one of my friends who has encouraged me to blog. He has a lot of ideas and cares about others.
  5. Allison Denny-Collins— She is very knowledgeable in HRM and has a very level head on her shoulders. 
  6. Caroline Elton — She was my good friend back at Pharmacia and has been overseas for ages and is now moving back to Sydney so we have lots of catching up to do.
  7. Helen Mirrem — I just think she is a fascinating woman, a great actress and have always admired her choice of gritty roles. 
  8. David Beckham — He seems to be genuine and down to earth despite his high profile and a lot of Australian sportsmen could learn from his example.

Take up the challenge. Write some random facts about yourself.

User benefits of Conceptual Design and Prototypying

Published by
Maria Murphy
at 9 December, 2007 in Conceptual Design, User centred, Prototyping and Business analyst. 0 Comments

On the 4th of Dec Canberra hosted the Australian Business Analysis Association (ABAA) User Group Meeting and Christmas Drinks. It was an excellent opportunity for those interested in business and system analysis to get together and discuss the development of the profession. Matthew Hodgson from SMS Management and Technology presented on user-centred design and prototyping. Matt delivered a very inspirational and passionate presentation and I’m sure we now have new BA converts to prototyping.

In his presentation, Matt suggested that “as business analysts, we’re often focused on eliciting business requirements for systems, managing the relationships between the business owners and the vendors and developers of the technology. Unfortunately, we sometimes forget that what we’re doing is delivering a system that is for users. This results in us delivering the ‘what’ in terms of requirements, but forgetting that there’s a very strong need to find out from the people who will use systems the ‘how’ it will work for them”.

Matt works as an Information Architect and this is exactly the head-space that drives IA activities. In his presentation Matt suggests that IA and concept design can help “to determine navigation paradigms that are truly usable and accessible and systems that are designed to meet people’s needs in an intuitive way, rather than systems by developers that you have to ‘learn’ how to use”. Matt also stressed that “User-centred design seeks to change all that by putting the user as the focus of all project activities, from scoping, to analysis and requirements gathering, all the way through design and delivery”.

I think Matt makes raises some really interesting points about the focus on User Centred design, that as BAs we should consider. I believe it is really important to remember when you are developing requirements that as Business Analysts, we are NOT the Users. It’s not about us, it’s about the Users and what they need and how they will interact with this system. By using iterative prototyping, you can uncover the User’s need in consultation with them and use prototyping as a means of communication and eliciting and refining requirements. This will ultimately save a lot of development time and money.