Making IT succeed today involves much more than technology considerations. Modern ways of working rely on people working together in high performance teams, placing increasing emphasis on people having strong soft skills. So in this post, while we have consultants sharing technology learning on MicroServices, VSTS and Azure, we also have consultants sharing learning on cognitive bias and the human and organisational considerations for Agile adoption and transformation.

This article is republished from my original Setting up Requirements in VSTS post on fantail.io.

Last week I started a new project with VSTS, setting up some Git repos for my code.  Now it's time to set up some requirements and planning for the development.  I chose to set up an Agile project last week, which is one of 3 default project types in VSTS.  This affects a number of things, including the form the requirements take and the development process used.  Agile is the most flexible, and is the one that I use most often.  Requirements are added to a project as Work Items:

Whatever IT role you have, you need to continuously adapt to the changing needs of the market. So, in this post we share the latest articles that our consultants have found valuable this month.

Image: Service blueprint for Service Design panel by Brandon Schauer, used under CC BY-SA 2.0.

View larger image

In my last article The future of IT business analysis – moving from ‘what the business needs’ to ‘what the customer needs I positioned that the business analyst role needs to evolve for digital transformation projects where the focus is on ‘customer systems’ rather than ‘business systems’.

In my role as an Equinox IT Senior Consultant specialising in business analysis, I often work on client projects with the goal of modernising their business processes, including their development practices. In a recent assignment, I came on board as the Lead Analyst, for a three phase project, part way through the first phase. In this article, I cover the activities that I undertook to help change the way in which the team was delivering, from Waterfall to Agile.