agent of change

I was involved in a discussion recently about books that were good for Business Analysts. Here’s a list to get people started.

The Inmates Are Running The Asylum by Alan Cooper

About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design by Alan Cooper

Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition by Steve Krug

Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software by Eric Evans

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition by Edward R Tufte

Writing Effective Use Cases by Alistair Cockburn

Patterns for Effective Use Cases by Alistair Cockburn & Others

The Responsibility Virus by Roger Martin

You’ll notice that most of these are design books. As an analyst, it’s often the case that you are going to have to look at an old business process or application interface and design something new. It helps to know the limits of the technologies you are working in, but it is better to get a general understanding of design principles in general so that you’ll never be caught off guard.

Note: All Amazon link proceeds go to charity. If this turns out to be popular, I’ll write up some more book lists my colleagues and I think are good to have on your bookshelf as an Analyst, Dev, QA, PM and consulting in general.