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Articles
Useful Tools & Resources
04.12.06
We’d like to share with you some of the tools and resources we’ve found useful - or just interesting - over the past 12 months. These range from free (or low cost) software tools through to articles, papers and books of relevance to business analysts. There’s even a website offering over 300 free data models to kick-start your next project.
Mind Mapping Software - FreeMind is a handy mind mapping software tool, good for capturing and exploring ideas. Available as a free download for Windows, Mac and Linux.
http://freemind.sourceforge.net
Drawing Package – our favourite diagramming software, SmartDraw has built in libraries for all the UML diagrams plus data flow diagrams, entity relationship diagrams and many more notations. We use it for all the technical diagrams in our course material and manuals. Not free but a lot cheaper than some of the alternatives. Available as a free, 30 day trial.
www.smartdraw.com/specials/erddataflow.asp?id=43337
Processwave – a resource for software process engineers. Although primarily focused on software development there are some good articles for the technically inclined business analyst.
www.processwave.net
Belarc Advisor – not specific to business analysis but a great tool for giving you a complete listing of your PC’s hardware and software configuration – including hot fixes and patches. Free for personal use.
www.belarc.com/free_download.html
Just Enough Structured Analysis – updated, online version of one of the definitive books on the subject (Modern Structured Analysis, 1989, Ed Yourdon). Available as a free download.
www.yourdon.com/strucanalysis/index.html
Institute for Enterprise Architecture – enterprise architecture is one of the emerging career path options for business analysts. This independent research and information exchange offers numerous papers, reports, articles and reviews for the technically minded.
www.enterprise-architecture.info/index.html
Database Answers – a free library of over 300 different data models to kick-start your next project.
www.databaseanswers.org/index.htm
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