Survey Tools: Free and Paid

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Survey Tools: Free and Paid

The trick to collecting information for your project is to NOT rely on any one method.

Yep, you read that right.

You see, people are funny. When you ask them a question face-to-face you’ll get one type of answer - usually the answer they think you want to hear, or the first random thing that pops into their mind, which could what they think or even what they’ve heard from others, or the answer that they think will make them look [smart, insightful, some form of “best”]...So, today let’s take a look at some of the tools/services available to run online surveys:

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"Survey Says!" - Elicitation Technique #1

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"Survey Says!" - Elicitation Technique #1

Surveys are one of the most commonly used methods of collecting and analyzing data from a targeted population (a specific group of people). Using a set of standardized questions and a variety of delivery methods, surveys can be used to quickly obtain facts, opinions, and behaviors from a large group of people, which makes it a great elicitation tool.

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Meetings - Agendas and Interventions

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Meetings - Agendas and Interventions

Sometimes holding a meeting is like holding an intervention, where everyone has an agenda - and not necessarily the one you've included in your meeting request! Add to the mix the fact that people are inundated with meeting requests, spending more time in meetings than actually working, and you may wonder how anything gets done at all.

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Is Your Head in the Clouds...How About Your Storage and Computing?

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Is Your Head in the Clouds...How About Your Storage and Computing?

Today everyone is mad about the cloud, and for a lot of people, this is just another buzzword that they’ve heard, and so now they are using it too. The cloud gets talked about a lot in meetings; when it’s mentioned people tend to vaguely point or wave a hand over their heads, and on white boards they draw a puffy, white cumulus cloud with arrows in and out to indicate “cloud storage/computing” connections. But what does that really mean?

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Data - Tiny Word - BIG Impact

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Data - Tiny Word - BIG Impact

At The BA Zone we like to stress the importance of user-centered design. Today, I'd like to focus on data - a tiny word - that can have significant impact on all aspects of an organization, such as:  architecture, database and software design, reporting, marketing, sales, processing, compliance, and a host of other areas, all of which can lead to success or failure.

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Deliverables: What Are Comps?

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Deliverables: What Are Comps?

At some point in your career, you're going to hear the word “comp” thrown around and during that conversation many people will have this question in their head - what are comps?

You may also hear someone mention "mockups" and in most cases they are referring to comps, but some people call low-to-medium fidelity comps mockups.

But not you, because you're here and you're reading this, so you will actually understand being talked about. Congratulations!

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Stakeholder Analysis and the Vampires Among Us - Part 2

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Stakeholder Analysis and the Vampires Among Us - Part 2

In my previous blog post, Stakeholder Analysis and the Vampires Among Us - Part 1, we focused on Key Stakeholders. In this post we'll hone in on the Primary Stakeholders, keeping in mind that Primary Stakeholders can also be Key Stakeholders.

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