Sunday, November 24, 2013

Renungan Rohani - Terobosan Iman: Meraih Janji Tuhan

“Iman adalah dasar dari segala sesuatu yang kita harapkan dan bukti dari segala sesuatu yang tidak kita lihat.” Ibrani 11:1

Sebagai umat Kristen kita diminta untuk dapat melihat segala sesuatu dengan “kacamata” Allah. Dengan melihat segalanya dari sudut pandang Tuhan, maka kita dapat mengerti apa yang sedang terjadi dalam hidup kita. Tidak ada segala sesuatu yang terjadi tanpa seijin Tuhan. Dan tidak ada sesuatu terjadi hanya kebetulan saja. Tuhan selalu punya rencana dalam setiap hal yang kita alami. Dan Dia selalu menyediakan yang terbaik bagi hidup kita.

Tetapi tidak demikian yang terjadi dalam banyak kehidupan umat Kristen. Banyak yang selalu protes akan apa yang sedang mereka alami. Timbul berbagai pertanyaan mengapa hal ini terjadi, mengapa hal itu terjadi, mengapa Tuhan ijinkan semuanya dan masih banyak lagi pertanyaan yang muncul ketika segalanya tidak berjalan seperti yang kita harapkan.

Dalam keadaan seperti ini kita seakan hanya dapat melihat ada tembok besar yang menghalangi langkah hidup kita. Tidak ada jalan keluar lagi dan segalanya sudah menjadi berantakan. Kita tidak mengerti bahwa sebenarnya ada berkat yang Tuhan sediakan di balik tembok tersebut. Kita harus mengalami terobosan agar dapat meraih berkat yang telah tersedia.

Lalu bagaimana kita dapat mengalami terobosan dan melihat bahwa Tuhan telah menyediakan yang terbaik bagi hidup kita?

1. Melihat Dengan Mata Iman
“Karena iman ia juga dan Sara beroleh kekuatan untuk menurunkan anak cucu, walaupun usianya sudah lewat, karena ia menganggap Dia, yang memberikan janji itu setia.” Ibrani 11:11

Abraham sadar bahwa secara fisik dia dan istrinya sudah tidak mungkin lagi memiliki anak, karena sudah lanjut usia. Tetapi dia belajar melihat dengan mata imannya bahwa Tuhan sanggup menggenapi apa yang telah dijanjikanNya. Dan Tuhan tidak lalai menepati janjiNya kepada Abraham untuk memberikan seorang anak.

Abraham mengandalkan imannya untuk melihat apa yang Tuhan sediakan jauh di depannya, sehingga ia memperoleh apa yang telah dijanjikan kepadanya.

2. Bangkit Dari Keterpurukan
“Maka bangunlah ia, lalu makan dan minum, dan oleh kekuatan makanan itu ia berjalan empat puluh hari empat puluh malam lamanya sampai ke gunung Allah, yakni gunung Horeb.” 1 Raja-raja 19:8

Setelah mengalahkan empat ratus lima puluh orang nabi-nabi baal, Nabi Elia mendapatkan ancaman oleh Izebel. Izebel sangat marah atas perbuatan Elia dan ingin membalasnya. Elia menjadi sangat ketakutan dan kabur ke padang gurun. Di sana ia merasa putus asa dan ingin mengakhiri hidupnya. Tetapi Tuhan mengirimkan malaikatNya untuk menolong dia. Tuhan menyampaikan pesanNya agar Elia bangun dan bangkit dari keterpurukannya. Dia menyelesaikan tugas-tugas besar yang Tuhan sediakan baginya. Dia tidak mau terintimidasi.

Menyadari apa yang Tuhan sediakan di balik setiap masalah yang kita alami tidaklah cukup. Kita harus bangkit dari keterpurukan. Kita harus bangkit dari kesedihan, kekecewaan, sakit hati dan keputus-asaan yang kita alami.
Lepaskan dan tinggalkan segala perasaan tersebut, bangun dan bangkit untuk meraih berkat yang Tuhan sediakan bagi kita. Ada perkara besar yang telah Tuhan sediakan bagi kita yang mau bangkit.

3. Raih Janji Tuhan Dengan Iman
“dan berkata kepada segenap umat Israel: “Negeri yang kami lalui untuk diintai itu adalah luar biasa baiknya. Jika TUHAN berkenan kepada kita, maka Ia akan membawa kita masuk ke negeri itu dan akan memberikannya kepada kita, suatu negeri yang berlimpah-limpah susu dan madunya.” Bilangan 14:7-8

Ketika Bangsa Israel akan memasuki Tanah Perjanjian, mereka mengirim dua belas orang pengintai untuk melihat keadaan di sana. Setelah mengintai, sepuluh orang mengatakan bahwa negeri tersebut diduduki oleh para raksasa, dan tidak mungkin dapat dikalahkan (Bilangan 13:32-33). Hanya dua orang pengintai, yaitu Yosua dan Kaleb, yang tetap berkeyakinan bahwa Tuhan pasti akan membawa mereka masuk ke Tanah Perjanjian dan merebutnya dari tangan musuh.

Tuhan telah menyediakan berkatNya bagi kita. Walau demikian ada rintangan-rintangan yang memang harus kita lalui. Tidak sedikit dari rintangan tersebut yang membawa kita kepada duka. Tetapi Tuhan selalu memberikan yang terbaik bagi kita.

Bangsa Israel dibawa berputar-putar di padang gurun selama 40 tahun bukanlah tanpa maksud. Tuhan mengajar banyak hal kepada Bangsa Israel. Demikian pula dengan kehidupan kita. Tuhan sedang mengajar kita dalam berbagai masalah yang kita hadapi. Tuhan ingin agar kita dapat terus melihat janjiNya dan percaya bahwa Dia akan memberikannya kepada kita. Dan Tuhan ingin agar kita pergi meraih janji yang telah disediakan tersebut.

Jangan takut akan berbagai rintangan yang ada. Percayalah bahwa tangan Tuhan akan menuntun kita kepada kemenangan. Yakinlah bahwa Tuhan selalu menolong kita. Lihat janji Tuhan dengan mata iman, bangkit dari keterpurukan dan raih janji Tuhan dengan iman. Haleluya!

“Kita tahu sekarang, bahwa Allah turut bekerja dalam segala sesuatu untuk mendatangkan kebaikan bagi mereka yang mengasihi Dia, yaitu bagi mereka yang terpanggil sesuai dengan rencana Allah.” Roma 8:28

Sumber : Riva Sinjal - Via Pelita Hidup

Monday, November 11, 2013

The 6 Types of Thinkers to Seek for Your Team

For me, one of the worst feelings to have at the office is cerebral loneliness. I need the companionship of strong thinkers to spark my own mind. Brilliant ideas are rarely born in isolation, and successful projects stem from a strong, collective team.

In other words, to do great work, you must surround yourself with great people.

It's an interesting exercise to define what this means for the type of thinkers you want on your team. I find that my best work comes from interaction with people who think differently than I do - and differently from each other. A diversity of mental profiles yields the richest results. Here are six types I always seek. (Sometimes one person can bridge several different modes of this thinking, so six types doesn't always mean six people.) What would you add?

1. The dreamer: This person never ceases imagining what's not, what's next and what's possible. They think big and hopefully, stretching the bounds of what is considered achievable. They never stop asking, "what if?' and supply your team with an electric and optimistic creative energy.

2. The debater: Debaters question your assumptions, call out your leap of faith logic and point out the flaws in the plan. They see problems long before others, and they keep everyone grounded and prepared. Their questioning nature forces you to strengthen the rigor of your arguments.

3. The disruptor:
The disruptor challenges the status quo and breaks others out of their mental ruts and insular perspective by bringing fresh and far-ranging perspective. My favorite disruptors are intellectually curious, lateral thinkers who are first to spot latent competitors and untapped opportunities in the market.

4. The driver: Drivers are natural leaders, bringing a crusading, concentrated vision to all work and and supplying forward momentum when everyone else is losing steam or motivation. They are positively relentless in pursuing an idea, galvanizing political support for it and keeping it on track. They can be fantastic advocates for the customer, keeping the team focused on the problem you're here to solve.

5. The detailer: This type digs into every facet of a project. Detailers focus on practicalities and save everyone else from silly mistakes and fatal design flaws because they think through all the angles and implications. They identify what's missing in even the best-laid plans and can diagnose the precise point when something could break or be improved.

6. The doer: The doer is the wonderfully resourceful team member who gets stuff done, no matter what. Doers roll up their sleeves and find the solution. They are great colleagues to those who devise the grand strategy because they get it delivered on time, all the time.

Source : Katya Andresen - Via LinkedIn

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Business Analysis and Analyst Overview

Hello guys. How is your sunday? I hope today is another great day for you. Now, i would like to post about Business Analyst. Currently, I am reading the BABOK (Business Analysis Body Of Knowledge) Version 2.0. I was just finishing several chapters, and I believe with write on this blog, it  helps me to understand more about them.

1. What is Business Analysis & Business Analyst?
Business analysis is the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison among stakeholders in order to understand the structure, policies, and operations of an organization, and to recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.

A business analyst is any person who performs business analysis activities, no matter what their job title or organizational role may be.

2. Key Concepts
Here are several key concepts related with business analysis :
  1. Domain is  the area undergoing analysis. Related with organizational unit and stakeholder.
  2. Solution is a set of changes to the current state of an organization that are made in order to enable that organization to meet a business need, solve a problem, or take advantage of an opportunity. Related with time, budget, regulations, and others.
  3. Requirements:
    • A condition or capability needed by a stakeholder to solve a problem or achieve an objective.
    • A condition or capability that must be met or possessed by a solution or solution component to satisfy a contract, standard, specification, or other formally imposed documents.
    • A documented representation of a condition or capability as in (1) or (2).
    • Classification :
      • Business Requirements are higher-level statements of the goals, objectives, or needs of the enterprise.
      • Stakeholder Requirements are statements of the needs of a particular stakeholder or class of stakeholders.
      • Solution Requirements describe the characteristics of a solution that meet business requirements and stakeholder requirements.
        • Functional Requirements describe the behavior and information that the solution will manage.
        • Non-functional Requirements describe environmental conditions under which the solution must remain effective or qualities that the system must have.
      • Transition Requirements describe capabilities that the solution must have in order to facilitate transition from the current state of the enterprise to a desired future state, but that will not be needed once that transition is complete.
3. Knowledge Areas
Knowledge areas define what a practitioner of business analysis needs to understand and the tasks a practitioner must be able to perform.
  • Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring is the knowledge area that covers how business analysts determine which activities are necessary in order to complete a business analysis effort. It covers identification of stakeholders, selection of business analysis techniques, the process that will be used to manage requirements, and how to assess the progress of the work. The tasks in this knowledge area govern the performance of all other business analysis tasks.
  • Elicitation describes how business analysts work with stakeholders to identify and understand their needs and concerns, and understand the environment in which they work. The purpose of elicitation is to ensure that a stakeholder’s actual underlying needs are understood, rather than their stated or superficial desires.
  • Requirements Management and Communication describes how business analysts manage conflicts, issues and changes in order to ensure that stakeholders and the project team remain in agreement on the solution scope, how requirements are communicated to stakeholders, and how knowledge gained by the business analyst is maintained for future use.
  • Enterprise Analysis describes how business analysts identify a business need, refine and clarify the definition of that need, and define a solution scope that can feasibly be implemented by the business. This knowledge area describes problem definition and analysis, business case development, feasibility studies, and the definition of solution scope.
  • Requirements Analysis describes how business analysts prioritize and progressively elaborate stakeholder and solution requirements in order to enable the project team to implement a solution that will meet the needs of the sponsoring organization and stakeholders. It involves analyzing stakeholder needs to define solutions that meet those needs, assessing the current state of the business to identify and recommend improvements, and the verification and validation of the resulting requirements.
  • Solution Assessment and Validation describes how business analysts assess proposed solutions to determine which solution best fits the business need, identify gaps and shortcomings in solutions, and determine necessary workarounds or changes to the solution. It also describes how business analysts assess deployed solutions to see how well they met the original need so that the sponsoring organization can assess the performance and effectiveness of the solution.
  • Underlying Competencies describes the behaviors, knowledge, and other characteristics that support the effective performance of business analysis.
4. Tasks
A task is an essential piece of work that must be performed as part of business analysis.
  • Purpose : Each task has a purpose. The purpose is a short description of the reason for a business analyst to perform the task and the value created through performing the task.
  • Input : An input represents the information and preconditions necessary for a task to begin. It can be generated by previous tasks.
  • Stakeholders : represents a class of people that the business analyst is likely to interact with in a specific way.
  • Output : An output is a necessary result of the work described in the task. Outputs are created, transformed or change state as a result of the successful completion of a task.

5. Techniques
Techniques provide additional information on different ways that a task may be performed or different forms the output of the task may take. A task may have none, one, or more related techniques. A technique must be related to at least one task.

6. Underlying Competencies
The underlying competencies are skills, knowledge and personal characteristics that support the effective performance of business analysis. The underlying competency areas relevant to business analysis include:
  • Analytical Thinking and Problem Solving supports effective identification of business problems, assessment of proposed solutions to those problems, and understanding of the needs of stakeholders. Analytical thinking and problem solving involves assessing a situation, understanding it as fully as possible, and making judgments about possible solutions to a problem.
  • Behavioral Characteristics support the development of effective working relationships with stakeholders and include qualities such as ethics, trustworthiness, and personal organization.
  • Business Knowledge supports understanding of the environment in which business analysis is performed and knowledge of general business principles and available solutions.
  • Communication Skills support business analysts in eliciting and communicating requirements among stakeholders. Communication skills address the need to listen to and understand the audience, understanding how an audience perceives the business analyst, understanding of the communications objective(s), the message itself, and the most appropriate media and format for communication.
  • Interaction Skills support the business analyst when working with large numbers of stakeholders, and involve both the ability to work as part of a larger team and to help that team reach decisions. While most of the work of business analysis involves identifying and describing a desired future state, the business analyst must also be able to help the organization reach agreement that the future state in question is desired through a combination of leadership and facilitation.
  • Software Applications are used to facilitate the collaborative development, recording and distribution of requirements to stakeholders. Business analysts should be skilled users of the tools used in their organization and must understand the strengths and weaknesses of each.
This post is just an overview and summary of how is Business Analyst work, and what is BA do taken from BABOK. Hopefully this post will be useful for you and me. Thank you.


Next : Planning & Monitoring

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Sebuah Cerita Sebuah Pengalaman "GO LIVE"

Akhirnya saya menyelesaikan proyek ini. Kemarin saya dan team telah melakukan prosesi "GO LIVE". Kabar baiknya 1 tahapan telah terlewati. Kabar buruknya momentum ini bersyarat. Apakah itu "GO LIVE?" Itu adalah sebuah peristiwa yang menadakan akhir dari sebuah proyek, tentunya dilaksanakan setelah semua pihak merestui dan tanda tangan.

Jujur ini bukanlah pertama kali saya mengalami hal seperti ini. Proyek saya sebelumnya juga "GO LIVE" hanya sebagai prosesi syukuran doank, padahal masih banyak hal yang perlu diselesaikan. Berdasarkan alasan itulah, saya sebelumnya berkata momentum yang bersyarat. Sejujurnya banyak hal yang telah saya prediksi diawal sesuai dengan posisi saya sebagai analis dan pemimpin tim aplikasi.

Saya merasa peristiwa ini terlalu dipaksakan, mengingat fase UAT (User Acceptance Test) belum dilakukan. Fase ini adalah fase dimana semua User telah OK dengan pekerjaan kami. Ya, berurusan dengan management memang sangat politis, dimana selalu ada kepentingan yang tersirat di dalamnya. Saya tidak mau berasumsi lebih jauh, lebih baik sekarang saya berusaha mengejar apa yang belum.

Akhir kata, postingan ini lebih mengarah ke curahan hati saya yang jujur kecewa dengan keadaan yang ada, terlebih saya belum berhasil melewati tantangan kemarin. Namun dibalik semuanya ini, saya yakin pasti terdapat pengalaman berharga yang akan saya terus bawa di proyek-proyek mendatang. Saya juga ingin mengucapkan syukur kepada Tuhan yang telah memberikan kesempatan yang berharga ini, dan tentunya juga kepada setiap teman-teman baik tim internal maupun eksternal yang telah sama-sama berjuang kemarin. Selamat beristirahat sejenak. Selamat berakhir pekan. Salam.