Topics

Every tutorial on the site, grouped by tool. Each topic page starts with a short guide to the tool and where to begin, then lists its videos in the order we suggest watching them.

• Business Analysis Explained 10 videos

  The tool tutorials on this site show how to do things in Visio, Excel, Jira and the rest. These longer videos explain the business analysis ideas behind them: what to ask, what to write down, and why. Each one follows a single worked example from start to finish, on the same made-up online shop used in many of the tool lessons, and names its source, usually the BABOK Guide from the IIBA.

• Visio for Business Analysts 31 videos

  Microsoft Visio is the diagram tool many companies already pay for, so it is often the one a business analyst is expected to use. These tutorials show the diagrams BAs draw most: flowcharts, swimlane process maps, BPMN, use case diagrams, entity relationship (ER) diagrams, data flow diagrams and context diagrams. Each one is built from an empty page, with the written steps under the video.

• Excel for Business Analysts 16 videos

  Excel is still where most business analysis work ends up: requirement lists, RAID logs, traceability matrices, RACI charts and quick checks on data someone sent you. These tutorials cover the Excel skills a BA uses every week, each on a small sheet you can copy and try yourself.

• SQL for Business Analysts 37 videos

  SQL lets a business analyst answer questions about data without waiting for someone else to run a report. You don't need to become a developer. A few query patterns cover most BA work: pulling a list, filtering it, joining two tables, counting and totalling, and checking the data for gaps and duplicates. These tutorials teach those patterns on the same small shop database, one idea at a time.

• Jira & Confluence for BAs 45 videos

  Jira and Confluence, both made by Atlassian, are where many agile teams keep their work. Jira holds the backlog: epics, user stories, bugs and sprints. Confluence holds the documents: requirements pages, meeting notes, decision logs and glossaries. A business analyst usually works in both every day, and these tutorials show the parts of each that a BA actually uses.

• Mermaid for Business Analysts 22 videos

  Mermaid draws diagrams from text. Instead of dragging boxes and arrows, you type a few short lines, such as "Customer --> Checkout", and Mermaid draws the diagram for you. It is free, and many tools business analysts already use can show Mermaid diagrams, including GitHub, GitLab and several wiki and notes tools. These tutorials use the free Mermaid Live Editor in the browser.

• draw.io for Business Analysts 18 videos

  draw.io (also called diagrams.net) is a free diagram tool you can use in the browser or as a desktop app. It has shape libraries for flowcharts, BPMN, UML, entity relationship diagrams and more, which makes it a good free alternative to Visio for a business analyst. These tutorials cover the diagrams BAs are asked for most, each built step by step.

• Excalidraw for Business Analysts 15 videos

  Excalidraw is a free whiteboard tool that runs in the browser and makes diagrams look hand-drawn. That rough look is useful: people feel free to change a sketch, but they treat a polished diagram as already decided. For a business analyst, that makes Excalidraw a good tool for early workshops, quick explanations and first drafts of screens and systems.

• BPMN for Business Analysts 13 videos

  BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) is a standard way to draw business processes, maintained by the Object Management Group (OMG). Because the symbols have agreed meanings, a BPMN diagram can be read the same way by a business user, another analyst and a developer. These tutorials use bpmn.io, a free tool that runs in the browser, so you can follow along without installing or buying anything.

• Airtable for Business Analysts 8 videos

  Airtable looks like a spreadsheet but works more like a simple database. Each table holds one kind of thing, such as requirements, stakeholders or features, and records can link to each other. For a business analyst, that makes it a handy place to run a requirements log, a stakeholder list or a small intake process without asking IT for a new system.