1947 Jun
Lewin publishes Frontiers in Group Dynamics
Kurt Lewin's paper examined social equilibria and social change. Its field-theory framing became an early foundation for planned-change work.
← Business Analyst career guide
Product and design
Business Analyst timeline
How the field of a Business Analyst got here: the sourced milestones from every published course of this career, on one axis.
1947 to 2024
89 milestones across 10 courses
- Core
- Supporting
- Specialization
The axis stretches toward recent years, where most milestones fall. Bars count milestones per year; dots are single milestones.
Before 1990
20 milestones
1950
Deming teaches statistical methods to Japanese industry
Deming's postwar lectures in Japan spread statistical process control and continual improvement, shaping the management practices that later became known as Lean and Total Quality Management.
1968 Oct
NATO software engineering conference
The Garmisch conference framed software development as an engineering problem and discussed specifications, documentation, and evaluation against requirements. It established a context for treating requirements as an engineering concern rather than an informal pre-coding activity.
1970
Codd publishes the relational model
E. F. Codd published A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks. It established the table-and-relation model that SQL later made usable as a query language.
1970
Tukey circulates a preliminary Exploratory Data Analysis edition
Tukey's preliminary edition established exploratory analysis as a distinct approach before its later book publication.
1977
Exploratory Data Analysis is published
Tukey's book collected graphical and resistant techniques under the EDA name, giving practitioners a shared vocabulary for probing data before confirmation.
1979
Oracle V2 commercializes SQL
Relational Software, Inc. released Oracle V2 as a commercial SQL-based relational database. SQL moved from research systems into a product category that competing database vendors adopted.
1979 May
VisiCalc reaches personal computers
VisiCalc was publicly demonstrated in 1979 and established the electronic spreadsheet as a practical personal-computer application.
1982 Sep
Forgy publishes the Rete algorithm
Charles Forgy's paper in Artificial Intelligence described Rete, an algorithm for matching many patterns against many objects. Efficient matching made large production rule systems practical to run.
1983 Jan
Lotus 1-2-3 combines calculation, data, and charts
Lotus 1-2-3 brought spreadsheet, database, and graphing functions to the IBM PC, making the grid a business-analysis workspace.
1983 Feb
IEEE 829-1983 published
The IEEE publishes its Standard for Software Test Documentation, defining documents including the test plan, the test case specification, and the test summary report. It gives test planning a common written format for the first time.
1984
IEEE 830 software requirements specification standard
IEEE 830 established a standard reference for software requirements specifications. It made the structure and quality of a specification an explicit, reviewable engineering artifact.
1985
Excel 1 includes VLOOKUP on Macintosh
Microsoft later documented that VLOOKUP was included in Excel 1 for Macintosh, anchoring the lookup pattern taught in this course.
1986
ANSI publishes SQL-86
ANSI published the first SQL standard. A standard core gave database products a common reference point even as their dialects continued to differ.
1986
Six Sigma introduced at Motorola
Motorola formalized Six Sigma as a data-driven approach to reducing variation and defects, packaged as the DMAIC sequence that this course references.
1986
The V-model is described
Paul Rook describes the V-model in the IEE's Software Engineering Journal, pairing each development phase with a corresponding testing phase. Acceptance testing gains an explicit, planned place opposite requirements.
1987
ISO 9001 first published
The ISO 9001 quality management system standard formalized continual improvement of processes, giving the improvement loop a recognized international framework.
1987
ISO publishes ISO/IEC 9075
ISO adopted SQL as ISO/IEC 9075. The paired ANSI and ISO work made SQL an international database-language standard.
1987 Oct
Excel for Windows ships
Microsoft announced Excel for Windows in October 1987 and shipped it in November, extending Excel's spreadsheet workflow to Windows.
1989 Sep
Technology Acceptance Model measures are published
Fred Davis published measures for perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use as determinants associated with information-technology acceptance.
1990s
14 milestones
1992
SQL-92 expands the standard
ANSI and ISO published the revision commonly called SQL-92. It became a long-lived baseline for the portable syntax developers still recognize.
1993
Early R binaries are published on StatLib
Early public R distributions made an open statistical-computing environment available for interactive analysis and graphics.
1993 Jan
First IEEE requirements engineering symposium
IEEE held the first International Symposium on Requirements Engineering in San Diego. The event gave requirements engineering a dedicated international research forum.
1994 Apr
First IEEE requirements engineering conference
The first International Conference on Requirements Engineering met in Colorado Springs. The conference series complemented the symposium with a second venue focused on the discipline.
1995
General Electric adopts Six Sigma at scale
GE's corporate-wide adoption under Jack Welch popularized Six Sigma beyond manufacturing, spreading DMAIC into services and finance and establishing reduction of variation as a general management practice.
1995
R source is released as free software
Releasing R under the GPL created an open route for extending statistical and graphical analysis workflows.
1995 May
Kotter publishes transformation-failure analysis
Harvard Business Review published Leading Change — Why Transformation Efforts Fail, organizing recurring failures observed across major change efforts.
1996
Leading Change introduces the eight-stage process
John Kotter's book presented an eight-stage approach for leading organizational transformation and sustaining changed behavior.
1996
Prosci develops the ADKAR model
Jeff Hiatt developed ADKAR as an individual-change model. Prosci later used it to diagnose awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement.
1996 Jun
UML 0.9 published
The unified modeling effort published UML 0.9. It gave software teams an early common notation for expressing structural and behavioral designs.
1997 Sep
UML 1.1 adopted
OMG adopted UML 1.1 as its first formal UML version. Standardized notation made diagrams more portable across modeling tools and organizations.
1998 Apr
Third IEEE requirements engineering conference
ICRE 1998 continued the alternating conference and symposium series. The recurring events strengthened a shared research and practice community around elicitation, specification, and validation.
1998 Dec
IEEE 829-1998 published
IEEE revises the test documentation standard, updating its document definitions and guidance. The revision remains the common reference for test plan structure for the next decade.
1999
SQL:1999 adds object and procedural features
SQL:1999 added features including recursive queries and standardized procedural extensions. It widened SQL beyond basic table queries while retaining the relational core.
2000s
25 milestones
2001
IPython begins as an interactive Python environment
IPython established an interactive Python workflow that later supplied the notebook lineage used for iterative data exploration.
2001 Feb
The Agile Manifesto is signed
Seventeen software practitioners sign the Manifesto for Agile Software Development in Snowbird, Utah. Iterative delivery moves acceptance testing from a single final phase to a per-release activity planned alongside requirements.
2002 Aug
Conference and symposium merge into annual RE
The separate IEEE conference and symposium series merged into the annual International Requirements Engineering Conference. The merged series became a continuing venue for the field.
2002 Nov
First BPMN draft made public
The first draft of BPMN was made public. It established the effort to express business processes in a shared graphical notation.
2002 Nov
ISTQB is founded
The International Software Testing Qualifications Board is founded by national testing boards to define a global tester qualification scheme. It later publishes the syllabi that standardize how acceptance testing is described and taught.
2003
SQL:2003 standardizes window functions
SQL:2003 added window functions and SQL/XML work. Window functions made ranking and calculations across related result rows part of standard SQL practice.
2003 Sep
UTAUT integrates user-acceptance research
Venkatesh and co-authors compared eight prominent acceptance models and formulated a unified view of technology acceptance and use.
2003 Nov
Business Rules Manifesto version 2.0
The Business Rules Group published ten articles stating that rules are first-class requirements, separate from processes, and declarative. The manifesto set out the business rules approach that later standards built on.
2004 May
BPMN 1.0 released
BPMI.org released BPMN 1.0 as a royalty-free notation for business-process design and implementation. The release positioned the notation as a bridge between business users and technical developers.
2004 Aug
JSR 94 Java Rule Engine API reaches final release
The Java Community Process finalized a standard API for invoking rule engines from Java. Applications could call a rule engine through one interface instead of a vendor-specific one.
2005 Apr
First CTFL syllabus delivered
The first ISTQB Certified Tester Foundation Level syllabus is delivered and becomes effective in July 2005. It establishes a global baseline for tester certification and for describing test levels including acceptance testing.
2005 Jul
UML 2.0 adopted
OMG adopted UML 2.0. The major revision preserved UML as a formal option when a view needs defined modeling semantics rather than informal boxes and lines.
2006
ADKAR is published as a book
Prosci published ADKAR — A Model for Change in Business, Government and Our Community, making the individual-outcome model available in book form.
2006 Mar
BDD is introduced
Dan North publishes Introducing BDD, proposing behavior-driven development in which requirements are described as behaviors in a Given-When-Then form that doubles as acceptance tests.
2006 Jun
Google starts a limited Google Spreadsheets test
Google announced a limited Google Spreadsheets test, bringing a browser-hosted spreadsheet into the emerging Google Docs service.
2007
Excel adopts the XML-based XLSX default format
Excel 2007 used XLSX as its default XML-based workbook format, making the workbook package a documented interchange format.
2007 Mar
BPMN 1.0 formally adopted
OMG lists BPMN 1.0 as a formal version adopted in March 2007. The notation entered the OMG specification history.
2008
Cucumber and Gherkin appear
Aslak Hellesøy creates Cucumber, implementing the Given-When-Then format as an executable specification tool. Acceptance criteria written as scenarios can now be automated directly, making them living documentation.
2008
pandas development begins
pandas began development with tabular data structures that became a common Python surface for inspecting, summarizing, and reshaping data.
2008 Jan
BPMN 1.1 formally adopted
OMG adopted BPMN 1.1 in January 2008. The revision incorporated the next formal specification version.
2008 Jan
OMG publishes SBVR 1.0
Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules gave rules and vocabularies a standard semantic model for exchange between organizations and tools. It defines the behavioral and definitional rule categories.
2008 Jul
IEEE 829-2008 published
IEEE publishes a revised edition of its test documentation standard, updating the document set for contemporary test practice. It is the final edition of IEEE 829 before the international series succeeds it.
2009
pandas becomes open source
Open sourcing pandas made its tabular analysis tools available to the broader Python data-analysis ecosystem.
2009 Jan
BPMN 1.2 formally adopted
OMG adopted BPMN 1.2 in January 2009. The formal history records it as the last 1.x version before BPMN 2.0.
2009 Dec
OMG publishes Production Rule Representation 1.0
PRR standardized a model of production rules independent of any one engine. DMN later lists PRR as an existing way to define the logic of individual decisions.
2010s
22 milestones
2010
Context, container, component, and class levels named
The four diagram types were named in early 2010. Their sequence made progressive disclosure a repeatable way to control abstraction.
2010 Dec
BPMN 2.0 formally adopted
OMG adopted BPMN 2.0 in December 2010 and published normative machine-readable artifacts alongside the specification. This strengthened the basis for tool interchange and execution-oriented modeling.
2011
C4 name introduced
The C4 name was first used in early 2011. It gave the levels a compact vocabulary for discussing scoped software architecture views.
2011
IEEE publishes the Process Mining Manifesto
The IEEE Task Force on Process Mining published a manifesto to advance adoption and standardize terminology around discovery, conformance, and enhancement, consolidating process mining as a recognized field.
2011
ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148 first edition
ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148 consolidated requirements-engineering guidance for systems and software life cycles. It connected requirements work to the lifecycle process standards it supports.
2011
OMG adopts BPMN 2.0
The Object Management Group published BPMN 2.0.2, giving process improvement a standardized notation for representing as-is and to-be processes with defined semantics.
2011
SQL:2011 adds temporal features
SQL:2011 added temporal database features. The standard gained a common way to express time-aware data and queries.
2011 Feb
ACMP is incorporated
Volunteers formally incorporated the Association of Change Management Professionals, establishing a professional body for the discipline.
2013 Jul
ISO/IEC 19510:2013 published
ISO published ISO/IEC 19510:2013, identical to OMG BPMN 2.0.1. BPMN became an international standard for process, collaboration, and choreography diagrams.
2013 Sep
ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-3:2013 published
ISO, IEC, and IEEE publish the 29119-3 test documentation standard, superseding IEEE 829. It defines a template for the test plan and other test documents inside the 29119 series.
2014
Project Jupyter is born from IPython
Jupyter broadened the notebook model beyond Python for interactive scientific computing and data exploration.
2014 Jan
BPMN 2.0.2 formally adopted
OMG adopted BPMN 2.0.2 in January 2014. This remains the formal BPMN version listed in the OMG specifications catalog.
2014 Sep
ACMP releases its first Standard
The Standard for Change Management documented method-neutral, generally accepted practices and supported a shared professional vocabulary.
2015
Class level begins its transition to code
C4 began replacing the class-level label with code during 2015 and 2016. The change clarified that detailed implementation views are optional and technology-specific.
2015 Sep
OMG publishes DMN 1.0
The first formal DMN combined decision requirements diagrams, decision tables, and the FEEL expression language in one standard with XML interchange. Decision logic gained a notation shared across vendors.
2016
C4 history captures the terminology change
The C4 history records the transition away from the class label. This reinforced the distinction between a component view and whatever code-level detail is useful for a particular system.
2016
SQL:2016 adds JSON support
SQL:2016 incorporated JSON-related features. Relational databases could standardize some work with semi-structured values without abandoning tables, constraints, and joins.
2018 Mar
C4 uses code as its fourth diagram type
A 2018 C4 presentation completed the switch to code as the fourth level. Teams could then describe the zoom sequence without implying that every implementation view is a class diagram.
2018 Sep
Excel previews dynamic arrays
Microsoft previewed dynamic arrays, allowing formulas that return multiple values to spill into neighboring cells.
2018 Nov
ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148 second edition
The second edition of ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148 replaced the 2011 edition. It specified requirements-engineering processes and information items for systems and software work.
2019 Jan
DMN 1.2 adds generalized unary tests
DMN 1.2 introduced generalized unary tests, which let a decision table input entry be any FEEL expression, with a question mark standing for the input value. Table cells were no longer limited to comparisons and ranges.
2019 Aug
Microsoft announces XLOOKUP
Microsoft announced XLOOKUP as a successor to VLOOKUP, adding a newer lookup option to the spreadsheet formula toolkit.
2020s
8 milestones
2020
pandas 1.0 marks a project milestone
The 1.0 release documented pandas' maturation into a widely used data-analysis foundation and a stable basis for reproducible EDA work.
2020 Nov
LET becomes generally available in Excel
Microsoft made LET generally available, letting a formula name and reuse intermediate calculations.
2021
Prosci refreshes its methodology
Prosci reorganized its methodology to support accessible, actionable practice across sequential, iterative, and hybrid project lifecycles.
2021
SAP acquires Signavio and the process mining market consolidates
SAP's acquisition of Signavio, alongside Celonis's market growth and UiPath's acquisition of ProcessGold, marked process mining's move from academic technique to enterprise software category embedded in process improvement programs.
2021 Dec
ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-2:2021 published
The 2021 edition of the 29119-2 test process standard is published, describing the test planning process and the monitoring and control process that manage acceptance testing.
2023
ISO publishes the 2023 SQL framework edition
ISO/IEC 9075-1:2023 published the sixth framework edition and references SQL property graph queries as part of the standard family. SQL continues to grow through coordinated parts rather than one vendor's dialect alone.
2023 Jan
KIE enters the Apache Incubator
The KIE community, which includes the Drools rule and DMN engine, entered incubation at the Apache Software Foundation. Drools moved to foundation governance with the rest of the KIE projects.
2024 May
SEBoK adds a requirements management article
SEBoK version 2.10 added a dedicated Requirements Management article during its systems engineering and management updates. The change reflected requirements management as an explicit part of current systems-engineering guidance.