Business Analysis Planning (BABOK KA)

Business analysis is an indispensable function in all business organizations, performed at myriad forms and scales.  Maintaining high quality of business analysis consistently is a challenge to many organizations. Inconsistent business analysis output quality results in undesirable project outcomes, poor decisions, operational disjoints and missed opportunities.  This article uses an actual case to discuss how low quality business analysis impacts an organization and what improvement initiatives the organization implemented to address the problems.

Gathering and documenting requirements to develop software is often seen by business analysts as their core task. Actually, they are there to deliver value to the business—everything else is secondary.

In my view BABOK (Business Analysis Body of Knowledge) v3.0, by introducing the BACCM framework, has provided the world of BAs the equivalent or extension of the famous triple constraints (scope, time and cost) that once revolutionized the project management world. BACCM, in fact, encapsulates the triple constraints and goes beyond by empowering the BA in their daily task to ask fundamental yet powerful questions at every stage of business analysis work.

Large software systems have a few hundred to thousands of requirements. Neither are all requirements equal nor do the implementation teams have resources to implement all the documented requirements. There are several constraints such as limited resources, budgetary constraints, time crunch, feasibility, etc., which brings in the need to prioritize requirements.

Whether it’s a requirements document for a solution enhancement or a stakeholder analysis for a business case, the information cultivated by the Business Analyst can often have use beyond its initial purpose. How can we make BA work come alive for the entire organization?

In order to plan the analysis phase of a project, the business analyst (BA) identifies all the analysis tasks and the associated risk, cost, time and resources. The BA then uses this information to develop a schedule for accomplishing the analysis. To assist in this planning, the BA can use a renowned project management tool: the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).

As a business analyst (BA), what would you say during the initial conversation with your project manager (PM)? First, do not assume that the PM knows what to expect from a BA. In fact, this is your opportunity to set expectations and explain your value added to the project.

The close of one year tends to encourage us to reflect on what has occurred in business analysis and project management during the past year and think about future trends. As we reflect on the past, we thought it might be interesting to review some of the trends we’ve seen over the last five years and when we spotted them as trends

What if you want to use your business analysis skills, but don’t want to be in BA management or a team leader role? What if you want a different kind of role, but one that still uses your business analysis skills? Are there other roles out there for a skilled Business Analyst?

The answer is yes!

While a Business Analyst Manager has primary responsibilities of developing a team of Business Analysts and potentially best practices within the organization, the Lead Business Analyst’s key responsibilities also include ensuring the success of the execution of the Information Technology project, specifically the Business Analysis portion.

Requirements Planning is an important part of the requirements development process that is often overlooked. Requirements Planning is the brains of requirement development and enables successful execution of the requirements phase.  Developing a Requirements Approach is a way to capitalize on the following benefits of effective requirements planning...

Business analysts are jacks-of-all-trades -- and masters of some... unfortunately, many BAs fall short. They often spread themselves too thin, lack the requisite confidence to speak with authority, or don’t understand fully the important role they play.

Do you know? If not, should you? I’m using BA as an abbreviation for Business Analyst (really, though, it’s one who performs business analysis regardless of the title) and BOT for “Business Order Taker” (also an abbreviated term for ROBOT). They are different in the way they approach business analysis.

I became a father two years ago. Shortly thereafter, I realized that many of my professional skills were readily transferable to my new role at home: Goals and expectations setting, listening, perseverance, flexibility and facilitation. But it would take a tense encounter with 18-month-old some time later to understand that my problem-solving skills as a dad were far more applicable to the workplace than I had ever imagined.

Many BAs are using the  BABOK which contains information about a Requirements Management process, from identifying organizational situations that give cause to a project, through to starting the requirements gathering process, to delivering a solution to the business or a client. TOGAF 9, from an Enterprise Architecture viewpoint, also provides some techniques to gather requirements to equally deliver business solutions. This paper illustrates the two processes, defines the mapping between the two approaches and identifies gaps in each.