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New Post 4/13/2009 6:41 AM
User is offline Ahmad_Hammoud
5 posts
www.modernanalyst.com
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What is Business analysis 

Business analysis helps an organization to improve how it conducts its functions and activities in order to reduce overall costs, provide more efficient use of resources, and better support customers. It introduces the notion of process

 

Business analysis sub-disciplines:
 Business analysis, as a discipline, has a heavy overlap with requirements analysis, but focuses on identifying requirements in the context of helping organizations to achieve strategic goals through internal changes to organizational capabilities, including changes to policies, processes, and information systems

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
New Post 4/14/2009 9:35 AM
User is offline Tony Markos
493 posts
5th Level Poster


Re: What is Business analysis 

Hi:

Business Analysis is primarily  performing analysis to discover the as-is business processes.  This is hard for alot of BA's to gasp in large part because:

*  The need for the as-is is often discounted

*  Current "hot" technqiues such as BPMN, Use Cases, and Activity Diagrams are weak in terms of supporting process discovery.

Tony

 
New Post 4/14/2009 8:11 PM
User is offline KJ
243 posts
6th Level Poster


Re: What is Business analysis 

 

I agree with Tony on his first point, the as-is is crucial. As a business analyst you MUST understand the business. How can you advise/suggest a to-be, if you don’t know the as-is? One of the reasons for not doing this step is the user tells you that they know what the issues are and they just want them solved therefore they will not allocate sufficient time for the as-is investigation. Or as one recently said, I’m not paying you to tell me what I already know. Not knowing the process and issues is nomally a BIG mistake that bites later.
 
I disagree with Tony on the second point. BPMN and UML Activity diagrams can be used to discover/record processes. However, the BIG mistake that analysts make is they IGNORE the data aspects in the process flow; they forget to explicitly identify the data elements. DFDs are excellent when you sit with a user and map their processes and capture the flow and data at the same time. Somehow users understand DFDs intuatively, whereas BPMN is a bit of a challenge for some.
 
warm regards,
K.
PS. Tony was it you who attended the Ivar Jacobson "talk" recently; if so, what was his focus?
 
New Post 4/15/2009 9:11 AM
User is offline Tony Markos
493 posts
5th Level Poster


Re: What is Business analysis 

kmajoos:

I think it was Craig Brown who was to attend the talk.

Why data flow diagrams?  Gathering and verifiying the data flows is tough work.  As-Is data flow diagraming, propely done, can involve rapid-fire personal  attacks like nothing else one can imagine.  This is a primary reason why no one does it.   If we want the data flows, especially for larger scale systems, we must be single mindedly, hard headedly, and fervently focused on the data flows - an use a technique that is like focused.   If not, I can gaurantee you we will postone data flow analysis and divert our attention to other  issues - like implementation issues.

Tony

 
New Post 4/15/2009 4:56 PM
User is offline KJ
243 posts
6th Level Poster


Re: What is Business analysis 

 

Tony,
 
No worries, I hope Craig responds, re the "Ivar Jacobson" talk.
 
With regards to Data Flows, I still use them allot. In fact when I interview people during the discovery phase I normally use DFDs to drive the interview. DFDs are my short hand for my working papers. If the client expects BPMN or UML Activity diagrams I’ll convert these. Is it double handling? Yes it is, but the client intuitively understands DFDs. I find I still use the old whilst I transition to the new. Its also hard to unlearn DFDs and embrace BPMN, especially if DFDs have been a good and rewarding technique for the last 20-25 years for me.
 
Warm regards,
K
 
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