Business Analyst Community & Resources | Modern Analyst

What are the Business Analysis Knowledge Areas?

Chris Adams — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 20:56:00 GMT

This question is an easy way for a hiring manager or an HR professional to screen out candidates who may have under-invested in their career or may lack understanding of the business analysis profession. The 6 Knowledge Areas are:

Elicitation & Collaboration
Requirements Analysis & Design Definition
Solution Evaluation
Requirements Life Cycle Management
Business Analysis Planning & Monitoring
Strategy Analysis

What is a stakeholder needs assessment?

Chris Adams — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 15:27:00 GMT

Stakeholder analysis involves identification of individuals and organizations that have some form of stake or interest in the project outcomes, and assessing the particular needs of each stakeholder group. The stakeholder needs assessment is conducted early in the project, so that steps can be taken to effectively manage their interests and expectations throughout the project.

List the steps you would take to bring a product from idea to deployment and beyond.

Chris Adams — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 20:14:00 GMT

Some of these steps could be combined, pared down, or avoided altogether depending on the demands of the project and complexity of the product or application. Use the minimum amount of tools, models, and specifications needed to communicate the necessary information to the coders in a way that ensures the final product meets the expectations of the customer and is defect free. Once might refer to this as “just enough documentation” – not too much, but not too little.

What is the “First-Time First-Use Penalty”?

Chris Adams — Sun, 09 Jun 2019 19:30:00 GMT

The First-Time First-Use Penalty states that the first time undertaking anything new it’s impossible to know how long it will take to complete. A fairly simple principle that absolutely plagues the IT industry due to the complexity and variability of IT systems. IT systems are so unique and so multifaceted that the constant movement of its variables create an incredible challenge to estimating costs accurately.

What is Planning Poker?

Chris Adams — Sun, 14 Oct 2018 16:25:00 GMT

Planning Poker is a consensus-based technique for estimating effort. It is primarily used in agile development to estimate the size of user stories, but can be equally as powerful for estimating effort of key tasks in a project plan using a traditional work breakdown structure.

What types of actions can help the business analyst avoid Analysis Paralysis?

Chris Adams — Sun, 12 Feb 2017 22:10:00 GMT

Analysis Paralysis is the dreaded black hole of projects. So, how do you recognize that you might be in Analysis Paralysis. Here are a few symptoms that might clue you in.

What is a RACI Matrix?

Chris Adams — Sun, 11 Dec 2016 19:09:00 GMT

RACI Matrix is the name given to a table which is used to describe the type and degree of involvement that stakeholders have in completing tasks or deliverables for a project or business process. Also sometimes called the Responsibility Assignment Matrix or Linear Responsibility Chart, it is a common tool used by business analysts and project managers for establishing roles and responsibilities early on in a project. In this way it reduces project risk and sets expectations about the level of involvement that is expected by various stakeholders.

Do all analysts need to have an understanding of the "Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring" knowledge area?

Chris Adams — Sun, 11 Jan 2015 21:37:00 GMT

Having a deep understanding of this knowledge area will help analysts identify weak or even missing steps in the process before big problems occur. These concerns can be raised to the project leaders often saving time and money. The most common missing process areas are usually around requirement change management.

What is a navigable association in UML?

Chris Adams — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 01:36:00 GMT

Associations are relationships between classes in a UML Class Diagram. They are represented by a solid line between classes. Associations are typically named using a verb or verb phrase which reflects the real world problem domain.

The normal kind of association is bidirectional by default. This means that if an association exists between two classes, then both objects know about each other. However, when creating a UML class diagram it is possible to use a navigable association between two classes. This is shown by adding an arrowhead at one end of the association. If “A” is the source class and “B” is the target class, the arrowhead would be placed on the “B” side of the association. A navigable association of this type means that at runtime object “A” knows about object “B”, but object “B” has no knowledge of or visibility into object “A”.

What is Function Point Analysis?

Chris Adams — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 01:11:00 GMT

Function Point Analysis (FPA) refers to the practice of using function points to size and estimate the cost of work on systems. Function Points are a normalized unit of measure used to:

Quantify the amount of business functionality a system provides business users
Estimate the cost to develop a system or set of features based on the number of function points it supports
Determine how costly a system is to maintain based on the number of function points it supports

To state things differently, Function Points are good for answering questions like:

How big is system “A”? Is system “A” bigger than system “B” and by how much? (It answers these in terms of features)
How much will it cost me to build system “A”?
If I’m paying $500,000/yr to maintain system “B” is that cost effective?

Function Points, being a normalized unit of measure, provides an apples-to-apples comparison of systems and the costs associated with building and supporting them.

This method of measuring systems was first developed in 1979 by Allan Albrecht of IBM. Today it is supported by a group called the International Function Point User Group (or IFPUG for short).

To count the number of function points that a system possesses, a skilled practitioner first categorizes each feature into one of five types (outputs, inquiries, inputs, internal files, and external interfaces). Then a complexity is assigned to each feature. Finally, a number of function points can be assigned to each feature. Certain types of system also have additional function point adjustment factors that are used. The end result is a single number for the entire system called a Function Point Index. Based on this value and historical function point data, the cost to develop the system can be estimated.

FPA brings structure and rigor to a process that is often very subjective. However, there are a number of potential challenges that are often voiced when discussing the merits of FPA.

Counting Function Points can be a tricky task to do well. Getting consistent results is a challenge unless you are a skilled practitioner at counting function points. There is a sizable “Function Point Counting Practices Manual” available to direct the practitioner in this exercise.
FPA tends to hide internal functions (e.g. algorithms), which also require resources to implement.

While not formally supported by the IFPUG, a number of other variations of FPA exist today, and some try to compensate for these challenges.

How is the Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring (BABOK v2.0) knowledge area defined?

Chris Adams — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 18:40:00 GMT

The Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring knowledge area describes the process of how a business analyst determines which activities will be needed to complete the business analysis effort. The tasks within this knowledge area govern the business analysis tasks in all of the other knowledge areas.

These tasks include:

Plan Business Analysis Approach
Conduct Stakeholder Analysis
Plan Business Analysis Activities
Plan Business Analysis Communication
Planning Requirements Management Process
Manage Business Analysis Performance