This is a presentation I did for Mercer which gives an overview of Business Analysis and some of the techniques used.

1. Business Analysis –
Defining the Optimal Solution
Presented by
Jennifer Colburn,
CBAP, PMP
July 21, 2010
http://www.stellman-greene.com/2007/08/03/qa-how-

2. Jennifer C. Colburn, CBAP, PMP
 Senior Business Analyst at Kindred Healthcare
 CBAP (Certified Business Analysis Professional) by
the IIBA (International Institute of Business Analysis)
 PMP (Project Management Professional) by PMI
(Project Management Institute)
 VP of Education for Louisville Chapter of the IIBA
 Member of the IIBA’s Business Analysis Competency
Model Committee
 Just returned from European vacation- London,
Brussels, Germany, and Croatia.

3. Business Analysis –
Defining the Optimal Solution
 Overview of Business Analysis Profession
 Key Terms- Solutions and Requirements
 BABOK Knowledge Areas
 Elicitation Techniques
Presentation material from the BABOK 2.0 (unless otherwise stated)

4. 4
International Institute of Business Analysis
TM
Develop and maintain standards for the
practice of business analysis and for the
certification of its practitioners
The IIBA
TM
is an international not-for-profit professional
association for business analysis professionals.
Founded in 2003
www.theiiba.org
Vision
The world's leading association for
Business Analysis professionals
Mission
KBa

5.  Analogous to the PMI and the PMBOK, the IIBA has
authored the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge
(BABOK) reflecting generally accepted practices in
the Business Analysis community.
 Released in 2005
 Version 2.0 released March 31, 2009
Business Analysis Body of KnowledgeTM

6. 6
BABOK Knowledge Areas

7. CBAP Certification
 Certified Business Analysis Professional
 7,500 hours business analysis work experience in last
ten years
 Experience and expertise in four of six knowledge areas
 150 question multiple choice exam
 Almost 1000 CBAPs internationally
 At the end of 2010, the IIBA will also offer Certification of
Competency in Business Analysis (CCBA), an
intermediate level designation.

8. Value of a Business Analyst
 Anyone who has ever worked on a complex and
lengthy software development project knows that the
involvement of a business analyst can mean the
difference between success and failure.
 ~ Thomas Wailgum, CIO http://www.cio.com/article/343013/
 “Everyone agrees on the importance of the business
analyst role, but few know exactly what it is that
business analysts do.”
 ~ Carey Schwaber & Rob Carel, Forrester Research
April 2008

9. What is A Business Analyst?
 Works as a liaison among stakeholders in order to
understand the structure, policies, and operations of an
organization, and to recommend solutions that enable the
organization to achieve its goals.
 Understands how organizations function to accomplish
their purposes.
 Definition of organizational goals
 How those goals connect to specific objectives
 Determining courses of action that a business has to
undertake to achieve those goals and objectives
 Defining how various organizational units and stakeholders
within and outside the organization interact.
(from the Business Analysis Body Of Knowledge v. 2.0, p. 3)

10. Why a Project Needs a Business Analyst
http://developer.motorola.com/fromfasttrack/February_09/agile_versus_waterfall.gif/

11. Business Analysis
 Understanding:
 How an organization works
 Why the organization exists
 What are the organization’s goals and objectives
 How does an organization accomplish those goals
and objectives
 How does an organization need to change to better
accomplish those objectives and/or overcome
challenges
 Defining the scope of the solution
(from the IIBA “A Primer to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge” presentation)

12. Solution Definition
 A solution meets a business need by solving
problems and/or enabling the organization to take
advantage of an opportunity.
 System of interacting solution components such as:
software applications, web services, business
processes, business rules that govern that process,
an IT application, revised org structure, outsourcing,
insourcing, redefining job roles or any other method
of creating a capability needed by an organization.

13. Business Analysis and Solution Scope
 Business Analysis helps organizations define the
optimal solution for their needs, given a set of
constraints (time, budget, regulations, etc) under
which that organization operates.
 Solution Scope- the set of capabilities a solution
must support to meet the business needs.
 Project Scope- the work necessary to construct and
implement a particular solution

14. Complimentary Roles
 Project Manager – Project Scope: resources,
budget, schedule, plan, risks, quality.
 Business Analyst – Solution Scope: business
risks/issues, requirements related tasks in WBS,
solution quality, represent business.

15. Why a Project Needs a Project Manager and a
Business Analyst
 PM responsible for ensuring product delivered to
customer on time and within budget.
 BA responsible for ensuring product built according to
requirements and built correctly.
 Difference in focus is reason that both roles on team
are critical.
~ Barbara Carkenord, President B2T Training

16. Requirements Definition
 A condition or capability needed by a stakeholder to
solve a problem or achieve an objective.
 A condition or capability that must be met or possessed
by a solution or solution component to satisfy a
contract, standard specification or other formally
imposed documents.
 A documented representation of a condition or
capability as in 1) or 2).

17. Types of Requirements
 Business- high level goals, needs, objectives of
enterprise
 Stakeholder- needs of a given stakeholder and how
they interact with solution
 Solution –
 Functional
 Non-functional
 Transition - implementation requirements such as
data conversion

18. Knowledge Areas

19. Enterprise Analysis
 Understanding the “big picture”
 Define business goals the solution must meet
 Integrate requirements into larger business
architecture
 Support initiatives and long term planning
 Strategic planning, business case development,
Cost Benefit Analysis, feasibility studies
 “Why are we doing this?”

20. Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring
 Focus on planning for the BA processes and
activities.
 “What do I need to do?”
 Specify the how the business analysis tasks
will be performed
 Identify the deliverables produced
 Describe how changes will be controlled and
managed

21. Requirements Management and Communications
 Focus on presenting and communicating
documented requirements to all stakeholders,
including project team members, to bring the
group to consensus on project scope.
 Identify and manage change
 “Does everyone understand and agree?”

22. Elicitation
 Focus on gathering requirements from various
stakeholder groups
 Identify the tasks, knowledge and techniques
for capturing requirements
 “What do the Stakeholders need?”

23. Requirements Analysis
 Focuses on analyzing the data
 Defines the methods, tools, techniques to
structure raw data collected during elicitation
 Identifies gaps in requirements
 Defines the “solution” capabilities and can
serve as the foundation for selecting among
solution alternatives.
 “What must the solution do?”

24. Solutions Assessment & Validation
 Focus on ensuring the best approach is
chosen, that the solution will meet
stakeholder objectives, that the solution is
feasible, and guides solution “verification.”
 “Does the solution do what it is suppose to
do?”

25. BA Underlying Competencies
Analytical Thinking & Problem Solving-
 Creative Thinking
 Decision Making
 Learning
 Problem Solving
 Systems Thinking
 Behavioral Characteristics- ethics, personal
organization, trustworthiness
 Business Knowledge
 Communication Skills
 Interaction Skills- facilitation &negotiation, leadership &
influencing, teamwork
 Software Applications

26. Elicitation Techniques:
 Brainstorming
 Focus Groups
 Interviewing
 Observation
 Prototyping
 Requirements Workshop
 Survey/Questionnaire
 Document Analysis
 Interface Analysis

27. Brainstorming
 Brainstorming is an excellent way to foster creative
thinking about a problem.
 The aim is to produce numerous new ideas, and to
derive from them themes for further analysis.
 Best applied in a group - it draws on the experience and
creativity of all members of the group.
 Participants are encouraged to use new ways of looking
at things and free associate in any direction.

28. Focus Groups
 “A means to elicit ideas and attitudes about a
specific product, service or opportunity in an
interactive group environment. The participants
share their impressions, preferences and needs,
guided by a moderator.”
 Pre-qualified individuals
 Homogenous or Heterogeneous groups

29. Interviewing
 “Systematic approach designed to elicit information
from a person or group of people in an informal or
formal setting by talking to an interviewee, asking
relevant questions and documenting the responses.”
 One-on-one or Group
 Structured – pre-defined questions
 Unstructured – open-ended discussion

30. Observation
 “Means of eliciting requirements by conducting an
assessment of the stakeholder’s work
environment.”
 Also known as “Job Shadowing”
 Documenting details about current processes
 Enhance or change a current process
 Passive/Invisible
 Active/Visible

31. Prototyping
 Horizontal prototype
 Demonstrates outer layer of human interface only, such as menus
and screens; no logic behind the visualization
 Incremental prototype
 The final product is built as separate prototypes. At the end, the
separate prototypes are merged into an overall design
 Throw-away prototype
 Simple, quick approach - can be paper & pencil or screen mock-
ups
 Discarded when final system is developed
 Evolutionary (Breadboard) prototype
 A system that is continually refined and rebuilt until it is a fully
functioning system

32. Requirements Workshop
 “A structured way to capture requirements. A
workshop may be used to scope, discover, define,
prioritize and reach closure on requirements for the
target system.”
 Effective way to deliver high quality requirements
quickly
 Promote trust, understanding, and communication
among the stakeholders/team
 Produce deliverables that structure and guide future
analysis

33. Surveys/Questionnaire
 Collect information about customers, products, work practices
and attitudes from many people in a relatively short period of
time
 Can be Anonymous
 Closed - Respondent selects from predetermined choices
 Easier to analyze, limited responses
 Useful when ranges of response is understood, but strength of
response needs to be determined
 Open - Respondent is free to answer as they wish
 Wider range of responses, difficult to quantify
 Useful when issues known but range of responses is not

34. Document Analysis
 “A means to elicit requirements by studying
available documentation on existing and
comparable solutions and identifying relevant
information”
 Gathering detail of AS-IS
 SMEs not available
 Enhancements to existing system
 Existing system to be included in new system

35. Interface Analysis
Purpose - identify interfaces between solutions and/or solution
components and define requirements that describe how they
will act.

36. Summary
 BA has a variety of techniques available to elicit
requirements depending on situation
 Goal is to deliver a feasible quality solution that
meets the business needs- the optimal solution
 Help prevent scope creep and reduce project risks,
including rework
 Provide traceability to business goals
 Business Analysis is a formally defined profession
 Internationally acknowledged certification program