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BCS Oral Exam > Business Analysis Principles & Techniques > Flashcards

Business Analysis Principles & Techniques Flashcards

1
Q

What is Business Analysis?

A

An advisory role that has responsibility for:
* investigating and analysing business situations
* identifying and evaluating options for improving business systems
* elaborating and defining requirements
* ensuring effective implementation and use of systems that are inline with the business need

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2
Q

What is the importance of Business Analysis?

A
  • Aims to ensure business change aligns with the need of the organisation, are holistic and take everything into consideration
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3
Q

What are the services often offered by a Business Analyst?

A
  • Situation investigation and problem analysis
  • Feasibility assessment nd business case development
  • Business process improvement
  • Requirements definition
  • Business acceptance testing
  • Business change deployment
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4
Q

BA Competencies

What are the 3 competencies of a Business Analyst?

A
  • Behavioural Skills and Personal Qualities
  • Business Knowledge
  • Professional Techniques
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5
Q

BA COMPETENCIES

What behavioural skills and personal qualities needed as a BA?

A
  • Communication
  • Relationship building
  • Influencing
  • Facilitation
  • Resilience
  • Analytical thinking skills
  • Attention to detail
  • Problem solving
  • Leadership
  • Adaptable mindset
  • Political awareness
  • Team working
  • Professionalism
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6
Q

BA COMPETENCIES

What business knowledge do you associate with a BA?

A
  • Domain knowledge
  • Commercial awareness
  • Business case development
  • Subject matter expertise
  • Digital technology
  • Organisation structures
  • Supplier management
  • Enterprise and related architecture
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7
Q

BA COMPETENCIES

What professional techniques do you need as a BA?

A
  • Stakeholder analysis & management
  • Gap analysis
  • Data modelling
  • Strategy analysis
  • Investigation techniques
  • Requirements engineering
  • Business process modelling
  • Idea generation and visualisation
  • Benefits management
  • Project management
  • Portfolio management
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8
Q

What is the role of BCS in the professional development of BA’s?

A
  • Accredited qualifications
  • Qualifications linked to skills framework
  • Professional membership
  • Publications
  • Shared code of conduct
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9
Q

Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques

What are the Pros & Cons of Interviews?

A

Pros:
* Build rapport & relationships
* Cater to audience
* No distractions - have their attention

Cons:
* Time consuming
* Can be difficult to arrange
* One sided/version of the truth

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10
Q

Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques

What are the Pros and Cons of Workshops?

A

Pros:
* Lots of points of view
* Can speak to lots of people
* Can build a consensus
* Can get sign off / buy in

Cons:
* Managing conflicting ideas/personalities
* Difficult to plan & resource
* Can go off tangent

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11
Q

Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques

What are the Pros and Cons of Observations?

A

Pros:
* Get a real idea of what someone actually does
* Can ask questions there and then
* Can talk through what they are doing

Cons:
* Difficult to arrange
* Might only see what they want to show you
* People might feel uncomfortable

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12
Q

Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques

What are the Pros and Cons of document review?

A

Pros:
* Learn alot about the business

Cons:
* Time consuming
* Difficult to put into context
* Might be out of date

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13
Q

Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques

What are the Pros and Cons of Scenarios

A

Pros:
* Allows for step by step of process
* Provides information for testing / test cases
* Collects low level details

Cons
* Time consuming
* Complex

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14
Q

Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques

What are the Pros and Cons of Prototyping?

A

Pros:
* Helps user understand how something works
* Help to identify new requirements

Cons:
* Time consuming
* Can provide high expectations

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15
Q

Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques

What are the Pros and Cons of Personas?

A

Pros:
* Get an image of what a user is like
* Identify actors in scenarios
* Find more requirements

Cons:
* Might not cover every scenario
* Time consuming to create

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16
Q

Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques

What are the Pros and Cons of surveys?

A

Pros:
* Reach a lot of people quickly

Cons:
* Take up is difficult
* There is an art to asking the correct questions

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17
Q

Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques

What are the Pros and Cons of document review?

A

Pros:
* Learn alot about the business

Cons:
* Time consuming
* Difficult to put into context
* Might be out of date

18
Q

Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques

What are the Pros and Cons of special purpose tasks?

eg 5 bar gates

A

Pros:
* Obtain real world data

Cons:
* Difficult to set up
* People dont always take to it

19
Q

Documenting Business Situations

What do Rich Pictures do?

A

Creates a visual overview of a whole system, and how objects are created, and the activities needed to move from one to the next. Allows to record process along with human connection.

20
Q

Documenting Business Situations

What is the purpose of Customer Journey Maps?

A

Show each activity, what data is needed, what they are doing, thinking, what options are available to them. Time boxed activities and alternative paths.

21
Q

Documenting Business Situations

What do Business Process Models show?

A
  • connections between actors / teams / departments,
  • which tasks need to be completed and in what order.
  • duplicate work
  • bottle necks
  • highlight gaps & where automation could be beneficial.
22
Q

Documenting Business Situations

What are the benefits of mind maps?

A

Displays how features or objects are connected in a structured way, with themes grouped.

23
Q

Stakeholder Analysis

Once you have identfied your stakeholders what should you do next?

A

Categorise stakholders and identify:
* SME
* Project Sponsor
* Business Manager etc

24
Q

Stakeholder Analysis

What stakeholders are considered under the stakeholder wheel SOCCERPM?

A
  • Suppliers
  • Owners
  • Customers
  • Competition
  • Employees
  • Regulators
  • Partners
  • Managers
25
Q

Stakeholder Analysis

How do you determine how informed a stakeholder needs to be?

A

Power / Interest Grid

  • High Power / High Interest: Keep Actively Managed
  • High Power / Low Interest: Watch
  • Low Power / High Interest: Keep Informed
  • Low Power / Low Interest: Ignore
26
Q

Stakeholder Analysis

What information should you record on a Stakeholder matrix?

A
  • Their Power / Interest rating
  • Their attitude
  • How we will communicate with them
  • Their role
  • Their resposibility according to RACI
  • Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed
27
Q

Stakeholder Analysis

What is the purpose of a CATWOE

A

To understand the personal perspective of the stakeholder - multiple CATWOE’s together

28
Q

Stakeholder Analysis

What does the acronym CATWOE mean?

A
  • Customer
  • Actor
  • Transformation
  • World View
  • Owner
  • Environment
29
Q

Stakeholder Analysis - CATWOE

What is covered under Customer

A

These are the customers that benefit from the business from the perspective of the stakeholder

eg: Jason / Sales Manager - “anyone who buys something”

30
Q

Stakeholder Analysis - CATWOE

What is covered under Actor

A

Actor is the person who will need to complete the transformation

eg: sales staff might set sales targets

31
Q

Stakeholder Analysis - CATWOE

What is covered under Transformation

A

Transformation is the activity that the stakeholder thinks is the core of the business

eg. sales say selling items, customer service think great service

32
Q

Stakeholder Analysis - CATWOE

What is covered under World Views

A

A stakeholders views and beliefs about the businesss and why it exists

cs - bc of great service, sales because of competitive price points

33
Q

Stakeholder Analysis - CATWOE

What is covered under Owner

A

Owner looks at the person or group who controls the system and who could instigate change

34
Q

Stakeholder Analysis - CATWOE

What is considered under Environment

A

Environment looks at the factors that affect the business - eg. flow of traffic outside of a store, reasonable business rates,

could use PESTLE here

35
Q

Business Modelling: Business Activity Model

What is the purpose of a BAM?

A

A conceptual model which shows what the business should be doing

as opposed to HOW

36
Q

Business Modelling: Business Activity Model

What are the 5 stages of a BAM?

A
  • Doing - what the org is doing (comes from the transformation of the CATWOE)
  • Enabling what needs to be in place to enable the doing
  • Planning the activities the organisation needs to do, inc setting KPI’s
  • Monitoring the evaluation of performance eg. monitor sales performance
  • Control steps needed to remedy poor performance

Order of Diagram: 3.Plan > 2.Enable > 1.Do > 4.Monitor > 5.Control

37
Q

Business Modelling: Business Events

What are the three types of business events?

A
  • External- events that occur outside of the business area - usually the prompt
    eg. customer places an order
  • Internal - events that occur from within the business area - usually senior members of staff
    eg. grade review finalised, change requested
  • Time-based- events that are prompted by a given point in time.
    eg. end of the month
38
Q

Business Modelling: Business Rules

What types of business rules are there?

A
  • Constraints - govern what can and cannot be done
  • Operational Guidance - sets out how rules should be applied
39
Q

Business Modelling: Gap Analysis

What does Gap analysis achieve?

A
  • It looks at the as-is and the** to-be**, - looking for differences and similarities
  • then analysing what needs to happen to get from one to the other
40
Q

Business Modelling: GAP Analysis

What techniques can be used for GAP analysis?

A
  • Business Activity Modelling
  • Process Mapping
  • POPIT
41
Q

Business Modelling:

What is the difference between Divergent and Convergent Thinking?

A
  • Divergent thinking is more exploratory, flexible and taking risks
  • Convergent thinking is around linear, process led analysis

BCS Oral Exam (5 decks)

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