Business Analysis Principles & Techniques Flashcards
What is Business Analysis?
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
What is the importance of Business Analysis?
- Aims to ensure business change aligns with the need of the organisation, are holistic and take everything into consideration
What are the services often offered by a Business Analyst?
- Situation investigation and problem analysis
- Feasibility assessment nd business case development
- Business process improvement
- Requirements definition
- Business acceptance testing
- Business change deployment
BA Competencies
What are the 3 competencies of a Business Analyst?
- Behavioural Skills and Personal Qualities
- Business Knowledge
- Professional Techniques
BA COMPETENCIES
What behavioural skills and personal qualities needed as a BA?
- Communication
- Relationship building
- Influencing
- Facilitation
- Resilience
- Analytical thinking skills
- Attention to detail
- Problem solving
- Leadership
- Adaptable mindset
- Political awareness
- Team working
- Professionalism
BA COMPETENCIES
What business knowledge do you associate with a BA?
- Domain knowledge
- Commercial awareness
- Business case development
- Subject matter expertise
- Digital technology
- Organisation structures
- Supplier management
- Enterprise and related architecture
BA COMPETENCIES
What professional techniques do you need as a BA?
- 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
What is the role of BCS in the professional development of BA’s?
- Accredited qualifications
- Qualifications linked to skills framework
- Professional membership
- Publications
- Shared code of conduct
Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques
What are the Pros & Cons of Interviews?
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
Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques
What are the Pros and Cons of Workshops?
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
Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques
What are the Pros and Cons of Observations?
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
Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques
What are the Pros and Cons of document review?
Pros:
* Learn alot about the business
Cons:
* Time consuming
* Difficult to put into context
* Might be out of date
Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques
What are the Pros and Cons of Scenarios
Pros:
* Allows for step by step of process
* Provides information for testing / test cases
* Collects low level details
Cons
* Time consuming
* Complex
Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques
What are the Pros and Cons of Prototyping?
Pros:
* Helps user understand how something works
* Help to identify new requirements
Cons:
* Time consuming
* Can provide high expectations
Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques
What are the Pros and Cons of Personas?
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
Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques
What are the Pros and Cons of surveys?
Pros:
* Reach a lot of people quickly
Cons:
* Take up is difficult
* There is an art to asking the correct questions
Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques
What are the Pros and Cons of document review?
Pros:
* Learn alot about the business
Cons:
* Time consuming
* Difficult to put into context
* Might be out of date
Qualitative Analysis Investigation Techniques
What are the Pros and Cons of special purpose tasks?
eg 5 bar gates
Pros:
* Obtain real world data
Cons:
* Difficult to set up
* People dont always take to it
Documenting Business Situations
What do Rich Pictures do?
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.
Documenting Business Situations
What is the purpose of Customer Journey Maps?
Show each activity, what data is needed, what they are doing, thinking, what options are available to them. Time boxed activities and alternative paths.
Documenting Business Situations
What do Business Process Models show?
- 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.
Documenting Business Situations
What are the benefits of mind maps?
Displays how features or objects are connected in a structured way, with themes grouped.
Stakeholder Analysis
Once you have identfied your stakeholders what should you do next?
Categorise stakholders and identify:
* SME
* Project Sponsor
* Business Manager etc
Stakeholder Analysis
What stakeholders are considered under the stakeholder wheel SOCCERPM?
- Suppliers
- Owners
- Customers
- Competition
- Employees
- Regulators
- Partners
- Managers
Stakeholder Analysis
How do you determine how informed a stakeholder needs to be?
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
Stakeholder Analysis
What information should you record on a Stakeholder matrix?
- Their Power / Interest rating
- Their attitude
- How we will communicate with them
- Their role
- Their resposibility according to RACI
- Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed
Stakeholder Analysis
What is the purpose of a CATWOE
To understand the personal perspective of the stakeholder - multiple CATWOE’s together
Stakeholder Analysis
What does the acronym CATWOE mean?
- Customer
- Actor
- Transformation
- World View
- Owner
- Environment
Stakeholder Analysis - CATWOE
What is covered under Customer
These are the customers that benefit from the business from the perspective of the stakeholder
eg: Jason / Sales Manager - “anyone who buys something”
Stakeholder Analysis - CATWOE
What is covered under Actor
Actor is the person who will need to complete the transformation
eg: sales staff might set sales targets
Stakeholder Analysis - CATWOE
What is covered under Transformation
Transformation is the activity that the stakeholder thinks is the core of the business
eg. sales say selling items, customer service think great service
Stakeholder Analysis - CATWOE
What is covered under World Views
A stakeholders views and beliefs about the businesss and why it exists
cs - bc of great service, sales because of competitive price points
Stakeholder Analysis - CATWOE
What is covered under Owner
Owner looks at the person or group who controls the system and who could instigate change
Stakeholder Analysis - CATWOE
What is considered under Environment
Environment looks at the factors that affect the business - eg. flow of traffic outside of a store, reasonable business rates,
could use PESTLE here
Business Modelling: Business Activity Model
What is the purpose of a BAM?
A conceptual model which shows what the business should be doing
as opposed to HOW
Business Modelling: Business Activity Model
What are the 5 stages of a BAM?
- 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
Business Modelling: Business Events
What are the three types of business events?
-
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
Business Modelling: Business Rules
What types of business rules are there?
- Constraints - govern what can and cannot be done
- Operational Guidance - sets out how rules should be applied
Business Modelling: Gap Analysis
What does Gap analysis achieve?
- 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
Business Modelling: GAP Analysis
What techniques can be used for GAP analysis?
- Business Activity Modelling
- Process Mapping
- POPIT
Business Modelling:
What is the difference between Divergent and Convergent Thinking?
- Divergent thinking is more exploratory, flexible and taking risks
- Convergent thinking is around linear, process led analysis
