Chapter 1 - Introduction Flashcards
What is business analysis?
Set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison among stakeholders in order to understand the structures, policies, and operations of an organization, and to recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.
What is BABOK?
Globally recognized standard for the practice of business analysis.
Who is a business analyst?
Any person who performs business analysis activities, no matter what their job title or organizational role may be.
What is a domain?
Area undergoing analysis that may correspond to the boundaries of an organization or organizational unit, as well as stakeholders outside those boundaries and interactions with those stakeholders.
What is a solution?
A set of changes to the current state of an organization that are made in order to enable the organization to meet a business need, solve a problem or take advantage if an opportunity.
What is a requirement?
- 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).
What is a Business Requirement?
Higher-level statements if goals, objectives, or needs of the enterprise (organization as a whole), that describes why a project has been initiated, the objectives that the project will achieve, and the metrics used to measure its success.
Developed and defined through Enterprise Analysis.
What is a Stakeholder Requirement?
Statements of the needs of a particular stakeholder or class of stakeholders that describes the needs that a given stakeholder has and how that stakeholder will interact with a solution.
Serves as a bridge between business requirements and various class of solution requirements.
Developed and defined through Requirements Analysis.
What is a Solution Requirement?
Characteristics of a solution that meet business requirements and stakeholder requirements.
Developed and defined through Requirements Analysis.
Divided into Functional and Non-Functional Requirements.
What is a Functional Requirement?
Describes the behavior and information that the solution will manage.
Describes the capabilities the system will be able to perform in terms if behaviors or operations-specific IT application actions or responses.
What is a Non-Functional Requirement?
Conditions that do not directly relate to the behavior or functionality of the solution, but describe environmental conditions under which the solution must remain effective or qualities that the system must have.
Also known as quality or supplementary requirements.
Requirements related to capacity, speed, security, availability and the information architecture and presentation of the user interface.
What is a Transition Requirement?
Capabilities that the solution must have in order to facilitate transition from the current state of the enterprise to a desired future state, but will not be needed once that transition is complete.
Temporary in nature. Cannot be developed until an existing and new solution are defined.
For example, data conversion, skill gaps…
Developed and defined through solution assessment and validation.
What is a Knowledge Area?
Defines what a practitioner of business analysis needs to understand and the tasks a practitioner must be able to perform.
Name the Knowledge Areas.
Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring Elicitation Requirements Management and Communication Enterprise Analysis Requirements Analysis Solution Assessment and Validation Underlying Competencies Underlying Competencies
What is a task?
An essential piece of work that must be performed as part of business analysis.
Should be performed at least once, but no upper limit.
Can be performed at any scale.
Describe the characteristics of a task.
A task accomplishes a result in an output that creates value to the sponsoring organization. If a task is performed, it should produce some demonstrable positive outcome which is useful, specific, visible and measurable.
A task is complete. Successor tasks that make use of outputs should be able to be performed by a different group or person.
A task is a necessary part of the purpose of the Knowledge Area with which it is associated.
Can the tasks be performed in any order?
Yes, as long as the necessary inputs to a task are present.
What is an Input?
Represents the information and preconditions necessary for a task to begin.
Inputs may be explicitly generated outside of the scope of business analysis or generated by one or more business analysis tasks.
Is a deliverable complete or in its final state once there is an input or output for a task?
No, the input only needs to be sufficiently complete to allow successive work to begin.
Requirements are a special case as an input or output. Why?
They are the only input or output that is not produced by a single task.
What is an Element?
Key concept that is needed to understand how to perform the task.
List the generic stakeholders.
Business Analyst Customer Domain SME End User Implementation SME Operational Support Project Manager Supplier Tester Regulator Sponsor
What is an Output?
A necessary result of the work described in the task.
Created, transformed or changed state as a result of the successful completion is a task.
Can a task have multiple outputs?
Yes. An output is created and maintained by a single task, but a task can have multiple outputs.
What is a Technique?
Techniques provides additional information on different ways that a task may be performed or different forms the output of the task may take.
How many techniques must a task have?
A task may have nine, one or more related techniques. A technique must be related to at least one task.
Name the techniques that are in widespread use.
Acceptance and Evaluation Criteria Definition Brainstorming Business Rules Analysis Data Dictionary and Glossary Data Flow Diagrams Data Modeling Decision Analysis Document Analysis Interviews Metrics and Key Performance Indicators Non-functional Requirements Analysis Organizational Modeling Problem Tracking Process Modeling Requirements Workshops Scenarios and Use Cases
What are Underlying Competencies?
Skills, knowledge and personal characteristics that support the effective performance of business analysis.
Name the competency areas.
Analytical Thinking and Problem Solving Behavioral Characteristics Business Knowledge Communication Skills Interaction Skills Software Applications
