Chapter 7 BABOK

Question 1

The Solution Assessment and Validation Knowledge Area

Answer 1

describes the tasks that are performed in order to ensure that solutions meet the business need and to facilitate their successful implementation. These activities may be performed to assess and validate business processes, organizational structures, outsourcing agreements, software applications, and any other component of the solution.

Question 2

Business analysis plays a vital role

Answer 2

in ensuring that the process of reviewing, selecting, and designing the solution is done in a way that maximizes value delivered to stakeholders. The business analyst knows the business environment and can assess how each proposed solution would affect that environment. The business analyst is responsible for ensuring that stakeholders fully understand the solution requirements and that implementation decisions are aligned with the relevant requirements.

Question 3

Assess Proposed Solution

Answer 3

Purpose: To assess proposed solutions in order to determine how closely they meet stakeholder and solution requirements.

Solution assessment may be performed on a single solution or to compare multiple proposed solutions.

When assessing a single solution, the business analyst determines whether the solution delivers enough business value to justify its implementation. This will most often be the case when a custom solution has been created to meet a particular business need.

Techniques:
Acceptance and Evaluation Criteria Definition (9.1): Requirements should be expressed in the form of acceptance criteria to make them most useful when assessing proposed solutions.

Decision Analysis (9.8): Decision analysis methods directly support the assessment and ranking of solution options.

Vendor Assessment (9.34): When an option is being provided in whole or in part by a third party, the assessment of the solution should be coupled with an assessment of the vendor to ensure that all parties will be able to develop and maintain a healthy working relationship.

Question 4

Assess organizational readiness

Answer 4

Purpose: Assess whether the organization is ready to make effective use of a new solution.

Techniques:
     Acceptance and Evaluation Criteria Definition (9.1): Acceptance criteria must reflect solution performance levels that would allow the organization to have confidence in solutions that meet those criteria. 
     Data Flow Diagrams (9.6) and Process Models (9.21): Useful for identifying the activities that are likely to change with the implementation of a new solution and the stakeholders who performed those activities. 
     Focus Groups (9.11), Interviews (9.14) and Survey/Questionnaire (9.31): Can assist with identifying stakeholder concerns or issues. 
     Organization Modeling (9.19): Used to identify stakeholders or stakeholder groups that my be impacted by the new solution
     Problem Tracking (9.20): Used to ensure that issues identified by the organizational readiness assessment are resolved. 
     Risk Analysis (9.24): Used to assess potential problems that are identified during the organizational readiness assessment, determine which possible problems are the most important to deal with, and develop a mitigation strategy. 
     SWOT Analysis (9.32): Used to assess strategies developed to respond to identified issues.

Question 5

Define transition requirements

Answer 5

Purpose: To define requirements for capabilities needed to transition from an existing solution to a new solution.

Question 6

Validate Solution

Answer 6

Purpose: Validate that a solution meets the business need and determine the most appropriate response to identified defects.

Techniques:

 Domain SME: Will provide input into the development of acceptance and evaluation criteria. 

 End User: May assist in the development of acceptance and evaluation criteria and participate in acceptance testing. 

 Implementation SME : Will support the validation process, investigate defects, correct identified defects, and participate in the defect prioritization and resolution process. 

 Operational Support: Will support the deployment of defect resolutions.

 Project Manager: Responsible for co-ordination of work between the parties involved in the validation process. 

 Tester: Solution verification (that is, verifying that the solution behaves in accordance with the solution requirements) is the responsibility of the tester. Testers will develop and execute tests to identify defects which may need to be assessed and validated by the business analyst. Test plans may be reviewed to ensure that the planned set of test activities will be sufficient to assure the organization that the solution is in conformance with the requirements. 

 Regulator: May review the results of acceptance testing and require that records be kept regarding the process and outcomes. 

 Sponsor: The sponsor (or designate) must accept the solution.