Glossary Flashcards
Affinity Diagram
A group creativity technique that allows large numbers of ideas to be classified into groups for review and analysis.
Architecture
A method to describe an organization by mapping its essential characteristics, such as people, locations, processes, applications, data, and technology.
Asynchronous Interview
An interview in which the participants are not engaged in the interview at the same time. Asynchronous interviews can be conducted through email or can be prerecorded by the interviewer and provided to the interviewee at a later time.
Backlog
A listing of product requirements and deliverables to be completed, written as stories, and prioritized by the business to manage and organize the project’s work.
Assumption
A factor that is considered to be true, real, or certain, without proof or demonstration.
Baseline
The approved version of a work product that can be changed only through formal change control procedures and is used as a basis for comparison.
Benchmarking
The comparison of actual or planned practices, such as processes and operations, to those of comparable organizations to identify best practices, generate ideas for improvement, and provide a basis for measuring performance.
Burndown
A visual chart depicting the number of backlog items remaining at any point in time in a project. Burndown charts are used on projects using an adaptive life cycle.
Business Analysis
The set of activities performed to identify business needs; recommend relevant solutions; and elicit, document, and manage requirements.
Business Analysis Approach
A description of how the business analysis process will be conducted for the project or program. The business analysis approach is documented in the business analysis plan.
Business Analysis Center of Excellence
An organizational structure created whereby business analysts are managed centrally or are provided mentorship centrally for the purpose of improving the business analysis discipline across the organization. Also called Center of Business Analysis Practice.
Business Analysis Documentation
The set of business analysis information produced as an output of the business analysis work conducted on a program or project. Such output may be comprised of business analysis deliverables, business analysis work products, or a combination thereof.
Business Analysis Plan
A subplan of the project management plan that defines the business analysis approach, including the tasks that will be performed, the deliverables that will be produced, the roles required to carry out the process, and process decisions regarding how requirement-related decisions will be made; how requirement priorities will be set; how changes to requirements will be proposed, approved, and managed; how requirements will be validated, verified, monitored, and traced; and how business analysis communication will be performed.
Business Analysis Planning
The domain of business analysis that involves planning all of the business analysis activities and reaching the necessary process decisions required for running an effective business analysis process for a program or project.
Business Architecture
A collection of the business functions, organizational structures, locations, and processes of an organization, including documents and depictions of those elements.
Business Case
A documented economic feasibility study used to establish the validity of the benefits of a selected component lacking sufficient definition and used as a basis for the authorization of further project management activities.
Acceptance Criteria
A set of conditions that is required to be met before deliverables are accepted. [Note: In business analysis, acceptance criteria is built to evaluate the product requirements and solution.]
Business Need
The impetus for a change in an organization, based on an existing problem or opportunity. The business need provides the rationale for initiating a project or program.
Business Objectives Model
A business analysis model that relates the business problems, business objectives, and top-level features. This model encompasses the justification for a project.
Business Requirements
Requirements that describe the higher-level needs of the organization, such as the business issues or opportunities, and which provide the rationale for why a project is being undertaken.
Business Rule
Constraints about how the organization wants to operate. These constraints are usually enforced by data and/or processes and are under the jurisdiction of the business. A key element is an absense of technology.
Business Rules Analysis
A process for evaluating, designing, and implementing the rules that govern the organization, its processes, and its data. When creating business rules, the rules need to be correct, verifiable, and consistent
Business Rules Catalog
A business analysis model that details all of the business rules and their related attributes.
Business Value
A concept that is unique to each organization and includes tangible and intangible elements. In business analysis, business value is considered the return, in the form of time, money, goods, or intangibles in return for something exchanged.
Capability
The ability to add value or achieve objectives in an organization through a function, process, service, or other proficiency.
Capability Framework
A collection of an organization’s capabilities, organized into manageable pieces, similar to a business architecture.
Capability Table
A table that displays the capabilities needed to solve a problem or seize an opportunity. This tool can show the relationship between a situation, its root causes, and the capabilities needed to address the situation.
Cause-and-Effect Diagram
A decomposition technique that helps trace an undesirable effect back to its root cause. See also fishbone diagram.
Change Control
A process whereby modifications to documents, deliverables, or baselines associated with the project are identified, documented, approved, or rejected.
Change Control Board (CCB)
A formally chartered group responsible for reviewing, evaluating, approving, delaying, or rejecting changes to the project, and for recording and communicating such decisions.
Change Control Tools
Manual or automated tools used to assist with change and/or configuration management. At a minimum, the tools should support the activities of the change control board (CCB).
Change Management Plan
The plan that defines the process for managing change on the project.
Change Request
A formal proposal to modify any document, deliverable, or baseline.
Closed-Ended Question
A question that calls for a response from a limited list of answer choices. Types of closed-ended questions are forced choice, limited choice, and confirmation.
Communications Management Plan
A component of the project, program, or portfolio management plan that describes how, when, and by whom information about the project will be administered and disseminated.
Configuration Management
A collection of formal documented processes, templates, and documentation used to apply governance to changes to the product, service, result, or subcomponent being developed.
Configuration Management System
A subsystem of the overall project management system. It is a collection of formal documented procedures used to apply technical and administrative direction and surveillance to: identify and document the functional and physical characteristics of a product, result, service, or component; control any changes to such characteristics; record and report each change and its implementation status; and support the audit of the products, results, or components to verify conformance to requirements. It includes the documentation, tracking systems, and defined approval levels necessary for authorizing and controlling changes.
Constraint
A limiting factor that affects the execution of a project, program, portfolio, or process.
Context Diagram
A visual depiction of the product scope showing a business system (process, equipment, computer system, etc.) and how people and other systems (actors) interact with it.
Contextual Question
A question that can only be answered as it references the subject at hand; namely, the problem domain or the proposed solutions.
Context-Free Question
A question that can be asked in any situation.
Cost-Benefit Analysis.
A financial analysis tool used to determine the benefits provided by a project against its costs.
Cost-Effectiveness Feasibility
The high-level economic feasibility of a potential project or program, taking into account both financial benefits and costs.
Data Dictionary
A business analysis model that catalogs the attributes of specific business data objects. Is a tabular format. Business rules may be described in a data dictionary. Data dictionaries are used to capture very detailed requirements and their business rules. This model can stand alone and does not need redundant requirements statements.
Data Flow Diagram
A business analysis model that combines processes, systems, and data to show how data flows through a solution. The data stores (shown as 2 parallel lines) show where information is conceptually stored, and the process steps (shown as circles) indicate which functions manipulate or use the data, and which external entities (shown as boxes) create data or consume data.
Day in the Life Testing (DITL)
A semiformal activity, conducted by someone with in-depth business knowledge. The results obtained from DITL testing enable validation or evaluation of whether or not a product or service or solution provides the functionality for a typical day of usage by a role that interacts with the solution.
Decision Table
An analysis model that uses a tabular format to display complex business rules by representing decision points in the upper rows and outcomes in the bottom rows with the purpose of providing all combinations of choices.
Decision Tree
An analysis model that shows business rules associated with complex branching logic. Rules are depicted by modeling the decisions and their outcomes in a tree structure.
Decomposition Diagrams
See decomposition model.
Decomposition Model
A model that is used to divide and subdivide a high-level concept into lower-level concepts, for example, dividing the project scope and project deliverables into smaller, more manageable parts for the purpose of analysis. Also known as decomposition diagrams.
Defect Repair
An intentional activity to modify a nonconforming product or product component.
Deliverable
Any unique and verifiable product, result, or capability to perform a service that is required to be produced to complete a process, phase, or project.
Dependency Analysis
A technique that is used to discover dependent relationships.
Display-Action-Response Model
A business analysis model that dissects a screen mockup into its display and behavior requirements at the page element level.
Document Analysis
An elicitation technique that analyzes existing documentation and identifies information relevant to the requirements.
Ecosystem Map
A business analysis model that shows the systems involved in a project and how they interrelate with each other.
Elicitation Plan
An informal device used by a business analyst to prepare for the elicitation work.
Elicitation Session
A session or activity conducted for the purpose of obtaining information from participants. In business analysis, elicitation sessions are conducted in order to obtain the information needed to define the requirements.
Enterprise Architecture
A collection of the business and technology components needed to operate an enterprise.
The business architecture is usually a subset of the enterprise architecture and is extended with the applications, information, and supporting technology to form a complete blueprint of an organization.
Entity Relationship Diagram
A business analysis model that shows the business data objects involved in a project and the relationships between those objects, including the cardinality of those relationships.
Estimate
A quantitative assessment of the likely amount or outcome. It is usually applied to project costs, resources, effort, and durations and is usually preceded by a modifier (i.e., preliminary, conceptual, feasibility, order-of-magnitude, definitive). It should always include some indication of accuracy (e.g., ± x %).
