Glossary Flashcards
Acceptance criteria
Criteria associated with requirements, products, or the
delivery cycle that must be met in order to achieve stakeholder acceptance.
Actor (business analysis)
A human, device, or system that plays some specified
role in interacting with a solution.
Adaptive approach
An approach where the solution evolves based on a cycle of learning and discovery, with feedback loops which encourage making decisions as late as possible.
Architecture
The design, structure, and behaviour of the current and future states of a structure in terms of its components, and the interaction between those components.
See also business architecture, enterprise architecture,
and requirements architecture.
Artifact (business analysis)
Any solution-relevant object that is created as part of
business analysis efforts.
Assumption
An influencing factor that is believed to be true but has not been confirmed to be accurate, or that could be true now but may not be in the future.
Behavioural business rule
A business rule that places an obligation (or prohibition) on conduct, action, practice, or procedure; a business rule whose purpose is to shape (govern) day-to-day business activity. Also known as operative rule.
Benchmarking
A comparison of a decision, process, service, or system’s cost, time, quality, or other metrics to those of leading peers to identify opportunities for improvement.
Body of knowledge
The aggregated knowledge and generally accepted practices on a topic.
Brainstorming
A team activity that seeks to produce a broad or diverse set of options through the rapid and uncritical generation of ideas.
Business (business world)
An economic system where any commercial, industrial,
or professional activity is performed for profit.
Business analysis
The practice of enabling change in the context of an enterprise by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.
Business analysis information
Any kind of information at any level of detail that is used as an input to business analysis work, or as an output of business analysis work.
Business analysis package
A document, presentation, or other collection of text, matrices, diagrams and models, representing business analysis information.
Business analyst
Any person who performs business analysis, no matter their job title or organizational role.
Business analysis approach
The set of processes, rules, guidelines, heuristics, and activities that are used to perform business analysis in a specific context.
Business analysis communication plan
A description of the types of communication the business analyst will perform during business analysis, the recipients of those communications, and the form and frequency of those communications.
Business analysis effort
The scope of activities a business analyst is engaged in during the life cycle of an initiative
Business analysis plan
A description of the planned activities the business analyst will execute in order to perform the business analysis work involved in a specific initiative.
Business architecture
The design, structure, and behaviour of the current and future states of an enterprise to provide a common understanding of the organization. It is used to align the enterprise’s strategic objectives and tactical demands.
Business case
A justification for a course of action based on the benefits to be realized by using the proposed solution, as compared to the cost, effort, and other considerations to acquire and live with that solution.
Business decision
A decision that can be made based on strategy, executive judgment, consensus, and business rules, and that is generally made in response to events or at defined points in a business process.
Business goal
A state or condition that an organization is seeking to establish and maintain, usually expressed qualitatively rather than quantitatively.
Business need
A problem or opportunity of strategic or tactical importance to be addressed.
Business objective
An objective, measurable result to indicate that a business goal has been achieved.
Business policy
A non-practicable directive that controls and influences the actions of an enterprise.
Business problem
An issue of strategic or tactical importance preventing an enterprise or organization from achieving its goals.
Business process
An end-to-end set of activities which collectively responds to an event, and transforms information, materials, and other resources into outputs that deliver value directly to the customers of the process. It may be
internal to an organization, or it may span several organizations.
Business process management (BPM)
A management discipline that determines how manual and automated processes are created, modified, cancelled, and governed.
Business process re-engineering
Rethinking and redesigning business processes to generate improvements in performance measures.
Business requirement
A representation of goals, objectives and outcomes that describe why a change has been initiated and how success will be assessed.
Business rule
A specific, practicable, testable directive that is under the control of the business and that serves as a criterion for guiding behaviour, shaping judgments, or making decisions.
Capability
The set of activities the enterprise performs, the knowledge it has, the products and services it provides, the functions it supports, and the methods it uses to make decisions.
Change
The act of transformation in response to a need.
Change agent
One who is a catalyst for change.
Change control
Controlling changes to requirements and designs so that the impact of requested changes is understood and agreed-to before the changes are made.
Change management
Planned activities, tools, and techniques to address the human side of change during a change initiative, primarily addressing the needs of the people who will be most affected by the change.
Change strategy
A plan to move from the current state to the future state to achieve the desired business objectives.
Change team
A cross-functional group of individuals who are mandated to implement a change. This group may be comprised of product owners, business analysts, developers, project managers, implementation subject matter experts (SMEs), or any other individual with the relevant set of skills and competencies required to implement the change.
Checklist (business analysis)
A standard set of quality elements that reviewers use for requirements verification.
Collaboration
The act of two or more people working together towards a common goal.
Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)
A prepackaged solution available in the marketplace which address all or most of the common needs of a large group of buyers of those solutions. A commercial off-the-shelf solution may require some configuration to meet the specific needs of the enterprise.
Competitive analysis
A structured assessment which captures the key characteristics of an industry to predict the long-term profitability prospects and to determine the practices of the most significant competitors.
Component
A uniquely identifiable element of a larger whole that fulfills a clear function.
Concept model
An analysis model that develops the meaning of core concepts for a problem domain, defines their collective structure, and specifies the appropriate vocabulary needed to communicate about it consistently.
Constraint (business analysis)
An influencing factor that cannot be changed, and that places a limit or restriction on a possible solution or solution option.
Context
The circumstances that influence, are influenced by, and provide understanding of the change.
Core concept (business analysis)
One of six ideas that are fundamental to the practice of business analysis: Change, Need, Solution, Context, Stakeholder, and Value.
Cost-benefit analysis
An analysis which compares and quantifies the financial and non-financial costs of making a change or implementing a solution compared to the benefits gained.
Customer
A stakeholder who uses or may use products or services produced by the enterprise and may have contractual or moral rights that the enterprise is obliged to meet.
Decision analysis
An approach to decision making that examines and models the possible consequences of different decisions, and assists in making an optimal decision under conditions of uncertainty.
Decomposition
A technique that subdivides a problem into its component parts in order to facilitate analysis and understanding of those components.
Defect
A deficiency in a product or service that reduces its quality or varies from a desired attribute, state, or functionality.
Definitional business rule
A rule that indicates something is necessarily true (or untrue); a rule that is intended as a definitional criterion for concepts, knowledge, or information. Also known as a structural rule.
Deliverable
Any unique and verifiable work product or service that a party has agreed to deliver.
Design
A usable representation of a solution.
Document analysis (business analysis)
An examination of the documentation of an existing system in order to elicit requirements.
Domain
The sphere of knowledge that defines a set of common requirements, terminology, and functionality for any program or initiative solving a problem.
Domain subject matter expert
A stakeholder with in-depth knowledge of a topic relevant to the business need or solution scope.
Dynamic systems development method (DSDM)
A project delivery framework which focuses on fixing cost, quality, and time at the beginning while contingency is managed by varying the features to be delivered.
Elicitation
Iterative derivation and extraction of information from stakeholders or other sources
End user
A stakeholder who directly interacts with the solution
Enterprise
A system of one or more organizations and the solutions they use to pursue a shared set of common goals.
Enterprise architecture
A description of the business processes, information technology, people, operations, information, and projects of an enterprise and the relationships between them.
Enterprise readiness assessment
An assessment that describes the enterprise is prepared to accept the change associated with a solution and is able to use it effectively.
Entity-relationship diagram
A graphical representation of the entities relevant to a chosen problem domain and the relationships between them.
Estimate
A quantitative assessment of a planned outcome, resource requirements, and schedule where uncertainties and unknowns are systematically factored into the assessment.
Evaluation
The systematic and objective assessment of a solution to determine its status and efficacy in meeting objectives over time, and to identify ways to improve the solution to better meet objectives. See also indicator; metric, monitoring.
Event (business analysis)
An occurrence or incident to which an organizational unit, system, or process must respond.
Evolutionary prototype
A prototype that is continuously modified and updated in response to feedback from stakeholders.
Experiment
Elicitation performed in a controlled manner to make a discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact.
External interface
An interaction that is outside the proposed solution. It can be another hardware system, software system, or a human interaction with which the proposed solution will interact.
Facilitation
The art of leading and encouraging people through systematic efforts toward agreed-upon objectives in a manner that enhances involvement, collaboration, productivity, and synergy.
Feasibility study
An evaluation of proposed alternatives to determine if they are technically, organizationally, and economically possible within the constraints of the enterprise, and whether they will deliver the desired benefits to the enterprise.
Feature
A distinguishing characteristic of a solution that implements a cohesive set of requirements and which delivers value for a set of stakeholders.
Fishbone diagram
A diagramming technique used in root cause analysis to
identify underlying causes of an observed problem, and the relationships that exist between those causes. Also known as an Ishikawa or cause and effect diagram.
Focus group
A group formed to to elicit ideas and attitudes about a specific product, service, or opportunity in an interactive group environment. The participants share their impressions, preferences, and needs, guided by a moderator.
Force field analysis
A graphical method for depicting the forces that support and oppose a change. Involves identifying the forces, depicting them on opposite sides of a line (supporting and opposing forces) and then estimating the strength of each set of forces.
Functional requirement
A capability that a solution must have in terms of the behaviour and information the solution will manage.
Gap analysis
A comparison of the current state and desired future state of an enterprise in order to identify differences that need to be addressed.
Governance process (change)
A process by which appropriate decision makers
use relevant information to make decisions regarding a change or solution, including the means for obtaining approvals and priorities.
Guideline (business analysis)
An instruction or description on why or how to undertake a task.
Horizontal prototype
A prototype that is used to explore requirements and designs at one level of a proposed solution, such as the customer-facing view or the interface to another organization.
Impact analysis
An assessment of the effects a proposed change will have on a stakeholder or stakeholder group, project, or system.