Module 5 Flashcards
Investigating business situation
Business analysis work can be complex and variable so a toolkit approach is much more beneficial then a strict checklist method
Investigation techniques
Qualitative approaches
Workshops
Observations
Interviews
Scenarios
Prototyping
User role analysis
Investigation techniques
Quantitate approaches
Surveys/questionnaires
Activity sampling
Document analysis
Workshops
Like big meetings involving people from different parts of the business, marketing,sales,tech
Workshops provide and excellent collaborative form in which issues can be discussed conflicts resolved
2 main techniques for a workshop
Discovery techniques
Visualisation techniques
Advantage of holding workshop
Everyone gets involved- prevents miscommunication
HOWEVER workshops can lead to arguments without a facilitator.
Qualitative technique
Observing
Great way to obtain info about the business environment and work practices
Important that before work is observed, person being observed should be reassured that objective is to understand the task, not judge their performance.
Advantage of observations
Provides a much better understanding of problems faced by business users
Helps to identify workable solutions
Disadvantage of 1-1 observations
Being observed can be nervous for the individual
Individual may change behaviour- validity?
Time- observing them for one day may not give an accurate representation of how work is performed as a whole
Investigation techniques
Interview
Formal meeting
Can be 1-1 can have more people
Advantages of interviews
Allows you to obtain info that you may not get from an observation
Allows you to obtain detail in current operations, impact of problems
Provides opportunities to provide rapports with individual stakeholders and builds BA’s confidecne in skills and approach
Disadvantages of interviews
Time-consuming and possibly cost-consuming by interviewing staff from legal team- stopping them from doing their job.
Difficult to schedule interviews in a busy schedule
Interviews are based upon opinions
Investigation techniques
Scenarios
Scenarios analysis involves telling the story of a task
Scenarios help both staff members and the analysts to think through the steps followed to carry out a piece for work
This enables Them to visualise the steps more clearly and to identify where the standard approach may need to deviate
A scenario description includes a business event that triggers the transaction, the set of actions that have to be compete in border to achieve a successful outcome.
The exception situations to be handled+ other aspects such as the actor responsible for carrying out the task, pre+post conditions
Advantages of scenario s
Provide a framework for discovering the exceptions that requires alternative paths to be followed when carrying out a task
Analysis often uncovers additional info which makes scenarios useful in requirements excitation+analysis
Drawback of scenarios
Time consuming to develop and very complex where there are several paths
Investigation techniques
Prototyping
Prototyping is a way of showing senior stakeholders what the end product could look like before going into development
Helpful when eliciting, analysing, demonstrating and validating requirements.
Advantages of prototyping
Helps to clarify any uncertainty on the analysts and confirm the business staff have their requirements have been understood
They help the business staff to identify new requirements as they gain an understanding on how the system will operate.
They enable the business staff to validate the requirements and identify any areas
Drawbacks of prototyping
Can spin out of controls with endless iteration taking place
Investigation techniques
Quantitive approaches
Surveys/questionnaires
Activity sampling
Document analysis
Surveys/questionnaire’s
Can get a limited amount of info from a. Lot of people
Time + cost effective
Drawbacks of surveys/questionnaires
Not always successful in obtaining data because surveys are poorly designed
Activity sampling
A quantitative form of observation and is used when its necessary to know how people divide their work time among a range of activities
5 steps of activity sampling
1- identify the activities that you need to record
2- decide on the frequency and timings, when and how oft3en you record activities being undertaken
3- visit study groups at times decided upon and record what each member is doing
4- record results
5- analyse results
Document analysis
Involves reviewing samples of source documents or reports to uncover information about an organisation, process or system.
Benefits of document analysis
Helps to identify questions, which helps to develop analyst’s understanding
Useful to supplement other techniques such as workshops, interviews and observation
Analysing origin and usage of a document can be enlightening when investigating a process
Recording a business solution
While the investigation of the current situation is underway, analyst needs to record the findings in order ton understand the range of issues and the business needs.
Meeting reports should be produced for each interview and workshop so they can be agreed with the participants- referred as minutes
Diagrams for business situation
Rich pictures
Provides an overview of the entire business situation
Rich pictures can show human characteristics of the situation and reflect on intangible areas such as culture
Unstructured way of documenting investigation
Diagrams for business situation
Mind maps
Summarising a lot of information
Information is structures to highlight connections between ideas and topics
The business problem drawn at the centre
