The Current State

Question 1

What is background research. Why is it important and what are the four key sources ?

Answer 1

Allows Analysts to be informed

Website for the organisation
Company reports
Procedure manuals and documentation
Organisation chart

Question 2

What may you find in each of these key sources ?

Answer 2

Website for the organisation:
What organisation does, value and mission
Brand presentation and optics to customers
Potential view of products/services
Customer feedback/review

Company reports:
Financial position
P and L/Balance sheets

Procedure manual and documentation:
Prior research for projects, could include current process information and any procedure manuals.

Organisation chart:
Shape of organisation, Span of control, Structure of organisation, Centralized or decentralized business model

Question 3

What are the advantages of a Workshop ?

Answer 3

Gain a broad view of the area under investigation
Increase speed and productivity
Collaborative
Easy to obtain buy-in and acceptance for the project
Gain consensus view or group agreement

Question 4

What are the disadvantages of a Workshop ?

Answer 4

Extensive preparation time
Undue influence of dominant personalities
Authority limitations

Question 5

What are the types of observation ?

Answer 5

Formal observation
Protocol Analysis
Shadowing
Ethnographic studies

Question 6

What are the advantages of observation

Answer 6

Greater understanding of the problems and difficulties faced by the business users
Seeing tasked performed helps generate effective follow up questions for interviews
In depth understanding helps aid development of effective business solution

Question 7

What are the disadvantages of observation ?

Answer 7

Individuals may behave differently if they know they are being watched
Analyst only sees whats happening on an isolated occasion

Question 8

What is formal observation ?

Answer 8

Involves watching a task being performed

Question 9

What is protocol analysis?

Answer 9

Involves asking business staff to carry out a specified task and describe each step they perform while doing this

Question 10

What is shadowing?

Answer 10

Involves following a member of staff for a period to find out hat a particular job entails

Question 11

What is ethnographic studies ?

Answer 11

Involves spending an extended period of time within the target environment

This approach can also be very useful when analysing complex business systems
where the staff members are highly expert in conducting their work and the business
rules are difficult to assimilate

Question 12

State the potential advantages of interviews

Answer 12

Building rapport
Can acquire information about a business situation
Yielding of important information
Identify different stakeholder perspectives and priorities
Obtain information on stakeholders personal concerns
Opportunity to investigate new areas that were not previously mentioned
Identify and collect examples of documents , forms and reports used by the clients

Question 13

State the potential disadvantages of interviews

Answer 13

Significant investment in time and budget
Information elicited is often based on opinion. quantitative data may be required to substantiate information
-Different interviewees often hold different views and, where this is the case,
the business analyst needs to analyse the information gathered in order to
identify conflicts

Question 14

What is scenario analysis ?

Answer 14

Involves telling the story of a task of transaction

Question 15

When is scenario analysis most beneficial

Answer 15

When analysing or redesigning business processes as they help both the staff member and analyst think through steps followed to carry out a piece of work

Question 16

What are benefits of scenario analysis

Answer 16

It reduces or even removes the opportunity for omissions when carrying out each step.

The step by step development approach helps to ensure that there are no taken for granted elements and the problem of tacit knowledge is addressed

They are developed using top down approach. Starting with an overview scenario and then refining this with further detail

A workshop group with responsibility for refining a scenario should identify those paths that do not suit the corporate culture or community of practice

Question 17

What are the benefits of scenario analysis

Answer 17

They provide a basis for developing prototypes

They provide a painstaking basis for preparing test scripts

Question 18

What are the process for developing scenarios

Answer 18

Identify task or interaction

Identify steps and sequence

Define Control Conditions

Identify Exception Situations

Question 19

What is document analysis ?

Answer 19

Document Analysis involves reviewing samples of source documents and reports to uncover information about an organisation, proces or system. The documents may be in physical form or may be software-based.

Question 20

When is document analysis useful?

Answer 20

Document Analysis is useful to supplement other techniques such as workshops, interviews and observation.

Question 21

What is an Rich Pictures?

Answer 21

The rich picture technique is one of the few that provide an overview of the entire business situation. The technique has no fixed notation but allows the analyst to use any symbol