The Entire BABOK Glossary!!! Flashcards
Activity Diagram
A model that illustrates the flow of processes and/or complex use cases by showing each activity along with information flows and concurrent activities. Steps can be superimposed onto horizontal swimlanes for the roles that perform the steps.
Activity
A unit of work performed as part of an initiative or process.
Actor(s)
The human and nonhuman roles that interact with the system.
Allocation
See requirements allocation.
Analyst
A generic name for a role with the responsibilities of developing and managing requirements. Other names include business analyst; business integrator; requirements analyst; requirements engineer; and systems analyst.
Association
A link between two elements or objects in a diagram.
Assumption
Assumptions are influencing factors that are believed to be true but have not been confirmed to be accurate.
Attribute
A data element with a specified data type that describes information associated with a concept or entity.
Baseline
A point-in-time view of requirements that have been reviewed and agreed upon to serve as a basis for further development.
Benchmarking
A comparison of a process or system’s cost; time; quality; or other metrics to those of leading peer organizations to identify opportunities for improvement.
Black Box Tests
Tests written without regard to how the software is implemented. These tests show only what the expected input and outputs will be.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a team activity that seeks to produce a broad or diverse set of options through the rapid and uncritical generation of ideas.
Business Analysis
Business analysis is the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison among stakeholders in order to understand the structure; policies and operations of an organization; and recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.
Business Analysis Approach
The set of processes; templates; and activities that will be 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 in which communication should occur.
Business Analysis Plan
A description of the planned activities that the business analyst will execute in order to perform the business analysis work involved in a specific initiative.
Business Analyst
A practitioner of business analysis.
Business Architecture
A subset of the enterprise architecture that defines an organization’s current and future state; including its strategy; its goals and objectives; the internal environment through a process or functional view; the external environment in which the business operates; and the stakeholders affected by the organization’s activities.
Business Case
An assessment of the costs and benefits associated with a proposed initiative.
Business Constraint(s)
Business constraints are limitations placed on the solution design by the organization that needs the solution. Business constraints describe limitations on available solutions; or an aspect of the current state that cannot be changed by the deployment of the new solution. See also technical constraint.
Business Domain
See domain.
Business Domain Model
A conceptual view of all or part of an enterprise focusing on products; deliverables and events that are important to the mission of the organization. The domain model is useful to validate the solution scope with the business and technical stakeholders. See also model.
Business Event
A system trigger that is initiated by humans.
Business Goal
A state or condition the business must satisfy to reach its vision.
Business Need(s)
A type of high-level business requirement that is a statement of a business objective; or an impact the solution should have on its environment.
Business Policy
A business policy is a non-actionable directive that supports a business goal.
Business Process
A set of defined ad-hoc or sequenced collaborative activities performed in a repeatable fashion by an organization. Processes are triggered by events and may have multiple possible outcomes. A successful outcome of a process will deliver value to one or more stakeholders.
Business Requirement
A higher level business rationale that; when addressed; will permit the organization to increase revenue; avoid costs; improve service; or meet regulatory requirements.
Business Requirements Document
A Business Requirements Document is a requirements package that describes business requirements and stakeholder requirements (it documents requirements of interest to the business; rather than documenting business requirements).
Business Rule(s)
A business rule is a specific; actionable; testable directive that is under the control of the business and supports a business policy.
Capability
A function of an organization that enables it to achieve a business goal or objective.
Cardinality
The number of occurrences of one entity in a data model that are linked to a second entity. Cardinality is shown on a data model with a special notation; number (e.g.; 1); or letter (e.g.; M for many).
Cause and Effect Diagram
See fishbone diagram.
Change Control Board (CCB)
A small group of stakeholders who will make decisions regarding the disposition and treatment of changing requirements.
Change-driven Methodology
A methodology that focuses on rapid delivery of solution capabilities in an incremental fashion and direct involvement of stakeholders to gather feedback on the solution’s performance.
Checklist
A quality control technique. They may include a standard set of quality elements that reviewers use for requirements verification and requirements validation or be specifically developed to capture issues of concern to the project.
Class
A descriptor for a set of system objects that share the same attributes; operations; relationships; and behavior. A class represents a concept in the system under design. When used as an analysis model; a class will generally also correspond to a real-world entity.
Class Model
A type of data model that depicts information groups as classes.
Code
A system of programming statements; symbols; and rules used to represent instructions to a computer.
Commercial-off-the-Shelf Software (COTS)
Software developed and sold for a particular market.
Competitive Analysis
A structured process 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.
Constraint
A constraint describes any limitations imposed on the solution that do not support the business or stakeholder needs.
Context Diagram
An analysis model that illustrates product scope by showing the system in its environment with the external entities (people and systems) that give to and receive from the system.
Cost Benefit Analysis
Analysis done to compare and quantify the financial and non-financial costs of making a change or implementing a solution compared to the benefits gained.
Customer
A stakeholder who uses products or services delivered by an organization.
Data Dictionary
An analysis model describing the data structures and attributes needed by the system.
Data Entity
A group of related information to be stored by the system. Entities can be people; roles; places; things; organizations; occurrences in time; concepts; or documents.
Data Flow Diagram (DFD)
An analysis model that illustrates processes that occur; along with the flows of data to and from those processes.
Data Model
An analysis model that depicts the logical structure of data; independent of the data design or data storage mechanisms.
Decision Analysis
An approach to decision-making that examines and models the possible consequences of different decisions. Decision analysis assists in making an optimal decision under conditions of uncertainty.
Decision Tables
An analysis model that specifies complex business rules or logic concisely in an easy-to-read tabular format; specifying all of the possible conditions and actions that need to be accounted for in business rules.
Decision Tree
An analysis model that provides a graphical alternative to decision tables by illustrating conditions and actions in sequence.
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. See also requirements defect.
Deliverable
Any unique and verifiable work product or service that a party has agreed to deliver.
Design Constraints
Software requirements that limit the options available to the system designer.
Desired Outcome
The business benefits that will result from meeting the business need and the end state desired by stakeholders.
Developer
Developers are responsible for the construction of software applications. Areas of expertise include development languages; development practices and application components.
Dialog Hierarchy
An analysis model that shows user interface dialogs arranged as hierarchies.
Dialog Map
An analysis model that illustrates the architecture of the system’s user interface.
Discovery Session
See requirements workshop.
Document Analysis
Document analysis is a means to elicit requirementsof an existing system by studying available documentation and identifying relevant information.
Domain
The problem area undergoing analysis.
Domain Subject Matter Expert (SME)
A person with specific expertise in an area or domain under investigation.
Elicitation
An activity within requirements development that identifies sources for requirements and then uses elicitation techniques (e.g.; interviews; prototypes; facilitated workshops; documentation studies) to gather requirements from those sources.
Elicitation Workshop
See requirements workshop.
End User
A person or system that directly interacts with the solution. End users can be humans who interface with the system; or systems that send or receive data files to or from the system.
Enterprise
An organizational unit; organization; or collection of organizations that share a set of common goals and collaborate to provide specific products or services to customers.
Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise architecture is a description of an organization’s business processes; IT software and hardware; people; operations and projects; and the relationships between them.
Entity-Relationship Diagram
An entity-relationship diagram is a graphical representation of the entities relevant to a chosen problem domain; the relationships between them; and their attributes.
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 metric; indicator and monitoring.
Event
An event is something that occurs to which an organizational unit; system; or process must respond.
Event Response Table
An analysis model in table format that defines the events (i.e.; the input stimuli that trigger the system to carry out some function) and their responses.
Evolutionary Prototype
A prototype that is continuously modified and updated in response to feedback from users.
Exploratory Prototype
A prototype developed to explore or verify requirements.
External Interfaces
Interfaces with other systems (hardware; software; and human) that a proposed system will interact with.
Feasibility Analysis
See feasibility study.
Feasibility Study
An evaluation of proposed alternatives to determine if they are technically possible within the constraints of the organization and whether they will deliver the desired benefits to the organization.
Feature
A cohesive bundle of externally visible functionality that should align with business goals and objectives. Each feature is a logically related grouping of functional requirements or non-functional requirements described in broad strokes.
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.
Focus Group
A focus group is a means 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(s)
The product capabilities; or things the product must do for its users.
Gap Analysis
A comparison of the current state and desired future state of an organization in order to identify differences that need to be addressed.
Glossary
A list and definition of the business terms and concepts relevant to the solution being built or enhanced.
Goal
See business goal.
Horizontal Prototype
A prototype that shows a shallow; and possibly wide; view of the system’s functionality; but which does not generally support any actual use or interaction.
Impact Analysis
An impact analysis assesses the effects that a proposed change will have on a stakeholder or stakeholder group; project; or system.
Implementation Subject Matter Expert (SME)
A stakeholder who will be responsible for designing; developing; and implementing the change described in the requirements and have specialized knowledge regarding the construction of one or more solution components.
Included Use Cases
A use case composed of a common set of steps used by multiple use cases.