Core Competencies

Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring

Organize and coordinate the efforts of business analysts and stakeholders to produce outputs that are key to a projects success.

• Plan Business Analysis Approach
  Plan business analysis work from creation or selection of a methodology to planning the individual activities, tasks, and deliverables.
• Plan Stakeholder Engagement
  Understand the stakeholders relevant to the change, task, or project, what will be need from them, what the stakeholders will need, and the best way to collaborate.
• Plan Business Analysis Governance
  Support the governance functions of the organization to ensure that decisions are made properly and consistently, and follow a process that ensures decision makers have the information they need.
• Plan Business Analysis Information Management
  Define how information developed (including requirements and designs) will be captured, stored, and integrated with other information for long-term use.
• Identify Business Analysis Performance Improvements
  Manage and monitor how business analysis work is performed to ensure that commitments are met and continuous learning and improvement opportunities are realized.

 

Elicitation and Collaboration

Perform ongoing tasks to obtain, and confirm, information, in order to uncover requirements, develop user stories, and generate designs. Elicit information through direct stakeholder involvement, independent research, experimentation, and other methods as needed.

Manage stakeholder collaboration to reach agreement, and mutual understanding, of all business analysis information. React quickly to elicit information and collaborate through both planned, and unplanned, activities.

• Prepare for Elicitation
  Ensure that stakeholders have the information they need to provide, and that they understand the nature of the activities they are going to perform. Set expectations regarding the outcomes of the activity. Perform research, or experiments, to verify a change will result in an improvement.
• Conduct Elicitation
  Understand stakeholder needs and identify potential solutions that may meet those needs. Elicit information by engaging with stakeholders, and facilitating planned activities such as workshops, experiments, surveys, mind mapping, and brainstorming.
• Confirm Elicitation Results
  Ensure that stakeholders have a shared understanding of the outcomes of elicitation, that elicited information is recorded appropriately, and that the information gathered is the information sought from the elicitation activity. Compare the information received with other information to look for inconsistencies or gaps.
• Communicate Business Analysis Information
  Provide stakeholders with the information they need, at the time they need it. Present the information in a useful form, using the appropriate terminology and concepts.
• Manage Stakeholder Collaboration
  Work with stakeholders to engage them in the overall business analysis process and to ensure that the outcomes can be delivered as needed.

 

Requirements Life Cycle Management

Manage and maintain requirements and design information from inception to retirement. Establish meaningful relationships between related requirements and designs, assess changes to requirements and designs when changes are proposed, and analyze and gain consensus on changes.

Ensure that business, stakeholder, and solution requirements and designs are aligned to one another and that the solution implements them. Exert a level of control over requirements and over how requirements will be implemented in the actual solution to be constructed and delivered. Ensure that business analysis information is available for future use.

The management of requirements does not end once a solution is implemented. Throughout the life of a solution, requirements continue to provide value when they are managed appropriately.

• Trace Requirements
  Analyze and maintain the relationships between requirements, designs, solution components, and other work products for impact analysis, coverage, and allocation.
• Maintain Requirements
  Ensure that requirements and designs are accurate and current throughout the life cycle and facilitate reuse where appropriate.
• Prioritize Requirements
  Assess the value, urgency, and risks associated with particular requirements and designs to ensure that analysis and/or delivery work is done on the most important ones at the appropriate time.
• Assess Requirements Changes
  Evaluate new and changing stakeholder requirements to determine if they need to be acted on within the scope of a change.
• Approve Requirements
  Work with stakeholders involved in the governance process to reach approval and agreement on requirements and designs.

 

Strategy Analysis

Collaborate with stakeholders to identify strategic or tactical business needs. Define the most effective way for the enterprise to address that need, and align the resulting strategy for the change with higher- and lower-level strategies.

Define the future and transition states needed to address the business need, the work required to meet the need, and the scope of the solution. Engage in strategic thinking, and discovery, to imagine possible solutions that create greater value for the stakeholders, or for itself.

Perform ongoing analysis to assess any changes in the need, its context, or any new information that may lead to an adjustment to the strategy.

• Analyze Current State
  Understand the business need and how it relates to the way the enterprise functions today in order to set a baseline and context for change.
• Define Future State
  Define goals and objectives that will demonstrate that the business need has been satisfied and define what parts of the enterprise need to change in order to meet the goals and objectives.
• Assess Risks
  Understand the uncertainties around the change, consider the effect those uncertainties may have on the ability to deliver value through a change, and recommend actions to address risks where appropriate.
• Define Change Strategy
  Perform gap analysis between current and future state, assess options for achieving the future state, and recommend the highest value approach for reaching the future state including any transition states that may be required along the way.

 

Requirements Analysis and Design

Structure and organize requirements discovered during elicitation activities, specify and model requirements and designs, validate and verify information, identify solution options that meet business needs, and estimate the potential value that could be realized for each solution option.

• Specify and Model Requirements
  Define and describe a set of requirements or designs in detail using analytical techniques.
• Verify Requirements
  Ensure that a set of requirements or designs has been developed in enough detail to be usable by a particular stakeholder, is internally consistent, and is of high quality.
• Validate Requirements
  Ensure that a set of requirements or designs delivers business value and supports the organization’s goals and objectives.
• Define Requirements Architecture
  Structure all requirements and designs so that they support the overall business purpose for a change and that they work effectively as a cohesive whole.
• Define Solution Options
  Identify, explore and describe different possible ways of meeting the need.
• Analyze Potential Value and Recommend Solution
  Assess the business value associated with a potential solution and compare different options, including trade-offs, to identify and recommend the solution option that delivers the greatest overall value.

 

Solution Evaluation

Assess the performance of, and value delivered by, a recommended solution, or a solution in use by the enterprise, and recommend removal of barriers or constraints that prevent the full realization of the solution’s value.

Perform Solution Evaluation using any combination of objective, and subjective, performance assessments, tests, and experiments.

• Measure Solution Performance
  Determine the most appropriate way to assess the performance of a solution, including how it aligns with enterprise goals and objectives, and perform the assessment.
• Analyze Performance Measures
  Examine information regarding the performance of a solution in order to understand the value it delivers to the enterprise and to stakeholders, and determine whether it is meeting current business needs.
• Assess Solution Limitations
  Investigate issues within the scope of a solution that may prevent it from meeting current business needs.
• Assess Enterprise Limitations
  Investigate issues outside the scope of a solution that may be preventing the enterprise from realizing the full value that a solution is capable of providing.
• Recommend Actions to Increase Solution Value
  Identify and define actions the enterprise can take to increase the value that can be delivered by a solution.