This presentation was delivered at the 'BA Summit Southern Africa - 2016'. It focuses on the early analysis stages of an initiative and how the context diagramming technique can be used to structure initial elicitation, align stakeholder thinking on analysis scope and guide business analysis planning and approach development. The presentation also details a method for combining the strengths of rich picture diagrams with context diagrams. These are some techniques that business analysts could use to manage the complexities and uncertainties common to the initial stages of analysis.

1. RAKSHA PAHLAD
The power of the humble context
diagram

2. Introduction
Frederick Brooks, No Silver Bullet –
Essence and Accident in Software Engineering, 1986
Essential Difficulties
• Complexity
• Conformity
• Changeability
• Invisibility
BA process, techniques and tools help us manage these inherent difficulties.We construct models in order to represent information in a way that
reduces complexity, promotes common understanding and create
visualizations of something that would have been difficult to
perceive otherwise.

3. Introduction
The problem being considered today is, how best can
one go about understanding an analysis initiative in order to approach it
successfully?
Context diagramming is essentially a technique that can be used to solve this problem.

4. Setting the scene
Business level
Value creation
Sales
Marketing
Value delivery
Finance
The Personal MBA, Kaufman, 2012
Implementation level
Sys BSys A Sys A
Sales
Business rules are formulated

5. Enter the business analyst
BA

6. Playing out a scenario
We work for a company that manufactures and sells personal
assistant Marvin robots.
The sales team has requested the ability to view pending support queries.
When sales people visit clients to explore up-selling opportunities,
clients query their outstanding support items raised with our
company.

7. The first workshop…
Sales
SME
PM
Clients are not happy
with response times
on technical queries.
How do clients currently
receive feedback on a
support request?
The team handling the
query e-mails or calls the
client when an item is
resolved.
Which teams handle
queries?
We handle information
type queries. We also
send queries to the
technical and accounts
teams.
My team contacts the
client if we don’t have
enough information to
categorise the query.
These queries are more
complex and often
require fixes and testing.
These robots are high
maintenance!
Our clients require
more regular
feedback.
Yes, and we want this
information on the sales
app we currently use.
What specific support
query information is
required by clients?
Mostly some initial feedback,
a current status, and a
resolution date. The resolution
date is the most important.
Notes:
At this point, we’ve realised that the true business requirement is actually
enhancing client feedback on raised support queries.
Stakeholders have provided information at different levels of detail.We’ve managed to source some good data exchange information.

8. Information…
Information/data at
the early stages
sometimes starts to
appear like this
What you eventually
really want to get to is a
structured, interwoven
picture like this
Understanding
the detail without
getting tangled is
challenging
A good place to start is
categorizing the threads
of information

9. Enter the context diagram
Entity A
Entity B
Entity CArea of
interest
Data flowing to area
of interest
Data flowing to area
of interest
Data flowing to area
of interest
Data flowing from
area of interest
Data flowing from
area of interest
Edward
Yourdon
Larry
Constantine
Inventors
1970s - Structured Design
Type of data flow diagram

10. We start the scope diagram
Context diagram used to depict project/initiative scope
Client
Sales
team
Monitoring of information,
accounts and technical
client support queries
Raise support query
Feedback on
support query
Feedback on
client support
query
Request feedback
on client support
query
Delivery of client support
query feedback to
authorised clients and sales
team members
Is that enough for
stakeholder agreement
on scope and producing
an analysis work
breakdown structure?
Try to keep it apart from
implementation level
detail…don’t answer
‘how’ just yet.
BA
Maybe stakeholder
scope agreement. A bit
more work can be
done before time lines
are assessed.
Client query monitoring and
feedback
Request
feedback
on support
query

11. Data flow diagram – one level lower
Client
Sales
team
Raise support query
Feedback on
client support
query
Request feedback
on client support
query
Transfer
accounts
query
Support query
Assess
received
query
Request
additional
data
Receive
additional
data
Retrieve
additional
data
Resolve info
query
Transfer
technical
query
Processed support
query
Resolve
accounts
query
Resolve
technical
query
Assess request for
support query
status
Provide response
to support query
request
Classify query
Retrieve support
query data
Request
feedback
on support
query
Feedback on
support query

12. Rich picture diagrams
A model that shows the relationships
amongst different elements/entities
part of a situation.
Useful when dealing with a high
degree of uncertainty.
Information flow
from X to Y
File produced by Y
and delivered from
Y to Z
X
Y
Z
Peter Checkland - Soft
Systems Methodology –
Late 1960s
Inventor

13. Combining a context and rich picture diagram
Client
Sales
team
Raise support query
Feedback on
client support
query
Request feedback on
client support query
Request
additional
data
Receive
additional
data
Request
feedback
on support
query
Feedback on
support query
Application/s
1. Determine if additional info required
Support
administrator
Technical support
Accounts support
3.1 Resolve query
4.1 Transfer query
to tech team
5.1 Transfer query
to accounts team
4.2 Resolve
query
5.2 Resolve query
3.2 Provide feedback
to client
4.4 Provide feedback
to client
5.4 Provide feedback
to client
2. Classify query
1.1 Retrieve additional info
2.1 Record
support
query data
4.3 Update support
query data
5.3 Update support
query data
A. Assess request for client support query status
B. Compile response message
C. Provide response message
Notes
* Numbering not mandatory
* Relationships amongst entities are the key
* There are no specific levels
* Can be used at any stage of the
problem/solution process.

14. Err…well that’s great.
But how does that help
with work breakdown
structures and time
estimation?

15. Client
Sales
team
Raise support query
Feedback on client
support query
Request feedback on
client support query
Request
additional
data
Application/s
1. Determine if additional info required
Support
administrator
Technical support
Accounts support
3.1 Resolve query
4.1 Transfer query
to tech team
5.1 Transfer query
to accounts team
4.2 Resolve
query
5.2 Resolve query
3.2 Provide feedback
to client
4.4 Provide feedback
to client
5.4 Provide feedback
to client
2. Classify query
1.1 Retrieve additional info
2.1 Record
support
query data
4.3 Update support
query data
5.3 Update support
query data
A. Assess request for client support query status
B. Compile response message
C. Provide response message
Structuring future work
Receive
additional
data
Request
feedback
on support
query
Feedback on
support query
Pre-conditions and post conditions / triggers and end events can be identified from interfaces/boundariesItems directly related to the business requirement are candidates for as-is and to-be process and data analysisUnderstanding the functions supported by current application systems will form input
into solution requirements and further diagramming techniques (e.g. UML models like use cases)
Items indirectly related to the business requirement are candidates for as-is process analysisEntities can be transferred as actors on UML diagrams and/or roles/pools on process diagrams

16. Structuring future work
The more granular the work break down structure, the easier it will be to estimate time-lines.

17. Structuring future work
For our example…a snippet of the initial WBS could begin like this…
Definition of business requirement and
business rules for monitoring support queries
Definition of business requirement and business
rules for providing feedback on support queries
To be client query management process definition
Documentation and review of as-is process analysis
As is process analysis on current client query
management processes
Documentation and review of to-be process
Design of query monitoring and query feedback
application system and data changes
Document analysis
Observation
Interviews
Workshops
What answers do I require?
Who could collaborate to
provide these answers?
When are these people
available?
How many workshops and
interviews will be required?
Process modelling
Interface analysis
Use cases and scenariosHow many days/hours do I
estimate this requiring?
This also allows flexibility
in thinking about your
BA approach

18. What did we set out to understand
The problem being considered today was, how best can
one go about understanding an analysis initiative in order to approach it
successfully?

19. The approach
* Not the only approach
Source initial information
Identify true business need/opportunity, if
sufficient information is available at this stage
Abstract and organize information into
a context diagram
Or a context diagram + rich
picture combination diagram
Use diagram/s to confirm scope
Use diagram/s to identify high-level analysis tasks
Identify and deconstruct tasks until you arrive at
tasks that are easier to assign time estimates to

20. The power of the humble context diagram
Guide initial
elicitation
Guide
business
analysis
planning
Good planGood start Successful analysis
Path to

21. Game
time!

22. Some business rules
Think about your greatest analysis lesson
learnt from the early stages of a project
(e.g. scoping, planning, stakeholder
management, etc.).
Write it down.
1
2
Be prepared
to share!
3
If you are new to the
BA world, think of
something related to
the early stages of
analysis stage that
you’ve learned today.