CBAP Business analysis planning and monitoring

CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring
Adaptive Processes © Be with the Best! 1
Business analysis planning and
monitoring

Home sweet home
It was getting quite cold outside as the month of December was
approaching. However, Dinesh was very relaxed as his first large
Oracle Financials implementation for a prestigious retail chain in
Seattle was well on schedule. He was confident that his team would
complete the project in the balance one month left and he would be
back home in India after 6 months of on-site stint.
His phone rang. Todd, Head of Legal, wanted to see him. Dinesh
had met Todd only during the project kick-off. For subsequent
project review meetings, no one from legal function joined project
review meetings.
When he met Todd, his comments hit him hard. Todd told that most
of the financial reports developed by Dinesh’s team need to be
rewritten, as none met legal requirements with respect to US
taxation. With just under a month left, Dinesh and his team were
now faced with the task of completely rewriting these reports that
had taken over 3 months to create.

What is planning?
How planning helps?
What the BA should be planning?

Business analysis planning and
monitoring
Plan business analysis
approach
Conduct stakeholder
analysis
Plan business
analysis activities
Plan business analysis
communication
Plan requirements
management
process
Manage business
analysis
performance

Tools for planning
Lets review the handout and present

What are the common
approaches for business
analysis?

Plan driven approaches vs. Change driven
approaches
Attribute Plan driven (Waterfall) Change driven (Iterative/Agile)
Focus To detail as much as possible in the
beginning to maximize control and
reduce risk.
To discover as we go.
Approver Sponsor Designated person
Applicable
situation
Complex, high cost of failure, well
drafted requirements possible.
Challenging stakeholder interaction.
Low cost of failure
Requirements amorphous
Degree of change
expected
Low High
Level of detail High Low
Change
management
Formal process Through product backlog, time
driven
Communication Formal Informal

Plan business analysis approach
Decide BA approach.
Decide req. prioritization approach.
Decide change management approach.
Decide BA planning process.
Decide communication approach.
Req. analysis and management tools.
Estimate BA effort.

BA approach vs. Project approach
Project approach BA approach
Waterfall Waterfall
Agile Waterfall
Agile
Even when project is agile, make sure all NFRs are collected in
a waterfall approach.
Functional requirements are better with agile based approach.

Who are stakeholders?
Why stakeholder analysis
is critical?
How do we analyze
stakeholders?
Identify > Prioritize or Categorize > Manage

Key roles and their primary
responsibilities in business analysis
Business analyst Understand business need, Identify solution approach and
select appropriate solution, gather and maintain requirements.
Sponsor Provide funding and approve requirement, Accepting the
solution
Project manager Estimation of schedule and cost, manage resource and project
Domain SME Provide requirements of the process
Implementation SME Provide technical solution
Tester Ensure quality of solution
Operational support Provide logistical support

Steps in stakeholder management
Stakeholder
Identification
Identifying key stakeholders who will or
will be influenced by your project
Stakeholder
Analysis
Understanding needs, expectations, and
interests of key stakeholders
Stakeholder
Management
Managing stakeholder expectations and
helping them adapt to change

Stakeholder influence patterns
Positive
High
Influence
Negative
High
Influence
Positive
Low
Influence
Negative
Low
Influence
You are lucky!
Identify what should be
done to move these
stakeholders to high
influence zone
Understand reasons for
discomfort
Engage actively
Communicate frequently
Identify positive influencers
who can influence these
stakeholders
Understand reasons for
discomfort.
Engage actively.
Communicate vigorously.
Identify positive influencers
who can influence these
stakeholders.

Stakeholder charter
• Many stakeholder management issues
can be resolved by having an
appropriate stakeholder charter.
• A stakeholder charter sets ground rules
for engagement with all stakeholders.
• This is a joint responsibility of the
project manager and business analyst.
Lets have a look at sample stakeholder charter!

Conduct stakeholder analysis
Identify
stakeholders.
Determine
complexity of
stakeholder groups.
Assess stakeholder
attitudes towards
business analysis
and towards project.
How do we identify our stakeholders?

Sources of stakeholders
Sponsor
Legal
function /
Client
Organization
chart
Process flow
Interviewing
stakeholder
Users of
existing
system
Suppliers

Plan business analysis activities
• Determine BA activities to be performed
• Deliverables to be produced.
• Estimate effort.
• Identify tools required to measure progress.
• Consider
– Geographic distribution of stakeholders.
– Type of project or initiative.
What is the difference between work product
and deliverable?

Plan business analysis communication
• Describe structure and schedule for
communications regarding business
analysis activities.
• Consider geographic locations.
• Consider cultural diversity.
• Consider type of project.
• Determine communication frequency.
• Consider communication formality.

Plan business analysis communication
Challenges Best practices
• Geographical spread
• Diction
• Cultural aspects
• When geographically dispersed,
maintain more written document.
• Speak slowly.
• Formally record decisions.

Manage business analysis performance
To manage performance of business analysis activities
to ensure they are executed as effectively as possible.
Determine BA performance measures.
Prepare performance reports.
Identify preventive and corrective actions.

Develop and present business analysis
plan for the given case study.
Preparation : 30 Minutes
Presentation : 30 Minutes

Lets test our understanding with sample
questions from the chapter.

Question 1
1. Which statement completes the following statement the LEAST effectively?
When considering the impact of 'project approach' on business analysis
planning for the customized component of a new software package, the
approach will.
a) Have an impact on planning and monitoring business analysis tasks as well
as the roles and responsibilities for business analysis.
b) Always be a predecessor to the start of requirements planning and
management.
c) Always be a successor to the start of requirements planning and
management.
d) Determine the formality of communication with the developer(s).

Correct option for Question
Correct option:
c) Business analysis approach should be defined prior to
requirements planning. Since the question is looking for a
negative answer, this is the choice.

Question 2
2. Non-functional requirements should be gathered in
a) Linear manner in the beginning of the project.
b) Iterative manner.
c) Should be collected after functional requirements.
d) No need to be collected.

Correct option:
a) Since NFRs are difficult to change, they should be collected
in the beginning of the project.

Question 3
3. Which statement about techniques is the most correct?
a) They are required for all tasks.
b) They are prescribed by the BABOK.
c) Describe different ways a task can be performed.
d) Provide supplemental information about one and only
one task.

Correct option:
c) From the BABOK's description of a Technique,
Section 1.6.

Question 4
4. Why the task to determine the appropriate format for
requirements is important to the project?
a) It assures that the same organizational artifacts are used
consistently by all BAs in all situations.
b) It assures that each requirement is described in a unique
format that respects the title and authority of the highest
ranking stakeholder in the audience.
c) It assures that requirements are understandable to their
particular stakeholders.
d) It assures that the presenter has sufficient time to learn new
tools to enhance each presentation of requirements to
different target audiences.

Correct option:
c) A theme of the BABOK, requirements must be presented in a
format suitable for the audience. BABOK 4.4.2.

Question 5
5. You are a business analyst in a project which involves
multiple location satellite development project. You will
recommend the following approach
a) Waterfall approach.
b) Agile approach.
c) Hybrid approach.
d) Scaled agile approach.

Correct option:
a) Waterfall approach as the failure cost is very high.

Question 6
6. The document that describes various stakeholders roles and
responsibilities during business analysis is
a) Business analysis plan.
b) Requirements management plan.
c) Business analysis communication plan.
d) Traceability matrix.

b) Requirements management plan contains stakeholder list,
roles and responsibilities.

Question 7
7. In a short, 3-month project to implement a COTS system,
the BA determined that a detailed Software Requirements
Specification document was not necessary and planned instead
upon Use Cases for the analysis technique and documentation
format. This is an example of
a) An assumption that could become a risk.
b) Appropriate use of risk mitigation.
c) A common mistake leading to prescriptive requirements.
d) Determining appropriate requirements analysis and
documentation activities.

d) The BA determines the best techniques to be used on the
project regarding the requirements process. BABOK 2.3.2.

Question 8
8. Knowledge of a specific department's organization structure
is
a) Organization knowledge.
b) Business knowledge.
c) Domain knowledge.
d) Department knowledge.

a) Knowledge about an organization or organizational unit is
organization knowledge. BABOK 8.3.3

Question 9
In order to assess business analysis performance,
business analysts need not
a) Capture effort spent on BA activities.
b) Hold daily meetings with the project manager.
c) Collect stakeholder feedbacks.
d) Measure quality of BA deliverables.

c) Rest all options are needed for business analysis performance.

Question 10
10. Which of the following statements best describes a plan-
driven approach?
a) These approaches tend to be preferred when taking an
exploratory approach.
b) Agile methods of software development are typical
examples.
c) This approach tends to be preferred when requirements can
be realistically defined prior to implementation.
d) The risk of an incorrect implementation is low.

Correct option:
c) These approaches tend to be preferred in situations where
requirements can effectively be defined in advance of
implementation, the risk of an incorrect implementation is
unacceptably high, or when managing stakeholder interactions
presents significant challenges. BABOK 2.1.4.

End of module
Would you like to clarify any thing on the
module?
Any suggestions for improvement?

CBAP Business analysis planning and monitoring

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