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Business analysis
- 1. Business Analysis; itsneeds and benefits to Organizations Business Analysis, presented by Joseph Abboud on 25th August, 2016
- 2. Agenda Business Analysis needs& Benefits to Organizations – ( statistics) What is Business Analysis Value of Business Analysis to organizations Who perform Business analysis and where a business analyst can be involved What does a BA do? 3 examples Stakeholders the BA deals with Managing their conflicts Lifecycles the BA deals with Requirements: What is a requirement Types of requirements the BA handles (Forming, Transforming, and Finalizing) of requirements Elicitation, Analysis, modeling, etc… Managing Requirements Assets
- 3. Business Analysis needs Benefits to Organizations Inaccurate requirements gathering consistently ranks in the top three causes of project failure; yet only half of organizations have the resources in place to perform this function properly, according to PMI Pulse of the Profession® research. In 2014, PMI reported the following: • Inaccurate requirements gathering” was reported by 37% of organizations as a primary cause of project failure. • Poor Requirements management practices are the second leading cause of project failure, second only to changing organization priorities. This research clearly shows that Organizations that have mature business analysis practices in place today are dramatically improving the probability of project success. BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR PRACTITIONERS: A PRACTICE GUIDE ©2015 Project Management Institute
- 4. Business analysis (BA)is the practice of enabling change in an organizational context, by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders. http://marketplace.pmi.org/Pages/ProductDetail.aspx?GMProduct=00101489201 Business analysis involves identifying needs, recommending solutions, and eliciting, documenting and managing requirements. BAs help to shape the output of projects to deliver the expected benefits. http://www.pmi.org/learning/featured-topics/business-analysis Business Analysis is the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison among the stakeholders in order to understand the structure , policies and operations of an organization, and to recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals. What is it?
- 5. Business analysis (BA)is the practice of enabling change in an organizational context, by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders. Enabling Change
- 6. Business analysis isthe practice of enabling change in an organizational context, by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders. Defining Needs
- 7. Recommending Solutions Business analysisis the practice of enabling change in an organizational context, by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.
- 8. Deliver Value toStakeholders Business analysis is the practice of enabling change in an organizational context, by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.
- 9. Value of BusinessAnalysis In order to appreciate and better understand the value of business analysis, we need to reflect again on the definition of Business Analysis, and eliminate its key phrase. 1- What happens when an organization does not enable change? 2- What happen when an organization does not understand its needs? 3- What happen if it does not come up with a solution to its needs? 4- What if the solution does not meet the needs of the stakeholders?
- 10. Who perform BusinessAnalysis? Anyone who perform business analysis activities is a business analyst. System analyst Process analyst Product manager Enterprise analyst Business architect Etc… So where a business analyst can be involved? A- Strategic planning B- Operational Analysis C- Process analysis D- IT/ Business System Analysis
- 11. Role of BusinessAnalyst Business Analyst works on requirements every day!
- 12. What does aBusiness Analyst do? Scenario One A fictional AYZ company is losing customers due to poor service. Business Analyst approaches to understanding the problem will be: Getting feedback from former customers Interviewing Customer Service team to get more feedback on the complaints. Possible Solutions: AYZ may need to invest in training the Customer Service Team. AYZ may need to get customer service portal
- 13. Scenario Two AYZ companyhas a slow growth due to lack of online presence. Business Analyst approaches to understanding the problem will be: Interview internal and external stakeholders What feature are needed? How will these features work? What brand impression do we want to portray? Possible solutions: Development of web portal to meet the need of all stakeholders What does a Business Analyst do?
- 14. Scenario Three Governments haveas much problems as companies. Let’s say that a government department needs to reduce budget while maintaining the services to public. A Business Analyst approaches to understanding the problem will be: Interview Stakeholders Analyze public service offering Possible solutions might be to: Automate tasks Simplify the processes What does a Business Analyst do?
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- 16. Stakeholders Who are they? Fromthe PMBOK® Guide: Stakeholder: An individual, group or organization who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity or outcome of the project. So a stakeholder is anyone impacted positively or negatively by a set of requirements.. Taken from Seventh Morning online course
- 17. Stakeholders Needs Interests A- Project Mangers The job of a Business Analyst is to understand the needs of an organization. The latter runs on people. Thus understanding the personal needs of stakeholders is critical to the project success. Project Managers: PMs are judged by the success of their projects. In general, the project is considered successful if it is on time+ on budget + on scope. How can a BA help them? Keep them aware of risks and issues. PMs worst nightmare? It is when a project goes out of control. So you can help them by making the analysis effectively and on time.
- 18. Stakeholders Needs Interests B- Implementation Team Implementation team: They need to do their work as per the agreed requirements without any interruption. How can a BA help them? By providing a clear and complete requirements, on time, and on scope. It is also helpful to schedule a meeting with them at the beginning or end of the day only. “Staying in the zone” without interruption make them feel great. Their worst nightmare is the death march. (unrealistic schedule or other work activities to make them overwork)
- 19. Stakeholders Needs Interests C- Quality Assurance / Testing Team Quality Assurance / Testing Team: Their interest lies mostly in: a) High level of quality on the product/service they configure/test b) Being able to plan their work properly and effectively. How can a Business Analyst help them? • Engage them early in the project. • Get them high-quality requirements on time. Their worst nightmare is when the product or system is released or handed over with poor or horrible quality.
- 20. Everyone wants his/herboss to be happy. Yet if you want him/her to be happy with you, you as a Business Analyst need to address their needs. Bosses job: Managing up and Managing down. Bosses need to keep track records, and metrics. How can a Business Analyst help them? Just do your job effectively by making them aware of questions, issues, risks, and also successes! This will help them make their managers aware of good as well as bad news. In doing so, BA helps the whole organization moves forward. Worst nightmares? When a project goes awry and the PM cannot do anything to handle it. Stakeholders Needs Interests D- Bosses / Management
- 21. Sponsors interest inmainly when a product meets the goals of the organization. How can a Business Analyst help them? a) By effectively managing the business analysis of the project. b) By ensuring that the collected requirements really achieve the goals of the organization. Sponsors worst nightmare? When a project and product both fail. Stakeholders Needs Interests E- Sponsor
- 22. Stakeholders Needs Interests F- Internal Users and Customers These are the people who will be using the system to do internal and external processes or transactions. They are great sources of input for a Business Analyst, because they are usually the most impacted by the quality of the final product, and therefore a BA should consider them key stakeholders.
- 23. Managing Stakeholders Conflicts Oftentimes,a Business Analyst finds himself /herself in a situation where he/she needs to solve conflicts between stakeholders. Categories of conflicts: External – External Internal – Internal External – Internal
- 24. External – ExternalConflict Stakeholders Needs Analysis is a tool that a Business Analyst use to solve conflicts between stakeholders. Posing the following questions, he/she will be able to solve this type of conflict. A- What does each party say they want? B- Why they want them C- In their mind, what priority of their needs is? Do they have priority? D- are the assumptions they made valid?
- 25. Taking place withinthe project team, this type of conflict is a little easier to solve than others. The approach of a BA is the same; Perform a Stakeholders Needs Analysis. One thing to bear in mind in this type of conflict is that all parties want to improve the quality of the product or service. Meeting and negotiating the issue at hand might be necessary. Internal – Internal Conflict
- 26. This is thetoughest to solve type of conflict. Here a BA should be the voice of the customer. Relying on facts and numbers rather than opinions, a BA may be able to persuade the internal stakeholder of the customer’s needs. Again, performing Stakeholders Needs Analysis is the tool. Note: Negotiation is a topic unto itself. BA should be able to communicate extremely well to all stakeholders. External – Internal Conflict
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- 29. Project Lifecycle According toPMI: A project is “A temporary group activity, designed to produce a unique product, service or result.” Projects do not go on forever; they do have a beginning and an end. Hence they do have life cycles.
- 30. A product hasa life cycle; such as this lecture! Intro: Products’ idea originate where initial analysis, concept development, prototyping, market research etc are all done. Development is where the actual product comes to live. Growth is when you sell the product to new customers. Maturity phase will be reached (upon improvement or feedback from customers) Decline is the end of the product.
- 31. SDLC It is theprocess by which systems are created, Operated, then terminated. The development of software can be managed under two methodologies: 1- WATERFALL / Traditional 2- AGILE
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- 34. Requirement lifecycle Taken fromSeventh Morning online course
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- 36. Definition of requirements Inthe PMBOK® Guide – Fifth Edition, requirement is defined as “a condition or capability that is required to be present in a product, service, or result to satisfy a contract or other formally imposed specification.” Example of a condition: A system needs to accept order from online requests so more revenue can be realized. Example of a capability: In order to get more revenue, the system must encrypt the process (for security reason) Requirements are formed, transformed, then finalized. Each phase encompasses several steps to be completed.
- 37. Requirements have requirements,called attributes. Part of the business analyst’s job is to help the stakeholders define the problem or opportunity and determine what should be done to address it. The elicitation process helps facilitate this work. Some stakeholders may not even know their needs. Requirements Should be : 1- Clear (Sometimes a stakeholder thinks that he understand the requirement but actually do NOT). Business analyst should communicate all requirements to all stakeholders, so if one is not clear, he and the project will end up in trouble. 2- Complete : This means that the requirements should contain all necessary info for others who depend on it, do their work. 3- Applicable: The requirement should be application to the solution a BA will be recommending, and that the solution is applicable to the organization’s problem. 4- Prioritized: the sponsor should tell the BA about the priority of requirements. 5- Implementable : The requirement can be realized in tangible code or process ; that is feasible. 6- Testable: If not testable, there is no need to implement it! The test team should be included. Requirements
- 38. When forming arequirement, 3 points should come to the mind of a business analyst. 1- Description of the requirement 2- Owner / Source 3- Rationale Forming Requirements Description: The system should be able to run a report on all the beverages sold over a given timeframe Owner: Product Manger / Joseph Abboud Rationale: Need the report to report the metrics to his boss.
- 39. Forming Requirements Description: Thesystem should be able to run a report on all the beverages sold over a given timeframe What should the report look like? How many columns should it include? Does he need a list of every sale transaction Does he need a list with summary details only What “over a given time” mean?
- 40. Requirement Types Business Requirements UserRequirements Functional Requirements Non-Functional Requirements
- 41. Business Requirement They arerelated to the business: “Why are we doing this project?” Increasing Revenue Reducing Costs Increasing Margins Growing the brand Request ID Requirement description Rationale Source Management Expectation #1 The system will cost less than $100,000, enabling the product line to achieve ROI of 18% BR-1 system will cost less than $100,000, It will enabling the product line to achieve ROI of 18% Joseph Abboud / Product Manager
- 42. User Requirements Itis coming from the users to the users! Business Analyst should always include the “End users” when collecting requirements. Example: Requirement ID Description Rationale Source Parent UR-1 The summary report will list each beverage products available for sale by the organization. The list of products is critical to understanding the report Martha BR-2 System will enable a user to create summary reports of all beverages sold monthly.
- 43. Functional Requirements This typeof requirement describes the functional needs of a product. Business and User requirement describe WHAT the product will do, however a functional requirement describes HOW the system will do it. Requirement ID Requirement Rationale Source Parent FR-1 The report will list beverage names in title case Makes it easier to read for management and more professional looking Walid UR-1
- 44. Non-Functional Requirements Non-functional requirementsdescribe QUAITIES which are required by the system. Taken from Seventh Morning online course
- 45. Documents sources 1- Pre-existingrequirements documentation 2- All stakeholders mentioned in previous slides Tips: If some materials are vague, bring in an expert.
- 46. Forming Requirements - Gathering requirements – 1 on 1 meeting Elicitation skills are key to Business Analyst success. Challenges: Communication is oftentimes imprecise. Some people don’t understand what they need until they see it! Eliciting requirements can be accomplished in several ways: 1 on 1 : • Business Analyst starts with the sponsor and move on to the next stakeholder he thinks will help him greatly in understanding the issue at hand. • Business Analyst defines his goals for the interview! • Recap the purpose of the meeting. • BA emails the notes to the stakeholder to ensure the mutual understanding.
- 47. Gathering Requirements GroupMeeting Group Meeting has its own challenges. BA should take a colleague with him to take notes. Note –takeer should record questions, answers, sources, and rationales. Some people will not be give their opinion in front of others. Business Analyst prepares his agenda, and email it to the group before the meeting takes place. During the group meeting the BA pose questions to the group in order to better elicit information from all of them. He asks open-ended questions.
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- 49. Transforming Requirements Transforming requirementsare arguably the most important work for a Business Analyst. It is here where he/she can show his true value. The topic is divided into 3 sections: 1- Analysis 2- Diagramming 3- Modeling
- 50. “Generally, all analysisgets beyond mere description and into examination and explanation.” University of Richmond writing center Analysis is a careful study of something to learn about its parts, what they do and how they are related to each other. Decomposition Analysis is a great tool that BA uses to analyze requirements. It is about breaking a complex requirement into smaller parts to facilitate its study. Transforming Requirements - Analysis
- 51. Example: “System willenable a user to create a summary report of all beverages sold monthly.” Report Data-related details Columns Rows Headers Timing and delivery detailed Presentation of report
- 52. Additive / SubtractiveAnalysis It is used when a Business Analyst tries to understand the role of a requirement in its complex. Request ID Requirement description Rationale Source BR-1 Summary report will list each of the beverage products available for sale in the organization. Joseph Abboud / Product Manager
- 53. Gap Analysis Gap analysisin short is the study of the current state, and foreseeing where the product or process will be in the future. It is extremely tied up with ENABLING CHANGE. It is about understanding the current state: Define the future state Chart a path from current to future state Taken from Seventh Morning online course
- 54. Transforming Requirements – Diagramming / Notations Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN): A diagramming technique used as a standardized diagramming notation for business process analysis and management.
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- 57. Requirement transformation -Swim Lane
- 58. Requirement transformation -Swim Lane + Flowchart Taken from Seventh Morning online course
- 59. Use Case isone way of modeling requirements. Used mostly to illustrate concepts, simplify topics, validate requirements, etc… Requirement transformation – Modeling – Use Case
- 60. Finalizing Requirements – Presentation After a Business Analyst elicit all requirements, and transforming them, it is time to share them in a professional manner with all stakeholders. 1- Presenting requirements Tip-1: Attitude is key. Business Analyst needs to determine his attitude before the presentation. Tip-2: Audience / Stakeholders is the point, not the material. Tip-3: Know the stakeholders / Audience (think about them when planning for the presentation. Tip-4: Monitor the audience. Are they keeping up with the materials or they getting bored? Are they asking questions? Tip-5 : Match the pace with the audience. If they look confused, slow the pace; if bored speed up. Tip -6: Strive for conversation not lectures. Tip- 7: Convey info into graphics or anecdotes.
- 61. Finalizing Requirements – Walk-Through Business Analyst walks through all documents over a meeting with stakeholders. (pick the key ones) Lay down the rules, and ask for feedback from them all. Give an overview on the subject (around 1 minute or less). Example: Two months back the AYZ company management determined that they need to launch a line of sports’ products. One of the challenges they faced was the lack of system to track the sales. So I started defining requirements, working with you to define what is needed to create the tracking system. Today I need to run through all the requirements with you to confirm that we are on the same page.
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- 63. Managing Requirements After theproject is done, what are requirements sued for? They are used for: Product / Process training Administrative purpose subsequent projects
- 64. Managing Requirements –Change Control Change Control manages changes to the baselined requirements.
- 65. Required skills fora Business Analyst • Communication Skills: BA should have the skill to facilitate meetings, ask good questions, actively listen to answers, and absorb what is being said. • Problem-Solving Skills: No project is without problems. The entire project is a solution to a problem. At the highest level, BAs facilitate a shared understanding of the problems. • Documentation and Specification Skills : While documentation or writing could be considered a subset of written communication, it’s really its own skill set for a BA. Here I include the ability to create clear and concise documentation. • Analysis Skills : Business analysts use a variety of techniques to analyze the problem and the solution. • Visual Modeling : A close sister to many analysis techniques is the ability to create visual models, such as work-flow diagrams. • Facilitation and Elicitation Skills: BAs facilitate specific kinds of meetings. The most common kinds of elicitation sessions a BA facilitates are interviews.
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