The document provides an overview of business analysis concepts and techniques. It discusses key failures in major projects such as the Tower of Babel and Titanic to illustrate the costs of erroneous requirements. Business analysis aims to answer simple questions to define stakeholder needs and recommend solutions that deliver value. It focuses on communication with stakeholders and decision making under uncertainty. The field draws on cross-disciplinary knowledge and uses techniques from domains like software engineering, psychology and design thinking. It emphasizes the importance of understanding changing needs to enable successful transformation and avoid costly errors.

1. Michael Kramarenko, PhD, CSO
Introduction to Business Analysis

2. Case study: “Tower of Babel”
Product: a tower whose top is in the
heavens
Product owner: Nimrod, the great-
grandson of Noah
Fail reason: “Lord confused the language
of all the earth; and from there the Lord
scattered them abroad over the face of all
the earth”

3. Case study: “Wasa Museum”
Product: The biggest warship on the Baltic
and beyond (1626-1628)
Product Owner: Swedish King Gustavus
Adolphus
Development process: designer Henrik
Hybertsson strictly followed the king’s
instructions
“Big Fail”: maiden voyage to the naval
station at Älvsnabben 10 August 1628.
Center of gravity was too high

4. Case study: “Titanic”
Product: The biggest unsinkable ship in the
world
Product Owner: White Star Lines
Development process: untested
“unsinkable” requirement, problematic
clincher material, not calculated boats
amount
“Big Fail”: colliding with an iceberg
15.04.1912 during maiden voyage from
Southampton to New York

5. Computing is everywhere. Top Worst Cases
● September 16, 1983 - Erroneous report Soviet nuclear early warning
system
● February 25, 1991 - 28 were killed and 100+ injured due to failed to
track and intercept a Scud missile (Gulf War)
● February 2003 - St. Mary’s Mercy Medical Center computer system
reported costs the lives of 8500 patients
● October 2014 - Wrongly calculated taxes for 5 mln UK workers
● December 2014 - One penny goods price in Amazon marketplace

6. Recent IT Projects statistics

7. Dr. Dobb’s Journal 2013 IT project survey

8. Nothing has changed during 30 years!
● The requirements were not properly
understood, recorded, and analysed
● Risks were not planned, budgeted and
managed competently
● Requirement changes were not kept
under control
● Stakeholder conflicts were not resolved
before the computing project started
www.pmtoday.co.uk | MARCH 2014

9. Computing is everywhere. Cost of error
NASA Johnson Space Center, Error Cost Escalation Through the Project Life Cycle. 2004

10. What is Business Analysis?
“Business analysis is the practice of enabling change in an
enterprise by defining needs and recommending solutions
that deliver value to stakeholders”

11. Answer Simple Questions
● How to properly identify stakeholders?
● What does the value mean? How to measure it?
● How to design & define the solution?
● Who, how and why will use the solutions?
● Why we can recommend the solutions?
○ How to assess it?
○ How to delivery it?
● How to be ready for possible changes?

12. Business Analysis Periods
Conceptuali
sation
Specification
-based
Agile
Value
-focused
1950’s - 1968 2001- the main
trend nowadays
mid 2000’s -
nowadays
1968 - rare
nowadays

13. Conceptualisation period
● Focus on hardware efficiency
● Complexity of programming
● Low productivity
● Heroic debugging
● Unpredictable results
○ Budget
○ Schedule
○ Quality
● Requirements first

14. Specification-base period ● Software/hardware cost
● Software crisis
● Clarification of software
development life cycle
● Importance of domain
knowledge

15. The Agile Period
● Controlled uncertainty
● Controlled scope creep
● Levels of granularity & detalisation:
○ Vision
○ Epic
○ Story
○ Task
● Demo session & Early feedback
● Big Picture: Sprint 0 or Discovery phase
● New roles
○ Product owner
○ Proxy Product owner

16. Value-focused period
● High level of uncertainty
● Constant readiness for changes & pivoting
● Hypothesis about users, their problems & goals
● Hypothesis instead of requirements
● Measurable hypothesis validation
● MVP as a tools for hypothesis validation:
○ Problem
○ Solution
○ Value
● Data driven decision making
● Knowledge as a gain value

17. Outsourcing landscape transformation

18. Outsourcing landscape transformation

19. New challenge: “From Idea to Delivery”

20. Business Analysis Key Concept

21. Business Analysis Core Concepts Model
● Stakeholder - a group or individual with a relationship to change, the need, or
the solution
● Need - a problem or opportunity to be addressed
● Solution - satisfaction the needs by resolving a problem faced by stakeholders
● Change - the act of transformation in response to a needs
● Context - the circumstances that influence, are influenced by, and provide
understanding of the change
● Value - the worth, importance, or usefulness of something to a stakeholder
within a context

22. Stakeholders IRONIC
● Culture
● Values
● Assumptions
● Expectations
● Language
● Status
● Personality
Interest
Rights
Ownership
kNowledge
Impact
Contribution

23. Key stakeholder questions
● How to identify?
● How to access?
● How to reveal their real need?
● How to sell yourself?
● How to engage?
● How to validate?
● How to reach consensus?

24. Chain of Reasoning or Reasons of Changes
Problem
Stakeholders
Needs
Criteria
Solution
Constraigns

25. Analysis in the Context
● Trends context
○ Political
○ Economical
○ Social
○ Technology
○ Demography
● Organisational context
○ Strategy
○ Product & Services
○ Competitors
○ Competencies
○ Chart
○ Processes & Tools
○ Rules & Policies

26. Business Analysis Techniques
Context
BA Goals Lifecycle Stakeholder
Deliverables
Experience
Techniques

27. Some Business Analysis Techniques
● P.E.S.T.L.E
● Fishbone diagram
● 5 Why
● MoSCoW
● Power/interest grid
● Organisational chart
● Business process
model
● KPI
● Acceptance &
Evaluation Criteria
● Document analysis
● Context diagram
● SWOT analysis
● Cost/benefit analysis
● Use case
● User story
● Story mapping
● Data Modelling
● Brainstorm
● Interview
● Observation
● Workshop
● Prototyping
● Business Model
Canvas
● Consumer Trend
Canvas
● Validation Board

28. Business Analysis Deliverables
Context
Audience Lifecycle Methodology
Deliverables
BA Goals
Templates
SOW BRD SRS Product
Vision
...Backlog
Tools
Prototype

29. Requirements Hierarchy
Business requirements
Stakeholder
requirements
Functional
requirements
Non Functional
requirements
Transition
requirements
Who?Where?What?
What?Who?
Why?
How?
What?How?
Solution requirements

30. Requirements quality
● Complete
● Clear
● Correct
● Consistent
● Feasible
● Testable
● Traceable
● Trackable

31. Deliverables quality
Ways of disinformation:
● information distortion & hiding
● unstructured information
● over detalization
● irrelevant language

32. Chain of Reasoning Example
Business goal
Business
objective
Business
requirement
Solution
requirement

33. Business Analysis as a Cross-disciplinary Knowledge
Business Analysis
Business
Architecture
Psychology
Project
Management
Quality
Management
Software
Engineering
Business
Intelligence
Business Process
Management
System
Thinking
Design
Thinking
Lean
Startup

34. BA Portrait
Business
Analysis
Knowledge
Business
Domain
Knowledge
Technology
Domain
Knowledge
Underlying
Competences
Business
Analyst

35. BA Personality
● Partner
● Investigator
● Change Agent
● Diplomat
Analytic
Thinking
Design
Thinking

36. Business Analyst Career Paths

37. BA Salary 2015

38. Business Analysis Sources of Knowledge

39. Summary
● Business Analysis is about real business needs and measurable value from
delivered solution
● Business Analysis is about communication with stakeholders
● Business Analysis is about answers simple questions: Why? What? Who?
When? Where? How? Erroneous answers are very costly
● Business Analysis is about decision making under high level of uncertainty
● Business Analysis is about readiness for constant changes
● Business Analysis as a set of cross-disciplinary techniques. But “No Silver
Bullet”
● Business Analysis is a creative demanded profession opening new horizons

40. Thank you!
Q&A