Presentation to BA World conference, Ottawa Ontario, Nov 2010. What to look for in your toolkit and how to choose the tools that meet your needs? This presentation looks at the different types of tools that are available to BAs, and how each can best be leveraged for the various BA artifacts and techniques. You’ll learn about the problems that can be encountered using standard office tools, and some features of BA-focused tools that can help increase your productivity. You’ll be provided with some key requirements to consider when choosing the tools for your BA toolkit, and some caveats to watch out for when assessing BA tools.

1. What’s in Your BA Toolkit?
Marie Halsey
November 2010
Marie Halsey Consulting Inc.

2. Learning Objectives
The different types of BA tools and
when they are appropriate
The key requirements to consider
when selecting BA tools
The process to follow when assembling
your BA toolkit
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3. Background
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4. One day …
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5. BA Role: Liaison Among Stakeholders …
Business Project
Sponsors Clients Managers
Customer
Reps Solution
Delivery Team
Business - Solution Architect
End - Developer
Users Analyst - DBA
- Usability Specialist
- Tester
- Trainer
- Change Manager
Suppliers
Operational
Support
Regulators
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6. What Tools to Use?
It depends …
Methodology
Waterfall, iterative, agile
Project type
Custom software, COTS,
infrastructure/hardware-only
Artifacts produced
Maturity of BA organization
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7. Types of Communication Tools…
Low-tech and hardware-based tools
Collaboration tools
Software-based tools, to produce:
Documents
Diagrams
Other Artifacts
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8. Low-Tech & Hardware-based Tools
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9. Collaboration Tools
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10. Software-based Communication Tools
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11. Software-based Tools
Let’s look at:
the various types of software-based
communication tools
which artifacts are best suited to each type
Refer to “Marie Halsey - Software Tool Categories.xls”
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12. Issues with Office-type Tools?
No supporting database
No support for meta-data
No associations, traceability is difficult
Re-use is difficult
No integration between diagrams & elements
Requirements management is very difficult
Reporting is WYSIWYG, no automated
‘packaging’
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13. How to choose? Follow the process!
Assess Processes,
Conduct
Current Problems Product
State Assessment
Detailed
Toolkit
Req’ts
Identify Define Select
BA Toolkit Toolkit
BA Toolkit Product(s)
Needs Needs Req’ts
Identify Implement
Toolkit Toolkit Gaps BA Toolkit
Gaps
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14. Document Your Requirements
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15. Functional Requirements – Usability
Easy to use; intuitive, consistent interface
Easy to learn; online help, tutorials
Supports fast data capture & diagramming
‘Drag and drop’ existing elements onto diagram
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16. Functional Requirements
– Requirements Capture and Presentation
Tree view
Parent-child hierarchy
Expand/collapse
Table/spreadsheet view
List of attributes
Parent-child structure maintained
Traceability
Matrix view
Tree view
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17. Functional Requirements – Traceability
Directional
Hierarchical (‘Traces To’ and ‘Traces From’)
Parent-child
Non-directional (peer-to-peer)
Cross-project (project segmentation, re-use)
Flag missing traceability
Flag ‘suspect’ relationships
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18. Functional Requirements
– Views and Reports
Searching, filtering and sorting
Tailoring and user-defined templates
Report on text, tables, diagrams, meta-data
Multiple formats (e.g., Word, Excel, HTML, XML)
Metrics (e.g., how many changed req’ts?)
Impact analysis
Packaged output appeals to all stakeholders
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19. Functional Requirements
– Useful Features
Spell checking
Glossaries (e.g., highlight ambiguous terms)
Bulk data selection
Range (SHIFT-Click), non-contiguous (CTRL-click)
Bulk processing
Parent-child, re-parent
Update attribute values
Traceability
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20. Functional Requirements – Use Cases
Full integration of use case with activity
diagram
Automatically maintains activity diagram
Changes to activity diagram automatically reflected
in use case, and vice versa
Use case has different attributes than use
case steps.
Automatic numbering of steps, alternate paths
Supports ‘extends’ and ‘includes’ use cases
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21. Functional Requirements
– User Interface Prototyping
Sketches, mockups & wireframes (low fidelity)
Simulations and prototypes (high fidelity)
Templates and branding
‘Look and feel’ widgets, banners, controls
Images and snapshots of current UI
Site maps and screen transitions/flow
User comments
Associate data model elements
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22. Functional Requirements
– Requirements Management
Change Management / Change control
Revision history
Compare versions; shows revision marks!
Notification of changes
Configuration Management
Baselines and versioning
Release management (multi-release support)
‘Living’ Master Requirements List
Re-use
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23. Functional Requirements - Integration
Associate diagram elements with meta-data
Associate requirements artifacts with
reference material (e.g., documents, images
and diagrams, URLs)
Import from Word and Excel
Package requirements, using all formats of
artifacts
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24. Functional Requirements
– Associations and Interoperability
Integration is critical!
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25. Document Your Requirements
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26. Non-Functional Requirements
Work offline?
Co-located or distributed team?
Client-side or web-based?
Team size?
Concurrent or ‘named’ licenses?
Multi-user support?
Project size? How many requirements?
Data security and user management?
Scalable for future growth?
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27. Non-Functional Requirements
– Tool Administration
User-defined requirement types
Different attributes for each requirement type
Attribute formats (text, $, date/time, URL, etc.)
Attribute validation – single- and multi-valued
lists, range of values
Project templates
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28. Keep following the process!
Assess Processes,
Conduct
Current Problems Product
State Assessment
Detailed
Toolkit
Req’ts
Identify Define Select
BA Toolkit Toolkit
BA Toolkit Product(s)
Needs Needs Req’ts
Identify Implement
Toolkit Toolkit Gaps BA Toolkit
Gaps
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29. Prepare for Product Assessment
Weight / prioritize requirements
Prepare list of candidate vendors
Check the internet, web reviews
Talk to peers, professional associations
Gartner reports, Forrester surveys
Consider open source software
Conduct survey based on high-level
requirements, to short-list 3-5 vendors,
Arrange for demos, training & support
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30. And then … Caveat emptor !
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31. Known Toolkit Challenges
Baselining, versioning, release management
Comparing versions
Integration of requirements elements
Packaging / reporting, esp. non-text and
associated elements
Ease of capturing and reporting traceability
Support for re-use
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32. Conduct Product Assessment
Assess product compliance against detailed
requirements
1 – Compliant, with ease
2 – Compliant, with challenges
3 – Partially compliant, with workaround
4 – Partially compliant, no workaround
5 – Non-compliant
Write notes for items 2-5 (for later reference)
Determine workarounds to tool gaps
Are they worth the cost & effort?
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33. Keep following the process!
Assess Processes,
Conduct
Current Problems Product
State Assessment
Detailed
Toolkit
Req’ts
Identify Define Select
BA Toolkit Toolkit
BA Toolkit Product(s)
Needs Needs Req’ts
Identify Implement
Toolkit Toolkit Gaps BA Toolkit
Gaps
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34. Select Product(s)
Consider cost of ownership vs. functionality
Migration and training
Licensing, vendor support, maintenance
BA support (e.g., tool administrator(s), in-
house trainers, customized user
documentation)
Integration / interoperability of multi-vendor
toolkit
Hardware (e.g., server, database license)
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35. Implement BA Toolkit
Develop training, guidelines, best practices,
pre-defined templates or reports
Conduct pilot to test new toolkit, including
testing of the training and documentation
Consider phased deployment to reduce
project impact, esp. with multi-vendor toolkit
Provide toolkit support
Implement feedback mechanism
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36. One Final Thought …
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37. What You Learned …
The different types of BA tools and
when they are appropriate
The key requirements to consider
when selecting BA tools
The process to follow when assembling
your BA toolkit
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38. Questions?
Thank you!
Marie Halsey
mhalsey@magma.ca
Marie Halsey Consulting Inc.
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