Business Analysis Based on BABOK® Guide Version 2 - A Pocket Guide. Jarett Hailes
1.2 What is Business Analysis?
Business analysis as a profession is relatively young, but the core activities that encompass its value have been performed by a wide variety of individuals within modern organizations for quite some time.
Fundamentally, business analysis is about:
■ Understanding an organization’s core goals and objectives;
■ Being able to identify and assess key drivers that enable the organization to meet its goals and objectives;
■ Determining how an organization’s people, processes, structures and technologies work together as a system to perform their operations and how this ties to its goals and objectives;
■ Defining the needs of the organization based on its key drivers, goals and objectives as well as its current capabilities and future potential;
■ Evaluating potential solutions that will enable the organization to realize its goals and objectives.
As implied by the BABOK® Guide definition, business analysis is an enabling function that works with many groups of people who are involved directly and indirectly with an organization. Business analysis takes information from internal staff, customers, suppliers, partners, and vendors to develop a comprehensive understanding of the organization as it pertains to a particular problem or situation being analyzed (or the problem ‘domain’).
As a result, Business Analysts need to be able to comprehend and process information that will often be conveyed from many different perspectives. To successfully perform business analysis, a Business Analyst must be able to understand information from many different industries and professions, each of which have their own set of terminology, standards, cultures and perception of the organization. Business Analysts take information from all these sources, determine what is relevant and valuable, and then use that information to define the organization’s needs and assess potential solutions.
1.3 The Need for Business Analysis
Most modern organizations are comprised of the following people, processes and tools:
■ Executives focused on defining and achieving strategic goals and outcomes;
■ Front-line staff focused on executing their assigned tasks as efficiently as possible;
■ Managers focused on ensuring their teams meet or go beyond the expectations of their superiors;
■ Customers focused on their experience with the product or service they receive;
■ Suppliers and vendors focused on delivering what they need to in order to retain and increase their business with their client;
■ An array of information technology, communication, and other systems that help facilitate processes, knowledge management, and interaction with all the above stakeholders.
Each person and group within this collection has different viewpoints, skills, backgrounds and priorities that make it difficult for them to see how to effectively utilize the organization’s resources in order to solve problems and capitalize on opportunities:
■ Executives may be able to see the big picture but don’t have a deep understanding of the organization’s capabilities to decide which components should be leveraged for a particular initiative;
■ Front-line staff may not be empowered or realize how to make changes that will work towards the company’s strategic objectives, or have their own vision and priorities that compete with the executive view;
■ Managers are too busy putting out the daily fires to dedicate time to bridge the vision and priorities of their staff and superiors;
■ Suppliers, vendors and even different departments within the same organization are conversant in the language of their domains, but may not be able to effectively interpret how other stakeholders think and talk.
These problems are only exacerbated as organizations grow and/or are forced to adapt to changes in their industries.
Business analysis takes information from all of these people, groups, and tools to assess what the true needs of the organization are and find solutions that will effectively address those needs. It allows individuals and teams to get a holistic view of all relevant information related to a particular goal and helps facilitate the assessment and implementation of solutions that will achieve that goal.
Business analysis delivers value to organizations by:
1.4 About IIBA
IIBA® was formed in 2003 in Canada by 28 founding members2 who were dedicated to promoting the emerging profession of business analysis. The organization initially focused on the development of professional standards, certifications and a collective body of knowledge.
The organization has grown by leaps and bounds since then, and now has over 26,000 members around the world in 134 countries.
Today the organization has several key offerings that help aspiring and seasoned Business Analysts develop their skills, give employers the ability to assess and improve the performance of their Business Analysts, and build relationships with other professions and organizations to enhance the value Business Analysts can deliver.