Business Analyst' Job

Nguyen Duy Nghiem, Msc. Senior PM – FPT Software Danang

What is the job of Business Analyst?

The term “Business Analyst” is synonymous with a career in the IT industry. The most successful and valuable analysts are those who understand the “business” rather than those who understand “IT“.

The BA has come to become a person of great value to an organization, and who is a generalist capable of functioning competently in diverse roles. Typically, these people have a broad educational background and a diverse skill set with a wide range of work experience in different jobs and industries. In essence, they are able to visualize the "big picture" - that is - understand the business from different perspectives, as well as the technology side of what can be effectively used to improve the business

Quoted from Sanjay Dugar, www.businessgyan.com

BA, What’s that mean?

So what exactly is the Business Analysis?What is the Business Analyst’s role?What is the best background for this job?What skill set is required?

Contents

Business Analysis:

Business analysis is the discipline of identifying business needs and determining solutions to business problems. Solutions may include a systems development component and may also consist of process improvement or organizational change or strategic planning and policy development.

IT Business Analyst: The people who carry out the process of

Business Analysis are called a Business Analysts or BA. BAs who work specifically on developing software systems may be called IT Business

Analysts, Technical Business Analysts, or Systems Analysts. Each organization may have its own ideas about the role, skills, responsibilities and expectations for the Business Analyst.

The Business Analyst Skills in a broad perspective comprises of the person being a …

Business Planner, Systems Analyst, Project Manager, Subject Area Expert, Organization Analyst, Financial Analyst, Technology Architect, Data Analyst, Application Analyst, Application Designer, and Process Analyst.

Skills

Skills of an IT Business Analyst:

The skills required by the B.A. are much more than just good inter-personal communication skills and experience with wide range of tools and techniques are needed, as well as an appropriate background and personality.

Skills

Major roles of a BA

Define and Scope Business Areas

Elicit requirements

Analyze and Document

requirements

Communication

Requirements

Identify Solution

Verify solution meets the Requirements

The role of Business Analyst

Define and Scope Business Areas Must be sure that the project scope is clear and complete

before the start of detailed requirements gathering. Defining and documenting the project scope requires the

BA to understand why the project has been initiated, and the objectives of the project. An important contribution of the BA to the project is the analyzing of the business problem without "jumping" to a solution

A complete project scope will name and define all the stakeholders that will be involved with the project, including people, systems, internal departments, and external organizations.

Define and Scope Business Areas Other important components of the project scope

documentation include the project viewpoint, project assumptions, and business risks. These components give the BA the information necessary to prioritize and focus the requirements gathering.

Finally the project scope should include a high-level description of the business processes. It may also include a list of items that specifically will not be included in the scope. This gives the entire project team a complete understanding of the work that the BA will be doing during the detailed requirements gathering phase.

Define and Scope Business Areas Essential Skills Required:

1. Facilitation skills to bring multiple groups together to scope project and get consensus

2. Ability to document the project scope using business terminology

3. Project scope documentation techniques

Elicit Requirements

We use the word elicit, since the BA must be able to get people to say all that they have to and not leave anything as assumptions.

It is critical that the BA initially gathers Business Requirements and completely understand the business needs before defining a software solution.

The BA must assess the type of project, the people involved, and the volume of information required; and then determine how and where to find the requirements.

Elicit Requirements

BAs have a variety of techniques available to them including interviews, facilitated information gathering sessions, surveys, questionnaires, observation, and existing documentation from which to choose.

Gathering complete, detailed requirements is an iterative process that involves the BA asking questions, pondering answers, asking follow-up questions, and bringing divergent opinions to consensus. It also involves prioritizing the requirements to assure that the most critical issues are addressed by the project solution

Elicit Requirements

Essential Skills Required:1. Asking the right questions2. Active listening3. Interviewing techniques4. Facilitation techniques5. Documentation6. Ability to categorize requirements

Analyze and Document Requirements The BA is responsible for following their organization's

standard documentation format or for creating their own. When developing a documentation format, the BA must

consider the best format for communicating with the information technology team and the best format for communicating with the business area experts.

The BA must also determine the appropriate level of detail for the documentation.

Analyze and Document Requirements The entire organization uses a consistent documentation

format and approach. The BA is often the person leading the development and

maintaining the standard documentation format. Typically there are many requirements. To organize them

and make them easy to review, they are divided into categories or groupings. It may be good to categorize requirements into Business, Functional, and Technical

Elicit Requirements

Essential Skills Required:1. Analysis Skills2. Understand the system development

methodology3. Utilize modelling techniques4. Categorization skills5. Prototype user interfaces6. Develop a textual template for requirements

Communicate Requirements

The BA should be the best communicator on the project team.

The BA must also work very closely with the Project Manager to ensure that the project plan is adhered to and scope creeps / changes are approved and documented.

As the requirements documentation is being created, the BA will conduct informal and formal requirements reviews. These review sessions increase the quality of the document by finding missing or unclear requirements.

Communicate Requirements

Essential Skills Required:1. Run effective meetings2. Active listening skills3. Precision questioning techniques4. Conduct formal and informal presentations5. Write clear emails, memos, and status reports6. Conduct a comprehensive requirements review7. Change management8. Write review summaries

Identify Solution

The BA should work closely with the Business Area Experts to make a recommendation for a solution and work with the technical team to design it.

If software automation is part of the solution, the BA should assist with the screen design, report design, and all user interface issues by providing detailed functional requirements.

If a software package is going to be purchased, the BA works with the Business Area Experts, IT personnel, and the potential vendors to discuss the requirements and verify that the package selected will meet the needs.

Identify Solution

Essential Skills Required:1. High level understanding of the software design2. Ability to evaluate vendor software packages3. Ability to estimate solution costs and benefits

and build a business case for implementation

Verify Solution meets the Requirements The BA should remain involved in the project even after

the technical team takes over. The BA reviews the technical designs proposed by the

design team for usability issues and to assure that the requirements are being satisfied.

Once the solution is developed into software, the BA is uniquely qualified to assess the software and determine how well it meets the original project objectives

Verify Solution meets the Requirements The BA should work closely with the Quality Assurance team

and to assist with the entire testing process. Testing is based on requirements, so the BA's intimate

knowledge of the requirements allows accurate design of test cases.

If there is no Quality Assurance team available, the BA can still assist with User Acceptance testing, the time when the Business Area Experts are asked to approve the software for implementation.

As the software is tested, the BA ensures that it is clearly documented and reports defects and variances from requirements.

Verify Solution meets the RequirementsEssential Skills Required:

1. Basic understanding of system design concepts2. Knowledge of software usability principles3. Understanding of testing principles4. Ability to write and review test cases

Conclusion

Seriously... The reality is that there isn't such as thing as a standard requirements document template to help guide the business analyst in the creation of this document.

The format of a Requirements Document vary depending on the type and size of project, type of organization, maturity of the business analysis team, use of specialized requirements management tools, type of methodology and development process(agile vs. RUP vs. structured analysis), etc.

Conclusion

Having said that, here are some common types of information found in many requirements documents Background/History Scope and Objectives Regulatory Requirements Business Level Requirements

Strategic Tactical (Interoperability) Operational (Process related mostly)

Stakeholder and User Analysis User Requirements (the abilities that the users need)

Conclusion

Functional Requirements Non-functional Level User Requirements Assumptions/Constraints Risks and Dependencies Solution Options Business Glossary (the nouns and noun-verb phrases of

the business) Reference to Business Rules Reference to Business Case/Vision Use Case Models

One more observation: requirements documents are also known by a variety of names which, at times, mean the same thing and, other times, refer to totally different documents:

• Requirements Document• Business Requirements Document (BRD)• Software Requirements Document• Software Requirements Specification (SRS)

There is a chain of reasoning that leads from the statement of a problem to the implementation of solutions…

POST-IMPLEMENTATIONBusiness Analysts feed back to the Owner how well their

measure of success has been achieved

Owners defines measures of success and $targets

…Business Analysts confirm & document

Strategists determine the strategy to hit the targets…Business Analysts help do market research, create strategy, challenge & documentSponsors

establish a Programme that delivers the strategy…Business Analysts document Programme TOR

and help build the Business Case

Programme ManagersInstitute Projects that implement the programme…Business Analysts document the Project TOR

Project Stakeholders…Business Analysts specify requirements for

Projects (in the Business Model)Design Analystsdesign solution that satisfies the requirements…Business Analysts write functional specifications, protect requirements & document compromises

Project managersImplement solution

…Business Analysts help with- Process and data migration

- Cutover planning- Rollout

Solution Builders & Businesstest solution…Business Analysts ensure tested against requirements

Solution Builders build solution

…Business Analysts protect requirements & document compromises

UsersAccept solution…Business Analysts help with- $MEASURING $BENEFITS $REALISATION

Setting the scene: scope of the Business Analyst role

$Money!

…involving up to 10 groups of people…

Questions?

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