Module in Strategic Business Analysis

Prof. Lorenzo B. Cabili, CPA, JD, DM

Faculty, College of Business Administration

1 Foundational Concept of Business Analysis

“There’s no shortage of remarkable ideas, what’s

missing is the will to execute them.”

- Seth Godin

Overview
Welcome to our first module. The scope of this module provides business
analysis framework that would help you understand this distinct discipline.
Business analysis touches all levels of organization. One cannot undermine
the role of business analysts; they can be found in all facets of the
organization—projects, programs, strategic planning, operations, and other
initiatives. In this complex world of business, where every organization is in
dire need to achieve their goals; business analysis plays an important role in
improving processes and systems in an organization.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this module, you should be able to:

 discuss the value of business analysis and the impact it has on the
organization
 explore the six knowledge area of business analysis
 explain the levels of business analysis
 identify the roles and skills of business analysts
 Defining Business Analysis

Business Analysis (BA) is the set of task and techniques used to work as a
liaison among 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.

Value of Business Analysis

 Setting expectations: BAs help stakeholders define a solution for their

problem. After a solution has been defined, expectations are set.

 Improving estimation: Performing BA helps define what needs to be

accomplished. Having the clearer picture lets organizations do a better
job of estimating what their solutions will cost and how long they’ll
take to implement.

 Better aligning projects with goals/objectives: BA professionals work on

both the “why” and the “how” pieces, they can see when a solution is
no longer aligned with the goals and objectives.

 Reducing project defects: BA activities details the rules, process, and

user interactions of the solution. This detail helps provide clear
direction for the people developing the solution and those testing the
solution to help ensure that defects are reduced and caught before the
solution is implemented.

 Smoothing the transition to production: Transition as it relates to

projects is all about moving from the development and test
environment, where you’re building the solution, to the production
environment, where the users are actually using the solution.

 Reusing requirements and reducing duplicate solutions: For every

initiatives, BAs should be careful not to duplicate requirements
underway in a different areas of the company.

 Improving communication within the team: BA activities boil down to

communication, since one role of business analyst is to elicit and
communicate the true needs of the business so that right solution can
be delivered.

 Increasing customer satisfaction: BAs help address the inevitable

changes a company goes through and can help mitigate any
problems customer may feel as a result of those changes.
 MIND CHALLENGE # 1

Mr. Chan is working on a project where the goal was to reduce

employee time on a specific process for a utility company and
therefore reduce salary costs associated with that process. He
identified many parts of the process that could be automated,
thereby reducing employee hours spent on the process. At one
point, he asked how many people performed a particular part of
the process and how often, only to find out one person did it
three times per year. Automating the part of the process would
cost P500,000.00 and save approximately 30 minutes of work
time and P600.00 salary cost per year. Do you think that
automating this part of the process is align to the goal of
reducing cost of the organization? Should Mr. Chan convince
everyone to automate or not to automate? Briefly discuss your
insight on this.
 Business Analysis Knowledge
Areas

Knowledge areas define what business analysts need to understand and the
tasks they should perform. They do not represent project phases, and their
activities are not intended to be performed in a linear fashion. Tasks from one
or more knowledge areas may be performed in any order (such as in
succession, simultaneously, or iteratively), provided that the necessary inputs
to each task are available.

The six knowledge areas are:

Business Requirements Solution

AnalysisElicitation Management Enterprise RequirementAssessment
Planning & and Analysis AnalysisValidation
Monitoring Communication

Business analysts are the BEaRERS of good news!

Business Analysis Planning and

Monitoring

Solution Assessment Requirements

Elicitation Enterprise Analysis Validations Management and
Communication

Requirements Analysis

Underlying competencies

Figure 1.1 Relationships between knowledge areas

 AREA 1 Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring

This is where the business analyst plans how to approach the business
analysis effort. The business analyst’s task list for this particular knowledge
area consists of:

 Determining the business analysis approach for the project

 Performing stakeholder identification, analysis, and categorization
 Defining the business analysis activities to be performed
 Addressing business analysis communication requirements
 Planning the requirements development and management process
 Managing and reporting on the business analysis effort

AREA 2 Elicitation

Elicitation defines how business analysts work with stakeholders to

identify and gather requirements and understand their needs and concerns.
The business analyst ’s task list for this knowledge area consists of:

 Building a detailed elicitation schedule for a specific activity

 Meeting with stakeholders to conduct the elicitation activity
 Documenting and recording the elicitation results
 Confirming elicitation results with key stakeholders

AREA 3 Requirements Management and Communication

Requirements Management and Communication defines how the

business analyst approaches communicating requirements to stakeholders.
The task is done by:

 Managing the solution scope and requirements

 Managing requirements traceability
 Maintaining requirements for reuse
 Preparing requirements packages
 Communicating requirements

AREA 4 Enterprise Analysis

Enterprise Analysis focuses on how the business analyst identifies the

business needs driving a project by performing problem definition and analysis.
The business Analyst’s task list for this knowledge area includes translating
business strategy into proposed new business solutions by:

 Defining and understanding the business problem or opportunity

 Assessing capability gaps in the organization
  Determining the most feasible business solution approach
 Describing the resulting solution scope
 Developing a business case for the proposed solution

AREA 4 Requirement Analysis

Requirements Analysis describes how the business analyst

progressively elaborates and prioritizes stakeholder and solution
requirements. The business analyst’s task list for this knowledge area
consists of:

 Prioritizing the relative importance of the requirements

 Organizing requirements
 Specifying and modeling requirements
 Defining assumptions and constraints
 Verifying requirements
 Validating requirements

AREA 5 Solution Assessment and Validation

Solution Assessment and Validation focuses on assessing and

validating proposed, in progress, and implemented solutions before, during,
and after the project life cycle. The business analyst’s task list for this
knowledge area consists of:

 Assessing the proposed solution

 Allocating stakeholder and solution requirements
 Assessing organizational readiness
 Defining transition requirements
 Validating the solution
 Evaluating solution performance

Take your time, you may rest a bit and get energized
before doing the next activity.
 MIND CHALLENGE
#1

What is your take on the issue that

organizations use business analysis as a competitive
advantage? Does the organization really benefit from
it?

Levels of Business Analysis

Business Analysis has four main levels within a company, these are:

This is the level at which strategic company

decisions happen and then trickle down through the
company, impacting policies and procedures at all
Enterprise levels. The enterprise level is the collective whole
of a company viewed from the highest perspective.
Level Activities at this level include:

Defining the business needs

Eliciting goals and product analysis
Mapping the current and future state of the
company
Defining business case
Defining solution
 This is the collection of distinct business or
general regions that make up a company The
business analysis tasks you do under this level
include:
Organizational  conducting strategic plan
Level  development facilitating strategic
 goal setting sessions defining
understandi
 success metricsho workflo is use t
implement
ng changesw w d o
replicating some enterprise analysis
activities

At this level, you now getting into more specific areas

such as departments within the company’s regions or
divisions. Focus is now on developing a program area
to achieve the goal of the organizational or enterprise
Operational Level level initiatives. A more detailed business analysis
activities include:

new product case development

process modelling across operations area
feasibility studies
product definition
project vision definition

This is the level at which you execute projects to

deliver support or enable the company’s
organizational areas and/or operational functions to
achieve their objectives. Therefore the business
Project Level analysis profession is highly focused on the project
area. Activities on this level remain the same:

planning your analysis work for the project

Scoping the project
eliciting and analyzing business problems
verifying your solutions
developing transition requirements
 MIND CHALLENGE
#2

1. Working with senior leaders at enterprise level is a challenge for

starters, you get only a limited amount of time with these folks; in
large organizations, they may be spread across different offices,
which makes getting the group together when necessary extra
difficult. For these reason, supposing you work with them as BA,
what actions or approaches will you make to overcome such
challenges at enterprise level?

Skills of Business Analysts

When performing business analysis, analysts need to be equally proficient in

several skills based on the project they are working on. The following spells
out a few skills needed to succeed at business analysis.

Interpret Directions
 Adapt quickly and understand directions given to him

Problem solving skills

 Be able to solve problems as they occur and
propose solutions to a business problems

Critical thinking skills

 Be able to evaluate multiple options in front of you so
that you can address business needs.

Communication skills
 Be able to facilitate stakeholders engagement
 Facilitation skills
 Skills needed to guide and direct key parts of
organizing work with groups of people such as meetings,
planning sessions and trainings.

Listening skills
 They listen as much as they communicate by
absorbing and analyzing the information given to them.

Presentation skills
 Be able to confidently stand up and speak to groups
of people about the project.

Time management skills

 Be able to manage time correctly and prioritizing
business activity that needs to keep up with.

Documentation skills
 Be able to provide a range of documents and provide
these clearly and concisely such as they are easy to
understand.

Stakeholder management
 Be able to manage stakeholders so that you can set
right expectations and get their input and support for the
project.

Modelling skills
 Need to have expertise in modelling and the
supporting tools that enable you to convey vast amounts
of information.

Technical Know-How
 There are plenty of tools that business analyst should
have at their disposal to do well on their role.
 MIND CHALLENGE #3

Abraham Maslow, once said, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only

tool you have is hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”
What is your understanding on this concept? How do you
associate it with the skills of a business analyst or on your
personal perspectives?

We’re you able to answer the learning activities? Congratulations for

a job well done! You are now ready for the next session. If there are
still topics which are not yet clear to you, you may go back to your
readings.
This module has provided you the basic concept of business analysis.
Business analysis is a discipline that helps identify business needs and
determine solutions to business problems. It has six knowledge area
that includes business analysis planning and monitoring, elicitation,
enterprise analysis, requirement analysis, requirement managements
and communication and solution assessment and validation.

In performing business analysis, it engages on the four levels within

the company: enterprise level, organizational level, operational level
and project level. Activities performed in business analysis depends on
the level to which one is involve in.

Business analyst should possess skills on understanding directions,

problem solving skills, critical thinking skills, communications,
facilitation skills, listening presentation skills, time management skills,
documentation skills, stakeholder management, modelling skills and
technical know-how. These skills are all fundamentals for a business
analyst to succeed.

References:

Kupersmith, K & Mulvey, P., Business Analysis for Dummies

Weese, S., Wagner, T., CBAP CCBA Certified Business Analysis Study Guide