Business analyst
Encyclopedia
A Business Analyst analyzes the organization and design of businesses, government departments, and non-profit organizations; BAs also assess business models and their integration with technology.
:
, proposes the following definition of a business analyst: "An internal consultancy role that has responsibility for investigating business systems, identifying options for improving business systems and bridging the needs of the business with the use of IT."
The International Institute of Business Analysis
(IIBA) describes the role 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."
The Certified Software Business Analyst (CSBA) Common Body of Knowledge, defines this as: "uniquely placed in the organization to provide a strong link between the Business Community and Information Technology (IT)."
The role of Business Analyst has evolved from someone who was a part of the business operation and worked with Information Technology to improve the quality of the products and services being delivered by the IT organization to someone who apart from gathering Business Requirements, also assists in Integration and Acceptance Testing, supports the development of training and implementation material, participates in the implementation, and provides post-implementation support. Business Analysts today are also involved in the development of project plans and often provide project management skills when these skills are not available in other project participants.
The following section focuses on the IT sector perspective around business analysis, where much of the deliverable
s are around requirements. The BA will record requirements in some form of requirements management tool, whether a simple spreadsheet or a complex application.
Business requirements
, what the needed achievements will be, and the quality measures. They are usually expressed in terms of broad outcomes the business requires, rather than specific functions the system may perform. Specific design elements are usually outside the scope of this document, although design standards may be referenced.
Functional requirements
User (stakeholder) requirements
Quality-of-service (non-functional) requirements
Implementation
(transition) requirements
Report specifications
The traceability matrix
Within the systems development life cycle
domain (SDLC), the business analyst typically performs a liaison
function between the business side of an enterprise and the providers of services to the enterprise. A common alternative role in the IT sector is business analyst, systems analyst
, and functional analyst, although some organizations may differentiate between these titles and corresponding responsibilities.
or consultant. When focused on specific systems, the term Business Systems Analyst may be used.
A BA does not always work in IT-related projects, as BA skills are often required in marketing and financial roles as well.
The International Institute of Business Analysis
provides a certification program for business analysts (Certified Business Analyst Professional or CBAP), as well as providing a body of knowledge for the field (Business Analysis Body of Knowledge or BABOK).
A few consulting companies provide BA training courses and there are some consulting books on the market (UML
, workshop facilitation
, consultancy, communication skills). Some helpful text books are:
BAs work in different industries such as finance
, banking, insurance, telecoms
, utilities, software services, and so on. Due to working on projects at a fairly high level of abstraction, BAs can switch between industries. The business domain subject areas BAs may work in include workflow, billing, mediation, provisioning and customer relationship management
. The telecom industry has mapped these functional areas in their Telecommunications Operational Map (eTOM) model.
Finally, Business Analysts do not have a predefined and fixed role, as they can take a shape in operations (technology architect or project management) scaling, sales planning, strategy devising or even in developmental process. Hence, they get a different name for the played role. Even the International Institute of Business Analysis and its associates have had several editions of the roles and responsibilities of a person undertaking the BA role.
Drawbacks include situations where the Business Analyst just works as 'man in the middle', without helping Business Owner and Developers to streamline the long term goals results in a loss of time as well as information.
In recent years, there has been an upsurge of using analysts of all sorts: business analysts, business process analysts, risk analysts, system analysts. Ultimately, an effective project manager will include Business Analysts who break down communication barriers between stakeholders and developers.
Levels
There are at least four tiers of business analysisBusiness Analysis
Business analysis is the discipline of identifying business needs and determining solutions to business problems. Solutions often include a systems development component, but may also consist of process improvement, organizational change or strategic planning and policy development...
:
- Planning StrategicallyStrategic planningStrategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy. In order to determine the direction of the organization, it is necessary to understand its current position and the possible avenues...
– The analysis of the organization's strategic business needs - OperatingOperating ModelOperating model is a term that is used in many contexts. An operating model is the abstract representation of how an organization operates across process, organization, technology domains in order to deliver value defined by the organization in scope....
/Business ModelBusiness modelA business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value...
Analysis – The definition and analysis of the organization's policies and market business approaches - Process DefinitionBusiness Process Definition MetamodelThe Business Process Definition Metamodel is astandard definition of concepts used to express business processmodels , adopted by the OMG. Metamodels define concepts,...
and DesignProcess designProcess design is the design of processes for desired physical and/or chemical transformation of materials. Process design is central to chemical engineering and it can be considered to be the summit of chemical engineering, bringing together all of the components of that field.Process design can...
– The business process modelingBusiness process modelingBusiness Process Modeling in systems engineering is the activity of representing processes of an enterprise, so that the current process may be analyzed and improved. BPM is typically performed by business analysts and managers who are seeking to improve process efficiency and quality...
(often developed through process modelingProcess modelingThe term process model is used in various contexts. For example, in business process modeling the enterprise process model is often referred to as the business process model. Process models are core concepts in the discipline of process engineering....
and designProcess designProcess design is the design of processes for desired physical and/or chemical transformation of materials. Process design is central to chemical engineering and it can be considered to be the summit of chemical engineering, bringing together all of the components of that field.Process design can...
) - IT/Technical Business Analysis – The interpretation of business rules and requirements for technical systems (generally IT)
Alternative descriptions
BCS, The Chartered Institute for ITBCS, The Chartered Institute for IT
The British Computer Society, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in Information Technology in the United Kingdom and internationally...
, proposes the following definition of a business analyst: "An internal consultancy role that has responsibility for investigating business systems, identifying options for improving business systems and bridging the needs of the business with the use of IT."
The International Institute of Business Analysis
International Institute of Business Analysis
The International Institute of Business Analysis is a non-profit professional association with the purpose of supporting and promoting the discipline of business analysis....
(IIBA) describes the role 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."
The Certified Software Business Analyst (CSBA) Common Body of Knowledge, defines this as: "uniquely placed in the organization to provide a strong link between the Business Community and Information Technology (IT)."
The role of Business Analyst has evolved from someone who was a part of the business operation and worked with Information Technology to improve the quality of the products and services being delivered by the IT organization to someone who apart from gathering Business Requirements, also assists in Integration and Acceptance Testing, supports the development of training and implementation material, participates in the implementation, and provides post-implementation support. Business Analysts today are also involved in the development of project plans and often provide project management skills when these skills are not available in other project participants.
Typical deliverables
Depending on the level of thinking about business analysis, the areas range from the technical Business Analysis role (converting detailed business rules into system requirements), to conversion of shareholder return and risk appetite into strategic plans.The following section focuses on the IT sector perspective around business analysis, where much of the deliverable
Deliverable
Deliverable is a term used in project management to describe a tangible or intangible object produced as a result of the project that is intended to be delivered to a customer . A deliverable could be a report, a document, a server upgrade or any other building block of an overall project.A...
s are around requirements. The BA will record requirements in some form of requirements management tool, whether a simple spreadsheet or a complex application.
Business requirements
Requirement
In engineering, a requirement is a singular documented physical and functional need that a particular product or service must be or perform. It is most commonly used in a formal sense in systems engineering, software engineering, or enterprise engineering...
, what the needed achievements will be, and the quality measures. They are usually expressed in terms of broad outcomes the business requires, rather than specific functions the system may perform. Specific design elements are usually outside the scope of this document, although design standards may be referenced.
- Example: Improve the readability of project plans.
Functional requirements
Functional requirements
In software engineering, a functional requirement defines a function of a software system or its component. A function is described as a set of inputs, the behavior, and outputs ....
- describe what the system, process, or product/service must do in order to fulfill the business requirements. Note that the business requirements often can be broken up into sub-business requirements and many functional requirements. These are often referred to as System Requirements although some functionality could be manual and not system based, e.g., create notes or work instructions.
- An example that follows from previous business requirement example:
- The system shall provide the ability to associate notes to a project plan.
- The system shall allow the user to enter free text to the project plan notes, up to 255 characters in length.
- An example that follows from previous business requirement example:
User (stakeholder) requirements
- are a very important part of the deliverables, the needs of the stakeholders must be correctly interpreted. This deliverable can also reflect how the product will be designed and developed, and define how test cases must be formulated. However, stakeholders may not always be users of a system.
Quality-of-service (non-functional) requirements
Non-functional requirements
In systems engineering and requirements engineering, a non-functional requirement is a requirement that specifies criteria that can be used to judge the operation of a system, rather than specific behaviors. This should be contrasted with functional requirements that define specific behavior or...
- are requirements that do not perform a specific function for the business requirement but are needed to support the functionality. For example: performance, scalability, quality of service (QoS), security and usability. These are often included within the System Requirements, where applicable.
Implementation
Implementation
Implementation is the realization of an application, or execution of a plan, idea, model, design, specification, standard, algorithm, or policy.-Computer Science:...
(transition) requirements
- are capabilities or behaviors required only to enable transition from the current state of the enterprise to the desired future state, but that will thereafter no longer be required.
Report specifications
- define the purpose of a report, its justification, attributes and columns, owners and runtime parameters.
The traceability matrix
Traceability matrix
A traceability matrix is a document, usually in the form of a table, that correlates any two baselined documents that require a many to many relationship to determine the completeness of the relationship...
- is a cross matrix for recording the requirements through each stage of the requirements gathering process. High level concepts will be matched to scope items which will map to individual requirements which will map to corresponding functions. This matrix should also take into account any changes in scope during the life of the project. At the end of a project, this matrix should show each function built into a system, its source and the reason that any stated requirements may not have been delivered.
Within the systems development life cycle
Systems Development Life Cycle
The systems development life cycle , or software development life cycle in systems engineering, information systems and software engineering, is a process of creating or altering information systems, and the models and methodologies that people use to develop these systems.In software engineering...
domain (SDLC), the business analyst typically performs a liaison
Liaison job
Liaison jobs are jobs that "link" two or more specialties. For example, "systems analyst" jobs work with customers and management to understand and document their automation needs and then transfer such information to computer programmers, who turn the collected information into working software...
function between the business side of an enterprise and the providers of services to the enterprise. A common alternative role in the IT sector is business analyst, systems analyst
Systems analyst
A systems analyst researches problems, plans solutions, recommends software and systems, and coordinates development to meet business or other requirements. They will be familiar with multiple variety of programming languages, operating systems, and computer hardware platforms...
, and functional analyst, although some organizations may differentiate between these titles and corresponding responsibilities.
Prerequisites
There is no defined way to become a business analyst. Often the BA has a technical background, whether having worked as a programmer or engineer, or completing a Computer Science degree. Others may move into a BA role from a business role – their status as a subject matter expert and their analytical skills make them suitable for the role. Business analysts may overlap into roles such as project managerProject manager
A project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers can have the responsibility of the planning, execution, and closing of any project, typically relating to construction industry, architecture, computer networking, telecommunications or software...
or consultant. When focused on specific systems, the term Business Systems Analyst may be used.
A BA does not always work in IT-related projects, as BA skills are often required in marketing and financial roles as well.
The International Institute of Business Analysis
International Institute of Business Analysis
The International Institute of Business Analysis is a non-profit professional association with the purpose of supporting and promoting the discipline of business analysis....
provides a certification program for business analysts (Certified Business Analyst Professional or CBAP), as well as providing a body of knowledge for the field (Business Analysis Body of Knowledge or BABOK).
A few consulting companies provide BA training courses and there are some consulting books on the market (UML
Unified Modeling Language
Unified Modeling Language is a standardized general-purpose modeling language in the field of object-oriented software engineering. The standard is managed, and was created, by the Object Management Group...
, workshop facilitation
Facilitation (business)
Facilitation in business, organizational development and in consensus decision-making refers to the process of designing and running a successful meeting.Facilitation concerns itself with all the tasks needed to run a productive and impartial meeting...
, consultancy, communication skills). Some helpful text books are:
- Customer-Centered Products by Ivy F. Hooks and Kristin A. Farry (Amazon, USA, 2001).
- UML for the IT Business Analyst: A Practical Guide to Object-Oriented Requirements Gathering by Howard Podeswa,
- Writing Effective Use Cases by Alistair CockburnAlistair CockburnAlistair Cockburn is one of the initiators of the agile movement in software development, helping write theManifesto for Agile Software Development in 2001 and the agile PM Declaration of Interdependence in 2005...
- Discovering Real Business Requirements for Software Project Success by Robin F. Goldsmith.
- Business Modeling with UML by Eriksson & Penker
- Software Requirements, 2nd Edition by Karl E. Wiegers (Microsoft Press, 2003)
BAs work in different industries such as finance
Finance
"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...
, banking, insurance, telecoms
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
, utilities, software services, and so on. Due to working on projects at a fairly high level of abstraction, BAs can switch between industries. The business domain subject areas BAs may work in include workflow, billing, mediation, provisioning and customer relationship management
Customer relationship management
Customer relationship management is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing,...
. The telecom industry has mapped these functional areas in their Telecommunications Operational Map (eTOM) model.
Finally, Business Analysts do not have a predefined and fixed role, as they can take a shape in operations (technology architect or project management) scaling, sales planning, strategy devising or even in developmental process. Hence, they get a different name for the played role. Even the International Institute of Business Analysis and its associates have had several editions of the roles and responsibilities of a person undertaking the BA role.
Possible benefits and drawbacks of including Business Analysts in software projects
The role of the BA is key in software development projects. They serve as the mediator or the bridge between the Technical and Business end of stakeholders. Typically, in organizations where no formal structure or processes exist, the Business Owners and Developers communicate directly. Assuming that Developers have no organizational skills, this can present a problem: the goal of the Business Owner is to get what they want very quickly, and the goal of the Developer is to give the Business Owner what they want as quickly as he/she can give it to him/her. This probably leads to creating changes in a vacuum, not necessarily taking the needs of all users of the system into account, depending on the organizational skills of the involved Developers. There is rarely any detailed definition of the requirements, and many times, the real reason for the request may not make good business sense. There tends to be no emphasis on long term, strategic goals that the business wants to achieve via Information Technology. The Business Analyst can bring structure and formalization of requirements into this process, which may lead to increased foresight among Business Owners. It is very helpful in business development.Drawbacks include situations where the Business Analyst just works as 'man in the middle', without helping Business Owner and Developers to streamline the long term goals results in a loss of time as well as information.
In recent years, there has been an upsurge of using analysts of all sorts: business analysts, business process analysts, risk analysts, system analysts. Ultimately, an effective project manager will include Business Analysts who break down communication barriers between stakeholders and developers.
See also
- Business analysisBusiness AnalysisBusiness analysis is the discipline of identifying business needs and determining solutions to business problems. Solutions often include a systems development component, but may also consist of process improvement, organizational change or strategic planning and policy development...
- Business process reengineeringBusiness process reengineeringBusiness process re-engineering is the analysis and design of workflows and processes within an organization.According to Davenport a business process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome....
- Information technologyInformation technologyInformation technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
- International Institute of Business AnalysisInternational Institute of Business AnalysisThe International Institute of Business Analysis is a non-profit professional association with the purpose of supporting and promoting the discipline of business analysis....
- Systems analysisSystems analysisSystems analysis is the study of sets of interacting entities, including computer systems analysis. This field is closely related to requirements analysis or operations research...
- Information Architect
- Use caseUse caseIn software engineering and systems engineering, a use case is a description of steps or actions between a user and a software system which leads the user towards something useful...
- SpreadmartSpreadmartA spreadmart is a concept describing the tendency of spreadsheets to "run amok" in organizations. Typically a spreadmart is created by individuals at different times using different data sources and rules for defining metrics in an organization, creating a fractured view of the enterprise...