Business Analysis, IIBA’s BABOK Summarization— Part 1
First of all, this artical is part of a weekly writing challenge my friends and I decided to hold in order to enhance our writing skills and knowledge.
DISCLAIMER: Before you start to read, as mentioned in the article’s title, this series of articles are a summarization of the IIBA’s BABOK. It should be suitable for people who want to take a glance look of the BABOK contents, or people who want a quick review before ECBA or CBAP exams.
The primary purpose of the BABOK guide is to define the profession of business analysis and provide a set of commonly accepted practices. It helps practitioners discuss and define the skills necessary to effectively perform business analysis work.
It consists of a total of six knowledge areas:
Business Analysis Planing and Monitoring, Elicitation and Collaboration , Requirements Life Cycle Management , Strategy Analysis, Requirements Analysis and Design Definition, and finally Solution Evaluation.
Business Analyst is any person who performs business analysis tasks described in the BABOK, no matter their job title or organizational role.
There are a number of key concepts for business analysis includes information that provides a foundation for all other content, concepts, and ideas that will be discussed later:
1- Business Analysis Core Concept Model (BACCM).
Business Analysis is the practice of enabling change in an enterprise by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to the stakeholders within a context.
1.1 Need: A problem or opportunity to be addressed.
1.2 Change: The act of transformation in response to a need.
1.3 Solution: A specific way of satisfying one or more needs in a context.
1.4 Stakeholder: A group or individual with a relationship to the change, need, or the solution.
1.5 Value: The worth, importance, or usefulness of something to a stakeholder within a context.
1.6 Context: The circumstances that influence, are influenced by, and provide understanding of the change.
2- Key Terms
2.1 Design: usable representation of a solution. Focus on understanding how value might be realized by a solution if it is built.
2.2 Requirement: usable representation of a need. Focus on understanding what kind of value could be delivered if a requirement is fulfilled.
2.3 Business Analysis Information: sets of information that business analysts analyze, transform, and report such as elicitation results, solution options, requirements, designs, solution scope, and change strategy.
2.4 Enterprise: system of one or more organization and the solutions they use to pursue a shared set of common goals.
2.5 Organization: autonomous group of people under the management of an individual or board, that works toward common goals and objectives.
2.6 Plan: proposal for doing or achieving something. Set of events, dependencies among them, expected sequence, ….. etc.
2.7 Risk: the effect of uncertainty of the value of a change, a solution, or the enterprise.
3- Requirements Classification Schema
3.1 Business Requirement: statements of goals, objectives, and outcomes that describe why a change has been initiated.
3.2 Stakeholders Requirements: describe the needs of stakeholders that must be met to achieve the business requirements. A bridge between business and solution requirements.
3.3 Solution requirements: describe the capabilities and qualities of a solution that meets the stakeholders’ requirements.
o Functional Requirements
o Non-functional — quality of service — Requirements
3.4 Transition Requirements: describe the capabilities that the solution must have and the conditions the solution must meet to facilitate the transition from the current state to the future state, but which are not needed once the change is complete. Temporary nature requirements. Ex. (data conversion, training, and business continuity).
4- Requirements and Design
Requirements are focused on the need; Designs are focused on the solution.
In the next part Inshallah, we will dig deeply in each of the previously mentioned knowldge areas. …… see you soon.
