How to conduct Stakeholder Analysis?

The basics of requirement management is planning for stakeholder analysis. If you miss this, you will face many hurdles. Stakeholder analysis is key to succeed in your project as missing any stakeholder in the stakeholder analysis means that stakeholders requirements will add to the project as either an additional requirements or a change. Both would have an impact on project timeline and budget. Moreover, the stakeholder may be disappointed for not counting him/her in the first place.

Let us understand how to work on stakeholder analysis...following are few tips of analyzing the stakeholders and creating the list in most effective way.

- By studying the business need (problem or an opportunity) and solution scope document to understand stakeholders and their involvement.

- Outlining the stakeholders’ details by studying the organizational structure or modelling the organization (enterprise architecture) and their relationships, and communication.

- Getting additional details through existing documents related to stakeholder analysis.

- Communicating and collaborating with identified stakeholders to confirm details thus obtained (except for details on their attitude and persona).

Process: First identify the impact of the business need (problem or an opportunity). Once you know the details, that will become your basis to build stakeholders. You also obtain organizational structure to understand the people and their role. You discuss with the main stakeholders to identify the stakeholders or you can obtain the official stakeholders list as some of organizations have formal designated person for every dept who act as stakeholder(s) for them.

You can compile the data in excel and verify the data with the relevant stakeholders.

The data can be compiled using following parameters.

1. # / Stakeholder Number
2. Name
3. Contact Number
4. Email
5. Location
6. Role
7. Responsibiltiies
8. Authority Level
9. Profile or
10. Technical skills / proficiency
11. Preferred environment
12. Special Needs
13. RACI (R - Responsible, A - accountable, C - consulted and I Informed. Some may add S for support, but that is an optional)
14. Additional Description
15. Group / category
16. Influence *
17. Attitude *

Please remember that all the information can be send to stakeholders to validate the data, except last two (influence and attitude) unless you want get fired. This list must be modified by authorized person to avoid complication of loss of data or changes made to the documents.

You can add more parameters to this and create a matrix that can be easily used.

Business Analysis vs Business Intelligence

There is huge difference between Business Analysis (BA) and Business Intelligence(BI) because BA has larger scope as it is application to all types of projects (including BI) where as BI covers only software applications used to analyze an organization's raw data (data mining, analysis and reporting related project) to make effective decisions.

Business Analysis:
"A set of task and techniques to understand products, services, operations, organization structure, policies, and culture to recommend a solution to the stakeholders to achieve their business goals."

The business goals could be generate additional revenue, reduce operational cost, to implement new regulations, to reduce operational roadblocks,  faster and effective decision making process, improve customer services, improve brand value, to increase customer base...

These goals can be achieved either by enhancing existing solution by adding feature or functionality, fixing issues or problems in exiting solutions or implementing new regulations or improving the process, building a new solution for introducing new products or services or developing new decision support system to make effective decisions.

It covers strategy analysis, requirement engineering and IT analysis to define and recommend a solution to the problem or an opportunity within the organization.

Business Analyst primarily identify and define the problem using various BA techniques and recommend solutions for that so that organization can achieve its goals and objectives.

• Bottom up approach: There is problem identified by users/customer in existing system and it is reported to managers. After detailed investigation, there is a need to enhance the existing solution partly or fully
• Top-Down approach: There is new opportunity idenfited by management to expand the exiting product line or implement new products/services. After detailed investigations, the appropriate solution is defined and implemented.
• Peer-to-peer: There is productivity issue identified by mid-level managers and needed decision support systems. After detailed investigations, the appropriate business intelligence solution is need to make effective decisions. This is where BI will play a role.

The scope of Business Analysis is larger than Business Intelligence as it can be applied to any kinds of problems or opportunity including BI.

Knowledge and Skills: Business Analysis, Domain Knowledge (to collaborate with stakeholders and domain subject matter experts, and technical know-how (SDLC, Testing, Data modeling, data management and others…to collaborate with IT team)

Business Analysis vs Business Intelligence
Source: ANISAN Technologies (www.anisans.com)

Business Intelligence: "a set of techniques and tools for the acquisition and transformation of raw data into meaningful and useful information for business analysis purposes"

Whereas Business Intelligence job is more technical role that involves several related activities, including data mining, online analytical processing, querying and reporting to analyze an organization's raw data using a variety of software applications. The BI specialist will work towards putting up effective system to extract, load, transform (ETL) and generate reports from heterogeneous data source such as SAP, PREST, ETU, RH, ORACLE...

Knowledge and Skills: technical skills like coding and knowledge of data analysis tools/ languages like R, SaS, Python etc.

The role of Business Analyst in designing UI/UX prototypes

''What is the role of business analyst in designing UI (User Interface) /UX (user experience) prototypes?' This was an interesting question asked of me to answer by a student. After responding, I thought of writing a detailed blog on this topic to cover many aspects of UI/UX design, as it is one of the most interesting but least visited topics. 

Most of the time, UI and UX are used interchangeably, however, they represent different areas. Let’s take a few minutes to understand and differentiate between them. 

User Interface (UI): User interface design focuses on better interaction with solutions and the design may focus on the placement of menu, look, and feel of the page. 

The goal of user interface design is to make the user's interaction as simple and efficient as possible, in terms of accomplishing user goals (user-centered design). Good user interface design facilitates finishing the task at hand without drawing unnecessary attention to itself. 

User Experience (UX): UX focuses on optimization of a software solution in terms of users' experiences and their feelings associated while interacting with the solution or product. It is human-computer interaction in a useful and meaningful way. For example, effortless identifying of the menus, flexible font size, usage of white space to declutter the website (and readers' minds), or using a familiar color (logo color) to enhance the product ownership. 

UI/UX Design Life Cycle.

User Need: This is an initial activity when need is identified. Business Analyst will understand the user problem or an opportunity. For that, business analyst will refer current state and other relevant documents to understand the current design and related issues and the focus area for proposed solutions.

Elicitation: There are no specific standards available for preparing the UI / UX designs. However, the business analyst can use standards that are specific to the project, their comfort level, and consideration of the internal and external usability standards that may be applicable. The requirements are split into requirements (descriptive text) and model/design (descriptive pictures/models). These are mentioned in IIBA's BABOK Guide version 3 You can use the same standards or customize as needed. 

Business analysts can elicit these requirements through design or models in collaboration with stakeholders and users. The business analyst can provide the details in the form of: 

Requirements: Functionality, features, and data needed in designing UI/UX Design. In addition, the user inputs these and validations needed for the same are also elicited. 

Organization policies and standards (internal and external): Internal policies will include the organization’s standards or policies for creating the UI and usability standards; for example, using colors, fonts, placement of items such as logos and menus, and so on. It will also include menu style, pagination, and navigation across sub-pages. While the external standards will include the standards specified by web browser (Safari 9.1.3 or Internet Explorer 10.0 etc...) operating system (Windows, Mac etc...), external agencies to whom you are sending or receiving feeds, and other requirements... These details need to be part of the requirement and provided to the designer for preparing the prototypes/wireframes. The design style will include menu style, pagination, and navigation across sub-pages. You can use a template/excel sheet to describe the details (for example: first name, input box, size, position) and provide them the basic design in MS Visio.

UI/UX Approach

Design/Prototype Approvals: Once the designs are prepared, the business analyst can use these designs/prototypes and the supporting materials (such as the excel sheet that was provided to technical person to create the prototypes) as a requirement to complete a mock-up and communicate them to the stakeholders. The stakeholders will review both the design and the supporting documents, and provide their feedback to improve, if needed. Once the changes are made and the designs are presented, they are required to verify and validate before starting the approval process. These designs and supporting documents become your verified and validated requirements for UI/UX.

At the end, the stakeholder preference will overrule all other standards in defining the UI/UX design. For example, do stakeholders prefer to follow industry standards such number of clicks for a functionality or detailed functionality, standard placement of menu over customized menu, and more.

User Acceptance (Validation): Ensure that all the windows are prepared and connected; i.e., the flow of the requirement screen by screen using all the flows mentioned in the FRD (basic flow, alternate flow, and exceptions). Some business analysts are creating this type of wireframe. But it is an option, as they can get these completed by the technical person.

Deliver: These approved designs are delivered along with supporting requirements to the technical team to develop. Once the development is completed, they are tested and deployed.

Enrich and Enhance: Once the solution settles in user community (production environment, website, or product delivery/acceptance) with no new bugs or issues reported, the enrichment and enhancement will begin as needed. UI/UX is most dynamic interface in comparison  to other part in solution architecture.  

Principles of UI/UX Design:

UI/UX design principle

Consumer apps can be trendy and catchy to appeal to the customers and business analyst can expect fewer formalities or standards used in these types of apps.

Summary: The UI/UX designs depend on the types of app or solution and stakeholders or user preference.

The designs are presented, reviewed, and confirmed before they enter into the development phase.

The scope of Business Analyst Role

The scope of the business analysis is infinite as it deals with a broad term ‘improving business with or without technology’. Any work within that spectrum is business analysis, for example, it could apply in improving a small process within a department or implementing a relugaltory framework across the industry or building a product (Apple had an app for music but couldn’t use it independently. On other hand, Hitachi developed a mini storage that could hold 1 GB data and they didn’t know what to do with it. Steve Jobs integrated both invention to create iPod that was one of the most successful products during its time).

The scope of business analysis work can broadly categorized into three areas:

1. Strategy Analysis
2. Business Analysis
3. IT System Analysis

(Reference: Debra Paul, Donald Yeats and James Cadle in Business Analysis, Second edition, published by BCS)

Following is the partial list of scope within the lifecycle that covers all the areas mentioned above.

• Business Strategy Analysis - Part I: These Business Analyst come from business/domain background who define the business need, high level solution scope and present the business case to the sponsors. 
• Business Technology optimization and management
• Process management
• Define the business need (problem or an opportunity)
• Define solution scope that would to cater to the business need
• Define and present business case (cost vs benefits analysis)
• Secure funding
• Business Analysis: These Business Analyst come from either business or technical background who start the core business analysis once the business need is defined or project is funded. These Business Analysts, primarily involved in eliciting the requirements and defining the solution. In addition, they are also involved in identifying the IT team (internal or external) and managing them during the solution development and implementation.
• Elicit Requirements, document them, confirm them, scope them, present them and get them approved / signed them off.
• Define solution or BRD or Product roadmap
• Further requirement analysis (FRD, Requirement models and so on…)
• Identify or recommend IT team (internal or external)
• Finalize solution and its scope
• Strategy Analysis - Part II
• Verify and validate the solution against the enterprise need, current ability and new business case analysis (cost vs benefit) to accept the solution
• IT Business system or System Analysis: These Business Analyst come from technical background having software developing (coding) or testing testing skills who primarily collaborate with technical team members to communicate the requirements. They ensure that software solution meets the business requirements solution. They also act as a bridge in translating and transferring  business requirements into solution requirements (functional, non-functional and technical constraints) to help the technical team understand the business requirements. In addition, IT business analysts also collaborate with implementation SME (subject matter experts) to elicit the transition requirements that are needed for transitioning the software solution into user community. 
• Support technical team in requirement and change management
• Oversee the development and testing activities
• Ensure high quality solution is implemented
• Close out documentations
• End user training
• Enrich and enhance the solution during its lifecycle
• Orderly terminate the solution when it reaches to end of its lifecycle
• Strategy Analysis - Part III
• ROI to review the business case (cost vs benefits)
• Lesson learned
• Data Business Analyst - The business Analyst working in decision support systems are working closely with business stakeholders to understand their role and their needs in terms of reports needed for making effective decision. They also work with market research team in projecting market trends - past, present and future. In addition to business analysis skills, they are required to be well versed with SQL, dataware-hosuing or other tools, and advance excel and access to analysis the data. 
  These are BAs who deal with big data and statistics. They tend to crunch numbers using algorithms and data models. Similar to a data scientist, in a sense. They tend to determine market trends and present to business stakeholders on what direction they should take.
  Apart from above, there may be specialized designation assigned to a Business Analyst, such as Business Process Analyst (who focused on process engineering) or Product Business Analyst (who is involved in software product development) depending on the role.

Why professional training and certification is important to a Business Analyst?

In early 2000s, it was easy to get a BA job without professional training.  However, the situation has changed due to increased competition and plenty of availability of trained, certified and experienced Business Analysis professionals in job market. Therefore, without professional training and certification Business Analysts may lose out to competitors.

Formal ‘Training’ and ‘Certification’ will definitely help BAs getting focused, structured and systematic knowledge, and skill in business analysis field form an experienced professional that is required to build the solid foundation in the BA domain, to get a job, earn respect after joining the job.

Some may underestimate the professional training, but the hiring manager will not. If he/she has to hire a Business Analyst, they will prefer someone who is already equipped with knowledge and skill acquired through professional course over someone who isn’t, because their company can save time and money in training the new joiner. It also helps to reduce the leaning curve after joining the job.

Most of my students had MBA degrees, and additional BA certificate helped them to compete others easily.

Followings are some of the benefits of professional certificates:

1. Better Recognition: It provides recognition of your skills and competence for doing a job, which will allow you to justify your experience and improve the employability.
2. Better Career Plan: It helps to build a systematic career plan and advancement strategy.
3. Better Alternate option: Professional certifications provides an affordable and focused alternate to the university education that many can’t afford due to their high cost and longer time schedule.
4. Better Knowledge and Skill: Professional certifications focus on the fundamentals and ensure that the certificate holder has the minimum knowledge and skill in the related area.
5. Better investment for organization: The hiring manager would find it more beneficial as the company can save time and money in training the prospective employee.
6. Better skilled employees/ quality for organization: The professional certification of employees will validate the company’s ability to assign knowledgeable and skilled professionals on the project. Sometime, the clients insist that the consultants or employees on their project must have the professional certification to ensure high quality delivery.
7. Which is better?: Reputation of certification awarding body is important. Currently IIBA, and BCS are both highly recognized organization in the field of business analysis. Although PMI more recognized and offering PMI-PBA, it has limited focus in terms of business analysis.
8. Better productivity: It adds to increased engagement, employment satisfaction and productivity that are the top ways of measuring the value of professional certification, as they contribute in reductions in staff churn, training, and recruitment costs.
9. Staying updated: Re-certification ensures that the professionals stay updated in their field.

How to select the right training program?

A profesional training - classroom or virtual doesn’t matter. 

What matters is:

• Content of the training,
• The technology used for delivering the online training,
• The style of teaching to keep audience engaged, and
• Specialization of the institute (some institute offer generalized mass training in every field and those courses usually don’t add value). So, select institutes who offer specialized training that is focused and intense in their specialized field.
• The reputation of the institute.

Check our website for business analysis, project management, quality assurance and data management training. Domain training and certification in Investment banking, retail banking, insurance, supply chain and more are also offered.

I have been teaching business analysis, digital marketing and other interesting topics in both classroom and virtual mode since 2005(over ten years). I find virtual trainings are as good as classroom training if proper training tool is used and the same view is echoed by my students as well.

In classroom session, you are looking at the white board or large screen for the presentation and practical session. Sometimes, it becomes difficult for the students seating at the end of the class. So, if you are learning to create a model, you may or may not see the the instructor’s actions on the screen or how he/she is creating a model. However, in the virtual class, it is easier to see how instructor is creating diagram/models or focusing topic on the slide on your screen. You may have an option to enlarge if you wish to see it better.

The training tool is very important as it allows you to interact with the instructor, share the presentation, deliver the notes automatically, and view the screen during practical session.

At the end, it also depends on the instructor’s style of delivering the training to ensure to keep the audience engaged and interested. :)

Please visit my blog to know the comparative analysis of certifications available in Business Analysis field at entry-level and mid-level.

If you need details, please write to - priti.verma@anisans.com

Disadvantage of being business analyst

As we have seen, there are many benefits to being a professional business analyst. However, no one ever talks about dark side. Here are few points that you need to watch out for if you wish to build a successful career in business analysis.

Getting it done without Authority: Being positioned in a central role, the business analyst has to be a Jack of all trades and juggle numerous duties and responsibilities. These duties can range from managing stakeholders (from the CEO to the end user who is generating a report in some corner) and maintaining an IT department along with balancing a unique set of requirements specific to the task.

It sounds difficult, but that’s the fun. Not everyone is a people person.

Value Creator: Sometimes you need to elicit requirements, confirmation and enter into communication with stakeholders when they each have their own BAU and other priorities. Beware that at times, stakeholders do not always see value in business analysis efforts and respond accordingly.

Know it all: While joining a new role, the hiring person/line manager mentioned that they knew I was new to the domain and they were fine with it. However, after 3 months, the same person suggested I obtain more knowledge than the SMEs and senior director who had been working there for over 10 years.

It is an unrealistic expectation to require business analysts to have a deeper and wider knowledge of the domain than the stakeholder. To elicit the requirements in the correct way, boil down the question to its simplest and purist form, and manage the scope at the right place.

If the BA changes the domain, then it is like starting all over again.

Super Dynamic: The business analysis is very dynamic profession as they are the first to react to new changes in business/industry such as new regulations, laws, codes of practice, business processes and methods.

The business analyst often has to walk on a challenging path through both the academic and practitioners' world, acquiring new knowledge and skills and implementing them effectively in real life situations.

If you are not quick to adapt to new circumstances and conditions, it will invariably lead to frustration.

Superman(woman)’s Confidence: A good BA must have the confidence to stand up for their points to present, negotiate, and manage conflict (if it arises) using logic and every weapon in their arsenal. Remember, the audience could be anyone in the organization.

Unsung Hero: Think of the person who provides ideas to integrate business with technology to create a million (or billion) dollar enterprise. For example, the iPod that changed the music industry or airbnb who revolutionized the hotel industry. The identity of these individuals remains largely unknown, unless he/she happens to be ‘Steve Jobs!’

Most modern inventions that applied technology and innovation to industry are a direct result of business analysis that created billions of dollars of revenue, but many are yet to get their dues.

However, the situation is changing. Being a professional BA is now considered a proper career and many organizations, both profit and non-profit, are working towards making it even better.

Apart from these pitfalls, being a BA is fun!

What is the difference between incident and problem?

Based on ITIL standards,

Incident - An incident is an unplanned disruption or degradation of service.

Problem - A problem is a cause of one or more incidents.

Incident Management
It’s considered as incident only it extends and impact on regular business process. They are flagged as emergency if they impact on critical services.
It needs to be resolved immediately.
It can be resolved using either permeant or temporary fix
Incidents can turn into a problem when it reoccurs or likely to reoccur.

Problem Management
Unresolved and repeated incidents become a problem that needs long terms fix.
A problem need policies and/process to resolve it to prevent it from reoccurring it.
Problem may be known or unknown
It can be remained unsolved or used an alternate option if the cost of resolving the solution is higher than the benefits it would bring in. (cost vs benefit analysis)

Incident vs problem.

Incident: If your 3 years phone breaks down, you need to fix it as you haven’t taken a backup. The technician fix it for you for USD 40.

Problem: There is battery and other hardware component issue, so the technician ask you to replace battery and the other component that combined would cost you USD 180. While the current value of your phone is USD 150 that you originally bought it for USD 500 as a newly launched model at that time)

You may take a backup immediately and make a decision if you want to fix your phone or buy the same model that now would cost you USD 350 (because, currently there is a new model in market).

If you read the example carefully, you understand that the incident needs immediate fix and problem can be prolonged till next incident occurs or you are ready to resolve it using other options (buying new battery and component or new phone, either the same model or new model). However, you will keep a close watch (i.e. taking backup regular or preparing yourself the new phone ) since you are aware of the problem due to the past incident.

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Certified Business Analyst: The best option to launch your Business Analysis career

I had a long association with ANISAN so recommending them for their quality, dedication, and delivery.

ANISAN Technologies, one of the pioneers in providing the Business Analysis Training offers and created several success stories since 2006 in USA, Hong Kong, China, Australia, UK and India with proud alumni base in leading companies across the globe.

ANISAN offer comprehensive 6 days (48 hours) training in Business Analysis.

Who should attend?: Suitable for aspiring Business Analyst with or without IT knowledge and fresher or experienced professional.

Brief Syllabus:

Part I : Introduction to Business Analysis, Introduction to SDLC approaches

Part II : Business Analysis Knowledge areas (as per international standards, BABOK Guide and BCS standards)

Part III : Practical - Part I Strategic Business Analysis (Business Need, Gap Analysis, Solution Scope & Business Case)

Part IV : Practical - Part II Business Analysis Deliverables (Elicitation, Requirement Management, BRD, FRD, UML (Use Cases, Activity Diagrams and Sequence Diagram), UAT, other documentations

Part V : BA Techniques & BA Essentials


Part VI : Tools Training - UML with MS Visio

ANISAN USP:

1. ANISAN is one of pioneer in the field of Business Analysis and providing BA related training and placement since Mar 2006.

2. Our entire training program is based on International Standards (IIBA, BCS & IREB)

3. Successful Completion of ANISAN's Certified Business Analysis certification our participants join renowned corporates like ORACLE, TCS, L&T InfoTech, Accenture, NSE, HDFC, Morgan Stanley, Well Point, Credit Suisse', Novartis, Cox and Kings....

4. Courses offer comprehensive syllabus that have practical and real world approach. All content is reinforced through group exercises, discussions, and sharing of real-world experiences by our subject matter experts.

5. Well experienced faculty with average 15 years Industry experience.

6. Faster Career growth for professionals who would like to work efficiently in IT and non-IT field by improving their productivity and expertise.

7.Produced large and successfully alumni base across the globe.

8. Placement Assistance.

ANISAN Technologies already a well-known name in Business Analysis courses is official partner with IREB, Germany and IIBA, Canada in delivering the BA training.

Exam Preparation Training for IREBs both CPRE(R) Foundation and Advanced Level exams

Exam Preparation Training for IIBA's both CCBA (R) and CBAP (R) certification

Fees: Please write to us.

Please create a login online at www.anisans.com and use PayPal payment option for enrollment and other fees for making payment. You can use any option to complete the payment)

Fees covers: Training + Certification + Study Material book + case Studies + 40 PDU towards CCBA/CBAP exam at IIBA, Canada

Business Analysis Training and Certification - Course Book

* ANISAN is most cost effective training in the industry.

** ANISAN is official training partner with IIBA, Canada and IREB, Germany

*Part Payment option is also available for course fees.

Location: Both classroom (in selective cities, pls refer our schedule) and online (Online training using training tool to share desktop, create notes and share application for practicals.)

Please contact me if you have any queries.

Contact us at:

email - info@anisans.com or priti.verma@anisans.com

Or
what's up message at - +1 (201) 448 4386

For more details, read 'Business Analysis - The Question And Answer Book' . It is way you can understand all... over 200 questions and elaborated answers.

In India Order link https://www.amazon.in/dp/B074PRQQ5V or Global Order link https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074PRQQ5V

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Business Analysts' knowledge-bank - Information Systems by Efrem G Mallach

The reason why I added this book to Business Analysis blog- Many Business Analysts come from domain or business background and they are required to know the basics of Information Systems. They need to know where to obtain the required knowledge. Read my detailed review about the book before you think of purchasing it.

The book provides comprehensive knowledge about most aspects of Information System, which is required by every business student. This comprehensive knowledge is quite valuable as there is no business or profession today that is untouched by Information system. Therefore, one can't remain aloof from the basic understanding of Information Systems and how it works. 

If they know how it works, they will know how best they can make it work for them effectively. It simply means, if they can understand what is needed, they can guide and monitor the entire development of business solution successfully.

Business technology management is big part of business today and is a key to its success. Professionals, who know what are the ‘Business Needs’, what is the suitable Information System required for that, and how to get that, will be able to optimize the business environment that decides the success or failure of any business.

Information Systems by Efrem G Mallach

In the first section, the book covers why Information System matters and the role of Information System within business environment. It also covers general concept of Information Systems.

In the second section, it covers technology part of Information System including hardware, software, database management, and network. This is basically explains what any business student needs to know about building a business solution or application or project.

In the third section, it covers the various Information Systems that is needed in the organization for different departments by different people depending on their role and responsibilities. It also covers the system and it’s usage of connecting with external stakeholders for their interaction with the organization as a customer or a supplier or a regulator…

In the fourth section, the book covers how to select these Information Systems from the various options available i.e. off-the-shelf product, customized product or developing the solution and so on... This is an important factor as it involves an analysis based on many criteria to take a correct decision.

In the last section, it covers the effective managing of the Information Systems after the transition phase.

All the topics are well elaborated with appropriate examples and illustrations. However, It doesn't cover the Strategy Analysis topic of Information System where most business students will be involved either as a stakeholder or a subject matter expert (SME) or as a sponsor in future. This part is extremely significant as it talks about how Information System solution are defined in detail and their role during requirement management to spell out the correct requirements. Otherwise, the business student may not develop the correct thinking process to visualize the Information System to contribute appropriately.

Another part is – author missed out on ‘Change Management’ that can be implemented through pre-defined or ad-hoc process depending on the project size, the complexity and the formality. So, projects don't get cancelled due to changes in requirements at the last moment as they can always be accommodated during next release or sprint.

Finally, requirement engineering has changed significantly and now, it is far more sophisticated compare to what it was a decade ago.

The book could have added a few UML diagrams along with process diagrams mentioned in the book to elaborate the requirements as they are current industry standards and business students (future stakeholders) are expected to know them.

On the flip side, the outdated information such as magnetic disk storage etc. could have avoided or explained in a line or two. Instead, there could have been greater emphasis on the process management or reengineering or others areas of business technology management that were more suitable to the business student.

Overall, the book is very useful as it provides all the required details in one place systematically using business language.

#IIBA, #BCS, #IREB, #requirementmanagement, 

#BusinessAnalysis, #BusinessAnalysiscourse, #businessanalyst, #businesstechnologymanagement, #InformationSystems, #Whatbusinessstudentneedtoknow, #EfremGMallach, #ANISAN, #ANISANtechnologies, #SandhyaJane, #CBAP

A contest to win: Second Spring

This is odd posting...the book about corporate life, romance, and inspiration. 

Second Spring Contest

How Business Analyst defines a "business need"?

Here is the short blog on how to how to define the Business Need (either a problem or an Opportunity)

These high level guidelines or parameters will help business analysts defining their Business Needs.

Understand the business:

1.1 Business definition:

Business definition consist of analysis of following information:

1.1.1 What is the 'Entity Type'?
you need to define if the is proprietary or Corporate or Public Limited or Cooperative or Government…
You need to understand what are their governance standards  (such as tax, regulatory process) and requirements. and do they impact on your business need in anyway?

1.1.2 What is the Business Domain?
Is it agriculture or Service, or Hospitality or Defense or  Health Care or Banking or retail or manufacturing, or logistics and so on...

1.2. Products and Services:

1.2.1. Organization Structure (organization units and sub-units and how they are connected to main entity/Head office. People and their association with these entities and their role and position in the organization hierarchy)

1.2.2. Management and its culture (Democratic, lean management, hierarchal, traditional, modern….) Quality policy and standards, quality management process, values and beliefs

1.2.3. Clients, customers and the market: To understand their background and the special needs

1.2.4. Operations and legal and compliance requirement: How the products and services are reached to the end customers?

1.2.5. Organization goals: Long term and short term goals

1.2.6. Core competence: Products and services and other issues. Why these are better selling products compare to their competitors.

1.2.7. Competitive stance: who are competitor and comparison with competitors

1.3. Industry Standards 

  1.3.1 Current Industry Benchmark

  1.3.2 Current and potential future trends in the industry

1.4 New regulations

All these information and data is very useful to analyze the business in comprehensive manner. Without this analysis, the Business Analyst cannot provide the correct business solution that is appropriate the organization.

1.5 Background of Business Need (problem/opportunity):

When we identify the problem or the opportunity we have following area to work on:

1. The Record the problem or opportunity area.

2. Source of the problem or the opportunity:

3. Background of the problem: How it has arisen? Or how the opportunity has been generated.

Impact analysis or identify business value or Business Impact Analysis (BIA):

4.1. Area (department, functions): which part of the organization or which functions are getting affected with business need. For example, the problem is in retrieving sales data for retail chain store, check if the problem is in one region or it is across the region. Or it could be one ‘field’ or some more fields.

4.2. Stakeholders: Who (role – user or customer, signing off authority) are getting affected directly or indirectly? Are there more number of stakeholders is getting impacted with the problem or opportunity. The nature of impact needed to consider before the business need is fully defined. Pls refer stakeholder analysis in planning phase for more details.

4.3. Business Operations: where the impact is? One process or entire business processes are affecting? Is it industry wide impact (example. Change in service tax may affect the pricing and accounting process of the organization. Whereas, implementation of Basel II and Basel III would affect entire banking industry irrespective of size or location).

The best way to approach the problem is to complete the “Gap Analysis” where current business processes are compared against new (required) business processes and the organization’s current and future capability required implementing the same.

5. Financial and non-Financial impact of proposed solution

5.1 Will it increase revenue?

5.2 Will it decrease expenses?

5.3 Will it bring in new customers?

5.4 Will it bring in more money from existing customers?

5.5 Will it improve employee moral?

5.5.1 Not all the problem solving will result into business value such as financial and brand value. Sometime, resolving problem may result into improving the process that result into making things easier for employee in performing their daily work. Repeated work, instant access of data to make decision, decision support system.

5.5.2 Redundant process or lengthy or cumbersome process can be improved to make employees easy to do their daily work without unnecessary hurdles for additional approval or so on. This may result into improved employee moral with additional challenging project/work in their professional life.

6 Brand and image impact: problem within existing products or services or problems related to customers or problems related to operations ie delivery of products / services to the end customers.

6.1 Will it increase shareholder/taxpayer value? Increased customer satisfaction or improved products of services may result into increased revenue. Reduced operations cost could result into increased revenue. Both the cases, there will be direct or indirect impact on shareholder value.

7 Policy, Legal and compliance

7.1 Any new compliance or policy change may result into change in exiting operations or need for new business operations. Either way it may result into need of new business systems.

Once you analyze the business need on above parameters, you will have an understanding of business need and it's impact on the business. This analysis will support the stakeholders to make a decision - go/no-go.

More details in next blog - how to create a business need documents using these parameters and support the solution scope.

Reference:

http://www.uie.com/articles/business_value/

What Business Analyst needs to know about Agile Approach?

Here is the brief blog written on "What Business Analyst need to know about Agile approach?" in Q & A form. It is helpful for you to know about Agile in-depth and will also be helpful in preparing you for your Business Analysis interview. This blog will focus more on Scrum as it is more popular and widely used Agile approach. My next blog will have summary of other Agile approaches.

Please explain - what is Agile.
Agile is an approach to project management that is used in developing software solution. It is group of methodologies based on incremental and iterative approach to help the team to respond to the unpredictability of building a software solution. It also helps the team to explore the solution as requirements continuously evolve through assessment and adaption while producing the software solution through a series of demonstrable, executable releases of product/project.

The process can be custom-made by development or client or organization optionally based on the technical constraint, organizational standards, team’s comfort, or project scope, budget.

The point to remember that every iteration progressively contributes to developing and delivering the solution.

Following are some of the ‘Agile’ methodologies:

· Extreme Programming
· Scrum
· Lean Software Development (LSD)
· Feature Driven Development (FDD)
· Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)
· Agile Unified Process (AUP)
· Adaptive Software Development (ASD)
· Kanban

Scrum is most commonly used Agile approach in the modern IT environment.

What are agile manifesto?

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

Explain Scrum. How did you use it in your last project?

We used Scrum as it is the most preferred agile framework. We applied in managing and controlling iterative and incremental software solution (projects).

(for additional information: Ken Schwaber, Mike Beedle, Jeff Sutherland and others have contributed considerably to the evolution of Scrum.

The “Scrum’ is derived from rugby game where the ‘scrum’ means of restarting play after a minor infringement.)

We applied common strategies of Agile as follows:

• Sprint consisted of 3-4 weeks that was delivered in the form of workable component or feature.
• Informal communication: It was close interaction among small team (2-12). 
• Light and informal communication: Along with informal communication and informal process were followed. These meeting were frequent and face-to-face to understand the progress from every team members and resolved the issues, if any.
• Change management: was informal and changes were welcome at late stages
• Customer collaboration: Each iteration or sprint was delivered to user to access. The changes or improvement were done during the following release(s).
• Informal Process: Every sprint or iteration was part of product or solution. End of the release the component, the remaining components were assessed and prioritized for the next development. If any new component was added and was found to be important, it was accommodated before other complements were developed depending on the prioritization. This prioritization was part of every post release activity and no changes were added once the Sprint was in the process.
• From technical perspective, every iteration or Sprint was considered as a mini-project that went through entire lifecycle phases (define, requirement analysis, design, development, test and deployment) in compressed and fast paced mode.

What is Product Backlog?

‘Product Backlog’ is a prioritized Backlog containing the end user requirements. It is also a prioritized list of features (requirements or bug fixes, non-functional requirements, etc.) that contains short descriptions of all functionalities desired to be implemented to deliver the working or potentially shippable increments of the software product or solution.

This is used in place of traditional requirement specifications such as BRD (business requirement document) or a product roadmap or SRS (Software Requirement Specification).
The product owner owns the product backlog. Product owner along with cross-functional team estimate and sign off to deliver potentially shippable increments.
Stakeholders and other team members can add stories / features / functionality / requirements to the product backlog in the form of ‘To-Do’ list.
Product backlog is enough to start work in Scrum instead of lengthy formal documentation used in traditional project management approach.

#	User Story	Priority	Estimation
1	As an authorized user, I want to access ‘manage beneficiary’	1	2
2	As an authorized user, I want add a beneficiary	2	3
3	As an authorized user, I want to edit beneficiary	3	1
4	As an authorized user, I want to set transfer limit to the beneficiary	5	1
5	As an authorized user, I want to receive alter on my registered mobile phone after completing the transfer	6	2
	Total		9

• Each story adds a value to the user/customer.
• Each story is prioritized and developed in an order.
• Any team members can add a story and delete (his/her) story at any time during the project life cycle. 
• However, a “Sprint” (or iteration) can’t be changed by adding or removing story. 
• The product backlog is analyzed and re-prioritized after every “Sprint” and based on the prioritization, the stories are selected for development for the next “Sprint”
• The Product backlog is updated during entire project life cycle.
• All stories are estimated.
• All the stories are complete within and no low level tasks are added in the product backlog.

What do you understand the term ‘an epic’ in an agile project?

There are many requirements scattered across the multiple areas of the complex solution or product. The segregation and grouping of the User Stories belonging to the same domain is known as ‘an Epic’. An Epic is complete when all the User Stories are added and concluded.

What is the User Story in Agile?

A User Story is a requirement / feature / functionality described in the form of a story. User Story explains ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘why’ of a particular requirement.

For example: As an authorized user, I want to access ‘manage beneficiary’ to add the new beneficiary.

This will define:

Who - authorized user,

What - access ‘the manage beneficiary’ functionality,

Why - to add the beneficiary

During the life cycle, these user stories are identified, prioritized, and selected for a Sprint for implementing. They are further specified into tasks, estimations and other details related to tasks.

What is Sprint?

Sprint is an iteration or basic unit of scrum approach. It is typically consist of 3-4 weeks or 30 days. Software solution / software product is delivered through successive sprints.

What is a sprint backlog?

Similar to Product backlog, a sprint backlog is a list of features and requirements that team shall achieve in the next sprint. It is based on requirements priority and development team’s ability to complete the work.

What is the sprint-planning meeting?

The sprint meeting is conducted at the beginning of every sprint. The product owner, scrum master, and development team member(s) meet to understand the capability of the team, create the ‘sprint backlog’ by prioritizing the items, plan and delegate the work for the sprint. Although some mention 8 hours required for the sprint-planning meeting, but, there can’t be a fixed duration of the same as the components may not take same duration to discuss and finalize.

What is Daily Scrum Meeting?

As name indicates, these are short terms strategies. Every day during the sprint, the team assembles to discuss the progress of the sprint and strategy, if necessary. It is short (average 15 min long) and informal that can be even done at the team member’s desk.

Each member in turn answers three questions:

1. What did I do since the last Scrum meeting?

2. What do I plan on doing between now and the next Scrum meeting?

3. Do I have any roadblocks?

What is Scrum (Kanban) Board? What is a ‘Story Board’?

This board represents the progress in the ‘Agile’ approach.

You can create virtual or manual story board by placing note on each section.

The column indicates the stage and row indicates the User Story/task in a particular stage.

This is an excellent way to represent the status of the User Stories/tasks along with the project.

Design	Development	QA Testing	UAT	Deployment	Done
Task L	Task H	Task E	Task C	Task B	Task A
Task M	Task I	Task F	Task D
Task N	Task J	Task G
Task O	Task K
Task O

Or

Product Backlog	In Sprint (Development)	Delivered
Task F	Task C	Task A
Task G	Task D	Task B
Task H	Task E
Task I

Explain Sprint Review Meeting.

At the end of sprint or on the last day of the ‘Sprint’, there are two ‘sprint review meetings’ – one for customer review and demonstrations and other for team to review for the possible improvements. The adequate time is allowed (some can calculate by deriving the value from.

The duration of the meetings may vary. For each week of sprint duration, apply one hour of meeting time for the customer review. For the retrospective, apply .75 hours (45 minutes) for each week of Sprint duration. For example, a 30-day Sprint would result in a four-hour review and three hour retrospective. A two weeks Sprint would result in a two hour review and a one-and-a-half hour retrospective. Additionally, the team should spend no more than one hour preparing for the review.

These are the meetings that review - what was achieved in the course of the sprint and what is left.

What is Sprint Retrospective (meeting)?

Team members analyze the past sprints to understand the "lesson learned"  from the previous project to avoid similar mistakes and improve continuously.

What is Scrum Framework?

It outlines broad guidelines for scrum projects with few rules (dos and don't), roles (Product owner, Scrum master, scrum team), artifacts (deliverables or prioritized backlog) and events (Scrum Planning Meeting, Scrum Meeting, Sprint Review Meeting etc.) to deliver a software solution or products via iterative, interactive, and incremental approach.

This framework provides guideline for the role, nature of customer collaboration, communication.

It works on a principle of:

- Continuous improvements - inspect & adapt policy to engineering processes, product, and requirements.

- Change Management – is an integral part of project life cycle.

Thus, the framework allows defining only high-level requirements at beginning and low-level requirements at later stage/during implementation.

Communication: Scrum Product Owner collaborates with scrum master and scrum team to identify and prioritize the user stories/functionalities.

Why do we use a sprint burn-down chart?

It is graphical presentation of the progress of the sprint that is updated daily during the sprint.

Explain the Scrum Team and their role?

Scrum Team comprises of Product Owner, Scrum Master and the Development Team.

Product Owner:

Product Owner is a primary stakeholder of the software product/solution. He works intently with the team to create product backlog by identifying, adding, modifying and prioritizing the user stories.

Scrum Master:

Scrum Master works as a facilitator to the project team. He manages resources, enforces the scrum rules on the team, lead the scrum meeting, and guide the team as required.

Scrum Team:

The team decides what and how much they can do in a given project iteration or a Sprint. The team is responsible for developing and delivering the sprint.


What the term ‘Spike’ in scrum?

Spikes are time bound planned activities or sessions between the Sprints created for analyzing or answering queries.

What is the Velocity of a sprint?

It is the capability of the team to complete the work during a particular Sprint that is derived from analyzing the historical data.

What is ‘Tracer Bullet’?

The ‘Tracer Bullet’ is a ‘Spike’ or analyzing session using latest technology, latest architecture and latest best practices in the industry to produce top quality product.

What do you know about ‘Impediment’?

Impediments are ‘the causes’, which are hindering the team or team member to achieve their goals or maximum capability.

What do you mean by ‘ScrumBag’?

‘ScrumBag’ is the person or group or any factor responsible for ‘Impediment’.

Do you know ‘Invest’ in Scrum?
‘Invest’ suggests the characteristics of a good ‘User Story’ based on following criteria:

Autonomous: No other ‘User Story’ is depending on.

Zero-Trade-Off – No further negotiation required for this

Value – User Story brings in sizable value to the end product.

Scalability – The User Story can fit various sizes easily

Testability – It is testable to verify the success criteria of implementation of the User Story.

What is Planning Poker?
It is bringing consensus among the team on estimation of a particular User Story during planning phase.

Planning Poker Cards are distributed to the team members. Each card has a number that is associated with estimations in the form of either hours or days. Once a User Story is selected, every team member is asked to display their card that conveys their estimation for that User Story. If all the cards display the same number, that number (estimation) is finalized as ‘estimation’ for the User Story.

In case the cards displayed have different numbers for a User Story, estimations are discussed and finalized by brining everyone on an agreeable term.

Reference: 

1. Agile Estimation and Planning by Mike Cohn

2. Scrum Institute 

(http://www.scrum-institute.org)