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Licensed to Business Analysis Excellence Pty Ltd online@business-analysis-excellence.com Introductionchapter1.1ONEWhat is the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge?A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK Guide) is a globallyrecognized standard for the practice of business analysis. The BABOK Guide describesbusiness analysis areas of knowledge, their associated activities and tasks, and the skillsnecessary to be effective in their execution.The primary purpose of the BABOK Guide is to define the profession of business analysis.It serves as a baseline that practitioners can agree upon in order to discuss the work theydo and to ensure that they have the skills they need to effectively perform the role, anddefines the skills and knowledge that people who work with and employ business analystsshould expect a skilled practitioner to demonstrate. It is a framework that describes thebusiness analysis tasks that must be performed in order to understand how a solutionwill deliver value to the sponsoring organization. The form those tasks take, the orderthey are performed in, the relative importance of the tasks, and other things may vary,but each task contributes in some fashion, directly or indirectly, to that overall goal.This chapter provides an introduction to key concepts in the field of business analysisand describes the structure of the remainder of the BABOK Guide. Chapters 2 through7 define the tasks that a business analyst must be capable of performing. Chapter 8describes the competencies that support the effective performance of business analysis,and Chapter 9 describes a number of generally accepted techniques that support thepractice of business analysis.1.2What is Business Analysis?Business analysis is the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison amongstakeholders in order to understand the structure, policies, and operations of anorganization, and to recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve itsgoals.Business analysis involves understanding how organizations function to accomplishtheir purposes, and defining the capabilities an organization requires to provide productsand services to external stakeholders. It includes the definition of organizational goals,how those goals connect to specific objectives, determining the courses of action thatan organization has to undertake to achieve those goals and objectives, and defininghow the various organizational units and stakeholders within and outside of thatorganization interact.Business analysis may be performed to understand the current state of an organization orto serve as a basis for the later identification of business needs. In most cases, however,business analysis is performed to define and validate solutions that meet business needs,goals, or objectives.Business analysts must analyze and synthesize information provided by a large numberof people who interact with the business, such as customers, staff, IT professionals,and executives. The business analyst is responsible for eliciting the actual needs ofstakeholders, not simply their expressed desires. In many cases, the business analystBABOK Guide, Version 2.0Order ID: IIBA-201305032042-3224853

Licensed to Business Analysis Excellence Pty Ltd online@business-analysis-excellence.com IntroductionKey Conceptswill also work to facilitate communication between organizational units. In particular,business analysts often play a central role in aligning the needs of business units withthe capabilities delivered by information technology, and may serve as a “translator”between those groups.A business analyst is any person who performs business analysis activities, no matterwhat their job title or organizational role may be. Business analysis practitioners includenot only people with the job title of business analyst, but may also include businesssystems analysts, systems analysts, requirements engineers, process analysts, productmanagers, product owners, enterprise analysts, business architects, managementconsultants, or any other person who performs the tasks described in the BABOK Guide,including those who also perform related disciplines such as project management,software development, quality assurance, and interaction design.1.3Key Concepts1.3.1DomainsA domain is the area undergoing analysis. It may correspond to the boundaries of anorganization or organizational unit, as well as key stakeholders outside those boundariesand interactions with those stakeholders.1.3.2SolutionsA solution is a set of changes to the current state of an organization that are made in orderto enable that organization to meet a business need, solve a problem, or take advantageof an opportunity. The scope of the solution is usually narrower than the scope of thedomain within which it is implemented, and will serve as the basis for the scope of aproject to implement that solution or its components.Most solutions are a system of interacting solution components, each of which arepotentially solutions in their own right. Examples of solutions and solution componentsinclude software applications, web services, business processes, the business rules thatgovern that process, an information technology application, a revised organizationalstructure, outsourcing, insourcing, redefining job roles, or any other method of creatinga capability needed by an organization.Business analysis helps organizations define the optimal solution for their needs, giventhe set of constraints (including time, budget, regulations, and others) under which thatorganization operates.1.3.3RequirementsA requirement1 is:1. A condition or capability needed by a stakeholder to solve a problem or achieve anobjective.2. A condition or capability that must be met or possessed by a solution or solutioncomponent to satisfy a contract, standard, specification, or other formally imposeddocuments.1Based on IEEE 610.12-1990: IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology.4Order ID: IIBA-201305032042-322485A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge

Licensed to Business Analysis Excellence Pty Ltd online@business-analysis-excellence.com IntroductionKey Concepts3. A documented representation of a condition or capability as in (1) or (2).As implied by this definition, a requirement may be unstated, implied by or derivedfrom other requirements, or directly stated and managed. One of the key objectives ofbusiness analysis is to ensure that requirements are visible to and understood by allstakeholders.The term “requirement” is one that generates a lot of discussion within the businessanalysis community. Many of these debates focus on what should or should not beconsidered a requirement, and what are the necessary characteristics of a requirement.When reading the BABOK Guide, however, it is vital that “requirement” be understood inthe broadest possible sense. Requirements include, but are not limited to, past, present,and future conditions or capabilities in an enterprise and descriptions of organizationalstructures, roles, processes, policies, rules, and information systems. A requirement maydescribe the current or the future state of any aspect of the enterprise.Much of the existing literature on business analysis is written with the assumption thatrequirements only describe an information technology system that is being consideredfor implementation. Other definitions may include future state business functions aswell, or restrict the meaning of the term to define the ends stakeholders are seeking toachieve and not the means by which those ends are achieved. While all of these differentuses of the term are reasonable and defensible, and the BABOK Guide’s usage of the termincludes those meanings, they are significantly narrower than the way the term is usedhere.Similarly, we do not assume that requirements are analyzed at any particular levelof detail, other than to say that they should be assessed to whatever level of depth isnecessary for understanding and action. In the context of a Business Process Managementinitiative, the requirements may be a description of the business processes currently inuse in an organization. On other projects, the business analyst may choose to developrequirements to describe the current state of the enterprise (which is in itself a solutionto existing or past business needs) before investigating changes to that solution neededto meet changing business conditions.1Requirements Classification SchemeFor the purposes of the BABOK Guide, the following classification scheme is used todescribe requirements: Business Requirements are higher-level statements of the goals, objectives, orneeds of the enterprise. They describe the reasons why a project has been initiated,the objectives that the project will achieve, and the metrics that will be used tomeasure its success. Business requirements describe needs of the organization asa whole, and not groups or stakeholders within it. They are developed and definedthrough enterprise analysis. Stakeholder Requirements are statements of the needs of a particular stakeholderor class of stakeholders. They describe the needs that a given stakeholder has andhow that stakeholder will interact with a solution. Stakeholder requirements serveas a bridge between business requirements and the various classes of solutionrequirements. They are developed and defined through requirements analysis.BABOK Guide, Version 2.0Order ID: IIBA-201305032042-3224855

Licensed to Business Analysis Excellence Pty Ltd online@business-analysis-excellence.com IntroductionKnowledge Areas Solution Requirements describe the characteristics of a solution that meet businessrequirements and stakeholder requirements. They are developed and defined throughrequirements analysis. They are frequently divided into sub-categories, particularlywhen the requirements describe a software solution: Functional Requirements describe the behavior and information that thesolution will manage. They describe capabilities the system will be able toperform in terms of behaviors or operations—specific information technologyapplication actions or responses. Non-functional Requirements capture conditions that do not directly relate tothe behavior or functionality of the solution, but rather describe environmentalconditions under which the solution must remain effective or qualities thatthe systems must have. They are also known as quality or supplementaryrequirements. These can include requirements related to capacity, speed,security, availability and the information architecture and presentation of theuser interface. Transition Requirements describe capabilities that the solution must have inorder to facilitate transition from the current state of the enterprise to a desiredfuture state, but that will not be needed once that transition is complete. They aredifferentiated from other requirements types because they are always temporary innature and because they cannot be developed until both an existing and new solutionare defined. They typically cover data conversion from existing systems, skill gapsthat must be addressed, and other related changes to reach the desired future state.They are developed and defined through solution assessment and validation.1.4Knowledge AreasKnowledge areas define what a practitioner of business analysis needs to understandand the tasks a practitioner must be able to perform.Business analysts are likely to perform tasks from all knowledge areas in rapidsuccession, iteratively, or simultaneously. Tasks may be performed in any order as longas the required inputs are available. In principle, a business analysis effort may start withany task, although the most likely candidates are Define Business Need (5.1) or EvaluateSolution Performance (7.6).Knowledge areas are not intended to represent phases in a project. It is certainlypossible and permissible to proceed from performing enterprise analysis activities, torequirements analysis activities, to solution assessment and validation activities, andtreat each as a distinct phase in a project. However, the BABOK Guide does not requirethat you do so, and it should not be construed as a methodology for the performance ofbusiness analysis.Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring (Chapter 2) is the knowledge area thatcovers how business analysts determine which activities are necessary in order tocomplete a business analysis effort. It covers identification of stakeholders, selectionof business analysis techniques, the process that will be used to manage requirements,and how to assess the progress of the work. The tasks in this knowledge area govern theperformance of all other business analysis tasks.6Order ID: IIBA-201305032042-322485A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge

Licensed to Business Analysis Excellence Pty Ltd online@business-analysis-excellence.com IntroductionKnowledge AreasElicitation (Chapter 3) describes how business analysts work with stakeholders toidentify and understand their needs and concerns, and understand the environmentin which they work. The purpose of elicitation is to ensure that a stakeholder’s actualunderlying needs are understood, rather than their stated or superficial desires.Requirements Management and Communication (Chapter 4) describes how businessanalysts manage conflicts, issues and changes in order to ensure that stakeholders andthe project team remain in agreement on the solution scope, how requirements arecommunicated to stakeholders, and how knowledge gained by the business analyst ismaintained for future use.Enterprise Analysis (Chapter 5) describes how business analysts identify a businessneed, refine and clarify the definition of that need, and define a solution scope thatcan feasibly be implemented by the business. This knowledge area describes problemdefinition and analysis, business case development, feasibility studies, and the definitionof solution scope.Requirements Analysis (Chapter 6) describes how business analysts prioritize andprogressively elaborate stakeholder and solution requirements in order to enablethe project team to implement a solution that will meet the needs of the sponsoringorganization and stakeholders. It involves analyzing stakeholder needs to definesolutions that meet those needs, assessing the current state of the business to identifyand recommend improvements, and the verification and validation of the resultingrequirements.Figure 1–1: Relationships Between Knowledge AreasBusiness AnalysisPlanning andMonitoringSolutionAssessment entsManagement etenciesBABOK Guide, Version 2.0Order ID: IIBA-201305032042-3224857

Licensed to Business Analysis Excellence Pty Ltd online@business-analysis-excellence.com IntroductionTasksSolution Assessment and Validation (Chapter 7) describes how business analysts assessproposed solutions to determine which solution best fits the business need, identify gapsand shortcomings in solutions, and determine necessary workarounds or changes tothe solution. It also describes how business analysts assess deployed solutions to seehow well they met the original need so that the sponsoring organization can assess theperformance and effectiveness of the solution.Underlying Competencies (Chapter 8) describes the behaviors, knowledge, and othercharacteristics that support the effective performance of business analysis.1.5TasksEach knowledge area describes the tasks performed by business analysts to accomplishthe purpose of that knowledge area. Each task in the BABOK Guide is presented in thefollowing format:1.5.1PurposeEach task has a purpose. The purpose is a short description of the reason for a businessanalyst to perform the task and the value created through performing the task.1.5.2DescriptionA task is an essential piece of work that must be performed as part of business analysis.Each task should be performed at least once during the vast majority of businessanalysis initiatives, but there is no upper limit to the number of times any task may beperformed.Tasks may be performed at any scale. Each task may be performed over periods rangingfrom several months in time to a few minutes. For example, a business case may be adocument several hundred pages long, justifying a multi-billion dollar investment, or asingle sentence explaining the benefit that a change will produce for a single individual.A task has the following characteristics: A task accomplishes a result in an output that creates value to the sponsoringorganization—that is, if a task is performed it should produce some demonstrablepositive outcome which is useful, specific, visible and measurable. A task is complete—in principle, successor tasks that make use of outputs should beable to be performed by a different person or group. A task is a necessary part of the purpose of the Knowledge Area with which it isassociated.The BABOK Guide does not prescribe a process or an order in which tasks are performed.Some ordering of tasks is inevitable, as certain tasks produce outputs that are requiredinputs for other tasks. However, it is important to keep in mind that the BABOK Guideonly prescribes that the input must exist. The input may be incomplete or subject tochange and revision, which may cause the task to be performed multiple times. Iterativeor agile lifecycles may require that tasks in all knowledge areas be performed in parallel,and lifecycles with clearly defined phases will still require tasks from multiple knowledgeareas to be performed in every phase. Tasks may be performed in any order, as long as8Order ID: IIBA-201305032042-322485A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge

!e Body of Knowledge Committee was formed in October of 2004 to de"ne and draft a global standard for the practice of business analysis. In January of 2005, IIBA released version 1.0 of A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK Guide) for feedback and comment. !a