The business analysis process model

by weareleanandagile | Nov 19, 2021 | 0 comments

A business analysis process model provides an overall structure for analyzing projects. This is a 5 stage process that follows the role of a business analyst within a project lifecycle. The five steps are:

Investigate situation
Consider perspectives
Analyse needs
Evaluate options
Define requirements

Business Context

Running across these stages is the business context. As a business analyst, the business context needs to be understood at each of these stages. This might include stakeholders, policies, existing documents or process maps. Furthermore, this may also include external factors such as legislation or data reporting requirements.

This is key to ensure the project starts in the right direction and time is not wasted working towards outcomes that don’t meet the business context.

Investigating the situation

This stage of the process model focuses on investigating the current situation, most importantly it is vital to discover the issues and problems with the current situation, and how these issues relate to the business context.

When a project starts, the users might already have their ideas for what the issues are, but it is important to investigate further and ensure that all are found. An effective way of discovering issues and problems is to map the current way of working. The Engage Process Modeler is a graphical modeller allowing for live mapping in a workshop.

Furthermore, other investigation techniques can be used to gather information about the current way of working, these are explored in a previous blog.

The BCS summarise this section as:

Procedure

Study background material: project initiation document, terms of reference.
Carry out initial investigation with key stakeholders.
Document the results of the investigation using meeting reports plus a
diagram such as a rich picture or a mind map.

Inputs

Terms of reference or project initiation document
Business objectives and strategy

Outputs

View of the existing business situation, including meeting reports and diagrams such as rich pictures, mind maps and fishbone diagrams
List of issues/problems
Business needs log

Consider perspectives

This stage focuses on stakeholders who often have differing opinions and views, it is vital to understand who is affected and how they will be affected. Stakeholder analysis such as a power/interest grid will allow you to prioritise who to keep informed and who to keep involved.

Once the stakeholders have been discovered, they can be analysed to uncover stakeholder values and beliefs. These can be used in business activity models and can be linked back up to the business context.

The BCS summarise this section as:

Procedure

Identify key stakeholders whose perspectives are important to the business
analysis project.
Investigate the values, beliefs and priorities of the key stakeholders.
Develop and analyse the stakeholder perspectives.
Build conceptual models of activities to fulfil the stakeholder perspectives.
Explore and resolve conflicts between stakeholder perspectives.
Synthesise conceptual models into one view of the desired business system.

Inputs

Terms of reference or project initiation document
Business objectives and strategy
Identified stakeholders (from the documentation of the existing business
system)

Outputs

Stakeholder perspectives
Business activity models based upon individual stakeholder perspectives
Agreed single business activity model

Analyse needs

This stage identities where improvements on the current way of working can be made. Once an As-Is and To-Be model has been completed using a standardised process mapping tool such as the Engage Process Modeler or Visio, gap analysis can be used to analyse the differences between the current way of working and the future vision. Therefore, is it important to ensure that the process maps are a realistic reflection of how the current process works, and the future way of working has enough detail to draw requirements from the gap analysis.

The BCS summarise this section as:

Procedure

Examine the activities on the business activity model.
Consider how well each activity is carried out in the current business system
and how well it is supported by the organisation’s information systems.
Identify the key business events to be handled within the business system
and develop ‘as is’ business process models for the key business events.
Develop ‘to be’ business process models for the key business events.
Analyse the gaps between the existing and the desired situation. Use these
as a basis for identifying potential business system improvements.

Inputs

Agreed business activity model
View of the existing business system
Business objectives and strategy

Outputs

Analysis of activities, including identified weaknesses
‘As is’ and ‘to be’ business process models
List of potential improvements to the business system

Evaluate options

This stage focuses on turning the potential improvements outlined in previous stages and developing them into business options. The majority of this will come from the process maps and gap analysis performed. During process mapping, several potential solution maps could have been made, and need to be evaluated so that an informed decision can be made.

At this stage, it is important to business, technical and financial feasibility. Business and technical feasibility will relate back to the business context and can be the responsibility of the business analyst to defer. Financial feasibility not only looks at the potential cost and time for developing any new systems, but also includes the potential time and staff savings in the improved processes.

The BCS summarise this section as:

Procedure

Identify a range of business options.
Explore the acceptability of options and reduce them to a shortlist.
Develop and document each option in detail. In particular, consider the
business, technical and financial feasibility of each option.
Develop a business case, including presenting options and
recommendations to business managers.

Inputs

Project initiation document / terms of reference
Business objectives and strategy
List of potential improvements to the business system

Outputs

Shortlist of business options
Business case, including options, feasibility assessment and
recommendations

Define requirements

This final stage pulls together the outputs from the analysis and evaluation stages to define a set of detailed requirements that have enough technical specifications to build a new system. Furthermore, the requirements set out should relate back to the process maps created.

The BCS summarise this section as:

Procedure