Business Analysis Based on BABOK® Guide Version 2 - A Pocket Guide

1.1   Purpose of the Pocket Guide

The purpose of this pocket guide to the International Institute of Business Analysis™ (IIBA) A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® (or ‘BABOK® Guide’ for short) is to help understand the key knowledge found within the BABOK® Guide and how it can be applied to a particular situation. This pocket guide can be used by:

■   Individuals interested in how business analysis works or who may want to become Business Analysts;

■   Business Analysts as a quick reference during the course of their day-to-day work;

■   Team members working on projects or within normal organizational operations where business analysis is performed;

■   Managers and executives who need to understand how business analysis can help improve their organizations.

This pocket guide is based upon the content found in Version 2 of the BABOK® Guide, published in 20091.

Throughout this guide, you will see boxes that contain information of particular interest. Each box has one of the following symbols:

1.2   What is Business Analysis?

Business analysis as a profession is relatively young, but the core activities that encompass its value have been performed by a wide variety of individuals within modern organizations for quite some time.

Note: According to the BABOK® Guide business analysis is the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison among stakeholders in order to understand the structure, policies and operations of an organization, and recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.

Fundamentally, business analysis is about:

■   Understanding an organization’s core goals and objectives;

■   Being able to identify and assess key drivers that enable the organization to meet its goals and objectives;

■   Determining how an organization’s people, processes, structures and technologies work together as a system to perform their operations and how this ties to its goals and objectives;

■   Defining the needs of the organization based on its key drivers, goals and objectives as well as its current capabilities and future potential;

■   Evaluating potential solutions that will enable the organization to realize its goals and objectives.

As implied by the BABOK® Guide definition, business analysis is an enabling function that works with many groups of people who are involved directly and indirectly with an organization. Business analysis takes information from internal staff, customers, suppliers, partners, and vendors to develop a comprehensive understanding of the organization as it pertains to a particular problem or situation being analyzed (or the problem ‘domain’).

Note: For the purposes of the BABOK® Guide and this pocket guide, a Business Analyst is an individual who performs business analysis activities, regardless of what their formal job title is.

As a result, Business Analysts need to be able to comprehend and process information that will often be conveyed from many different perspectives. To successfully perform business analysis, a Business Analyst must be able to understand information from many different industries and professions, each of which have their own set of terminology, standards, cultures and perception of the organization. Business Analysts take information from all these sources, determine what is relevant and valuable, and then use that information to define the organization’s needs and assess potential solutions.

Example: Many Business Analysts help Information Technology solution providers understand the needs of their client, whether it is an external organization or the other departments within their own organization. In this setting, Business Analysts often develop materials that allow both parties to agree on what is needed and how the solution will meet those needs.

1.3   The Need for Business Analysis

Most modern organizations are comprised of the following people, processes and tools:

■   Executives focused on defining and achieving strategic goals and outcomes;

■   Front-line staff focused on executing their assigned tasks as efficiently as possible;

■   Managers focused on ensuring their teams meet or go beyond the expectations of their superiors;

■   Customers focused on their experience with the product or service they receive;

■   Suppliers and vendors focused on delivering what they need to in order to retain and increase their business with their client;

■   An array of information technology, communication, and other systems that help facilitate processes, knowledge management, and interaction with all the above stakeholders.

Each person and group within this collection has different viewpoints, skills, backgrounds and priorities that make it difficult for them to see how to effectively utilize the organization’s resources in order to solve problems and capitalize on opportunities:

■   Executives may be able to see the big picture but don’t have a deep understanding of the organization’s capabilities to decide which components should be leveraged for a particular initiative;

■   Front-line staff may not be empowered or realize how to make changes that will work towards the company’s strategic objectives, or have their own vision and priorities that compete with the executive view;

■   Managers are too busy putting out the daily fires to dedicate time to bridge the vision and priorities of their staff and superiors;

■   Suppliers, vendors and even different departments within the same organization are conversant in the language of their domains, but may not be able to effectively interpret how other stakeholders think and talk.

These problems are only exacerbated as organizations grow and/or are forced to adapt to changes in their industries.

Business analysis takes information from all of these people, groups, and tools to assess what the true needs of the organization are and find solutions that will effectively address those needs. It allows individuals and teams to get a holistic view of all relevant information related to a particular goal and helps facilitate the assessment and implementation of solutions that will achieve that goal.

Business analysis delivers value to organizations by:

   Focusing on needs that are paramount to the goals of the organization, which helps maximize the use of scarce resources to solve what truly needs solving;

   Enabling organizations to find the right solutions as efficiently as possible;

   Developing a performance framework that enables ongoing measurement, assessment and improvement of critical business functions and future opportunities.

1.4   About IIBA

IIBA® was formed in 2003 in Canada by 28 founding members2 who were dedicated to promoting the emerging profession of business analysis. The organization initially focused on the development of professional standards, certifications and a collective