Shift from System Analyst

to Business Analyst

Asad Ur RehmanExecutive Director

Open Integrated Solution (Pvt) Ltd Corporate Trainings

Why a Project is initiated ?

What a project does for the organization?

Project is initiated to . . . Address Business need Solve a problem Fulfill an Opportunity

Need = Increase market share (12%) in next six months. Problem = Production Planning is weak (sales) Opportunity = If provides Branch-stock info, can increase sales 8-10 %

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System Analyst role - Limitations

Suppose – We have a good SW-Dev-Team. Team can write any difficult software, provided customer tell what exactly they need

SW-Dev-Team work hard for few months and develop a software that does not completely satisfy him/her

Customer says - “You did not understand my requirements. This software does not fulfill my needs”

SW-Dev-Team put all their efforts but the output is not acceptable to user. - What went wrong ?

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System Analyst role - Limitation- #1

What if customer tell you to develop a Software with His/her - limited Business knowledge Has - poor Communication skills

You work hard in wrong direction and do lots of repair work and re-work.

SW-Dev-Team efforts are completely dependent on customer’s explanation of requirements.

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System Analyst role - Limitation- #2

Requirements is - Multidimensional & Complex

Components of any automation Solution Software (features / functions) Process/Practices (need to be automated) People (their experience, knowledge, and ability to adopt change) Usability (Desktop, Internet, Smart-phone) Environment (Temp, Dust-free etc)

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System Analyst role - Limitation- #3

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System Analyst is technology person. Computer Science graduate.

System Analyst approach; give us the requirement (what do you need) we will develop software based on your requirements.

There are many project failures because of this approach. A role is required where somebody focus on Solution that meets the goal of a project.

7 Project Successful / failed

Project # 1

Problem = Production Planning is weak

(Sales) - We do not get required finished goods on time due to shortage of raw-material.

(Stores) - we purchase in advance according to Production-Plan.

(Production) - We must have finished goods requirements from sales department 40 days ahead of production Plan.

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Project # 1

Purchase a good tool for - Production Planning Cost about Rs1,500,000 (SW only) Spent 6 months to implement (additional cost of 24 man months)

. . but situation is still the same

There was business problem Nobody has the expertise to investigate the root-cause of

the problem

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Why Project failed ?

Sales sees the problem from their own perspective. Somebody should analyze the problem from all angels - i.e. Sales, production and stores.

Somebody should have that responsibility to understand problem completely; not the symptoms.

Somebody does the root-cause of problem and than convey that to relevant stakeholders. Proposed them a solution that will solve their problem

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Another Project failed . . .

Beverage Company in Saudi Arabia thinks their wastage is high.

Company want to analyze wastage though Business Intelligence (BI) tool on Stores (raw-material), production and cost module of SAP.

BI is implemented with heavy cost and in 8-months, BI report does not provide useful information that was

anticipated. What went wrong?

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12 Business Analyst role

Specialization is required

About 25-30 years ago programmer used to do everything

Taking requirements Designing of software Coding (development) De-bugging Implementation User Training

Specialized roles

Project Manager Business Analyst Architecture Developers (Coders) SQA Engineers Test Engineers Configuration Manager Risk Managers Information Security IT Governance

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Business Analyst role – Summary

Techniques & skills used by System Analyst

Communication skillPeople Handling Skill

Business KnowledgeStakeholders’ knowledge

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Requirements Classifications

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Business Requirements

User/stakeholderRequirements

SolutionRequirements

Why a change is required?

Shortcoming in SA role

Customer/user cannot express their need Business knowledge is mandatory Requirements are multi-dimensions & Complex Knowledge of Organization & people Need perspective - Requirement or Solution Project ends when deliverables are complete

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Customer cannot express their need

Most of the time users know what their problem is, but do not know what they need. They will give list of desires, what they want.

BA is responsible for eliciting the actual needs of stakeholders, not simply their expressed desires.

In many cases, the BA will also work to facilitate communication between organizational units (dept).

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Guess my requirements . . .

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I need a equipment

Is equipped with internal combustion engine

Is available in yellow & black colour

It has three wheels

Has 3 speed forward and 3 speed reverse

Levels uneven surface nicely and quickly

Elicitation (knowledge area)

3.2 Conduct Elicitation Activity (task)

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Solution Scope

Organizational processes Assets

Elicitation Results

Scheduled resources

Supporting Materials

Requirements Management Plan

Business Need

Output

Elements = Tracing requirements, requirement attributesTechniques = Interview, ObservationStakeholders = Domain-SME, End-Users

Conduct Elicitation

Input

Business Analysis Planning & Monitoring

2.4 Plan Business Communication

Set the ground rules of mutual communication among the stakeholders.

What should be communicated and to whom ? What is the appropriate delivery method Communication Channel / point of contact Frequency / medium / escalation etc Agreed response Time

Eliminate Assumptions

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Business Analysis Planning & Monitoring

2.4 Plan Business Communication

Example: It is agreed that only PM will communicate with

Steering Committee. Analyst will communicate through Project

Coordinator.

After every meeting, minutes will be published within 48 hours through emails.

Minutes will be published in DOC format. In case of any issue/shortcomings in MoM, it

should be reported within 2-working days. Detailed document will be sent to domain-SME

only. Final version of document would be published in

PDF. Weekly summary of the progress will be sent to

steering Committee.

SteeringCommittee

Project Coordinator

Project Manager

BATeam

Key-user Key-user

DevelopmentTeam

SME-1 SME-2

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Requirement Management & Communication

4.5 Communicate Requirements

Communicating requirements is essential for bringing stakeholders to a common understanding of requirements.

Communicating requirements includes conversations, notes, documents, presentations, and discussions.

Concise, appropriate, effective communication requires that the business analyst possess a significant set of skills, both soft-skills and technical-skills.

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23Business knowledge is mandatory

Business knowledge is mandatory

Software industry has realized, anybody who is collecting business requirements needs to understand business domain well.

BA must be knowledgeable in that domain, he/she can interact with users in their terminology.

BA provide ideas and alternatives both for requirements and for implementation of the product.

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Expertise of business is mandatory

Definition of Business Analyst

Business Analysis is the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison among various stakeholders - - -

in order to understand the structure, policies, and operations of an organization.

to recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.

BA may be performed to understand the current state of an organization (enterprise analysis) or to serve as a basis; for the later identification of business needs.

Business Analysis involves understanding how organizations function to accomplish their purposes, and defining the capabilities an organization requires to provide products and services to external stakeholders.

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Expertise of business is mandatory

Definition of Business Analysis

My Problem My requirement wish list

Business Analyst

Knowledge of organization’spolicies and operation

Knowledge of BA Techniques

Stakeholders

1

Identifies- Business problems - Business needs

2

determines

solutions 3

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27 Need perspective

Need perspective - Requirement or Solution

It is very important to have right solution scope against a need.

Somebody need to focus on Business Need and through facilitation and negotiation develop a solution scope which give value to organization.

SW-Dev-Team focus on giving a technology based solution. SW team is not a Problem Solver.

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Need perspective - Requirement or Solution

Solution Perspective BA will ask why do you

need table? BA will related need with

value to business? BA will provide solution

that will value to business How many tables do you

have? 3 said mother. Do not use dinning table

from 6-8pm and let kids use that.

Requirements Perspective Mother ask a SA to develop a

table for the kids-study.

Mother gave the size, design, color and material (all required details).

SA with his development team will develop a table.

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Give business value - not excellence

Changing from Information technology to Business enabler.

We must have Biz-case, we cannot have ERP because of fashion (everybody is buying it).

If currently FoxPro is severing our purpose (we

are OK) we do not need state of the art excellent system.

Business and technical information align with each other (IT Governance/COBIT).

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Enterprise Analysis

5.1 Define Business Need

Identify why a change to organisation systems or capabilities is required?

Business need defines the problem that the BA is trying to find a solution for. Determines which solutions will be considered. Which stakeholders consulted. Which solution approaches will be evaluated.

It is common practice for organizations to act to resolve the issue without investigating the underlying business need.

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32Requirements are Multi-dimension

Requirements are multi-dimensions

System Analyst ask question related to featured or functionality, requirements are not simple anymore.

You have to ask question to cover all aspects, from all angles. Not all the possible scenario.

Usability (Interface)Security (ISO-27001)Environment (Temp, dust-free)

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Requirements are multi-dimensions

Environment: Automating whole factory. You want to put a thumb-scanner/smart-card at the gate for attendance system.

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Without realizing the temperature at that place, the dust goes into the PC on daily basis. Soon the PC will be DOWN and no information about the staff attendance.

You need to look into the environment at factory in that industrial area.

Providing a dust free and 22-degree temperature is that a requirement? Not explained by customer.

Requirement Analysis – BABOK

6.1 Prioritize Requirements6.2 Organize Requirements6.3 Specify & Model Requirements (clarify) 6.4 Define Assumptions & Constraints6.5 Verify Requirements6.6 Validate Requirements

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That is all