Business Analysis for Practitioners - Business Analysis Planning

Business Analysis for Practitioners

- Business Analysis Planning

COURSE STRUCTURE

Introduction to

Business

Analysis

Module 1

Needs

Assessment

Module 2

Business

Analysis

Planning

Module 3

Requirements

Elicitation and

Analysis

Module 4

Traceability and

Monitoring

Module 5

Solution

Evaluation

Module 6

COURSE OBJECTIVE

At the end of this course, you will

understand what business analysis is all

about, why it is essential to the success of

any project and how to perform it on your

projects...

Business Analysis for

Practitioners

MODULE 3

MODULE OBJECTIVE

BUSINESS ANALYSIS PLANNING

 Predictive (traditional) life cycle project requires

complete plans before elicitation

Adaptive (agile) life cycle projects requires some

planning upfront while the rest evolves over the course

of the project/program.

Business planning helps to ease

understanding of the scope of work,

stakeholders expectations and the

appropriate amount of business analysis

required for the project.

RATIONALE FOR BA PLANNING

Because requirements are the foundation from which

the project is based and a key contributor to project

success, the sponsor and project manager should

ensure that a sufficient level of business analysis

planning is conducted.

Business analysis planning achieves the following:

• Sets expectations with the sponsor, project team, and key stakeholders as to the

business analysis activities that will be performed;

• Ensures that roles are identified, understood, and communicated to everyone

participating in the business analysis process;

• Achieves buy-in and support for the business analysis process before work begins;

• Provides context to support estimation of the business analysis activities; and

• Produces a more efficiently run business analysis process, because activities are not

missed or excessively performed.

BUSINESS ANALYSIS PLANNING

Business planning and scheduling is a part of the

overall project management plan

The Business analyst should work closely with

the project manager while this plan is being

formulated so it can be integrated into the

project management plan being managed by the

project manager

BUSINESS ANALYSIS PLANNING

Creating the Business Analysis Plan involves:

Conduct or Refine the Stakeholder Analysis

- Techniques for Identifying Stakeholders (Brainstorming and

Organizational charts)

- Determine Stakeholder Characteristics (Attitude, Complexity,

Culture, Experience, Level of Influence and Location &

Availability)

- Techniques for grouping or Analyzing (Job Analysis, Personal

Analysis)

- Assemble the Stakeholder Analysis Results

Understanding Complexity

Source: PMI’s Pulse of the Profession In-Depth Report: Navigating Complexity

BUSINESS ANALYSIS PLANNING

Creating the Business Analysis Plan involves:

Create the Business Analysis Plan

- Business Analysis Plan vs. Requirements Management Plan

- What to include in the Business Analysis Plan (Determining

the Proper Level of Detail)

- Understand the Project Context

- Understand How the Project Life Cycle Influences Planning

Decisions (Predictive, Iterative and Adaptive)

-Ensure the Team is Trained on the Project Life Cycle

What to include in the Business Analysis Plan

Generally, decisions that are reflected in the business analysis plan and are

influenced by the selected project life cycle include:

• Type of elicitation activities to be conducted;

• Requirements analysis models that are required or expected;

• How requirements will be documented and communicated to stakeholders,

including the use of any specialized tools;

• Business analysis deliverables to be produced;

• Roles and responsibilities for those participating in the requirement

activities;

• How requirements will be prioritized, approved, and maintained;

• List of requirement states that will be tracked and managed in the project;

• How requirements will be validated and verified; and

• How the acceptance criteria will be determined for the requirements and

solution validation.

Understand How the Project Life Cycle Influences

Planning Decisions

Project life cycle models range from predictive (fully plan-driven) to

adaptive (change-driven), and hybrid approaches fall anywhere

between the two. It impacts a number of decisions about the

business analysis process, such as:

• Business analysis activities that are to be performed,

• Order in which the activities will be completed,

• Timing of activities,

• Deliverables,

• Level of formality required for deliverables,

• Approach for prioritizing requirements, and

• Methods for addressing requirement changes.

Predictive PLC Characteristics

○ Emphasis is on minimizing uncertainty.

○ Scope is entirely defined up-front.

○ Time and cost estimates are determined for the entire project when

scope is defined.

○ Business analysis is conducted mostly up-front; requirements are

completed before product development begins.

○ Deliverables are determined at the onset of the project.

○ Changes to scope are carefully managed.

○ Business value is delivered through one implementation.

○ The need and solution are known and do not change throughout the

project.

○ Predictive life cycle methods are also referred to as plan-driven,

traditional, or waterfall methods.

Iterative/Incremental PLC Characteristics

○ Project is split into phases and project phases are intentionally

repeated.

○ Project work is performed sequentially or with some overlap in

iterations.

○ High-level scope is defined up-front and the detailed scope is

elaborated upon for each iteration.

○ Scope for future phases is defined when the prior phase starts or

completes.

○ Product is developed iteratively as features are added incrementally.

○ Business analysis is performed up-front and then in small amounts

throughout the project.

○ Requirements analysis is performed in time-boxed iterations.

○ The need and solution become more stable as the project progresses.

Adaptive PLC Characteristics

○ Business value is emphasized over minimizing uncertainty.

○ Time and cost estimates are fixed for each iteration.

○ Iterations are conducted quickly.

○ Overall scope is agreed to early. Detailed scope and product

requirements are defined for a single iteration at a time.

○ Changes are expected; when new requirements are presented, these

are captured in a product backlog, and then the backlog is reprioritized.

○ Business value is delivered iteratively.

○ Business analysis is constant.

○ The need and solution are unknown and unstable.

○ Adaptive life cycle methods are also referred to as change-driven or

agile methods.

BUSINESS ANALYSIS PLANNING

Creating the Business Analysis Plan involves:

Create the Business Analysis Plan

- Leverage Past Experiences When Planning (Lessons Learned

and Retrospectives)

- Plan for Elicitation (Strategies for Sequencing Elicitation

Activities)

- Plan for Analysis

- Define the Requirements Prioritization Process

- Define the Traceability Approach

Strategies for Sequencing Elicitation Activities

There are a number of strategies the business analyst may consider when

determining which areas of requirements elicitation to address first. Suggested areas

of focus are where there are:

• Significant amounts of business value to be gained,

• Greater risks,

• Many project unknowns or uncertainties,

• Significant technical challenges,

• Dependencies on other components or interfaces,

• Required third-party resources that the project is dependent on, and

• Limited number of resources or a risk that a key resource may leave the project or

company.

Other constraints that affect elicitation sequencing are the dates key stakeholders

impose on the project. For example, plant shutdowns or seasonal constraints where

stakeholders are committed to the operational work of the business before the work

of the project.

Define the Requirements Prioritization Process

Setting expectations early with stakeholders helps to minimize situations where

stakeholders become unhappy when their requirements are prioritized to the bottom

of the list.

The project life cycle influences the prioritization process and often dictates the

frequency, timing, and techniques for performing prioritization

Requirements are prioritized based on a number of factors such as:

• Value. Addressing high-value requirements first to reap the financial or goodwill

benefits up-front.

• Cost. Evaluating requirements based on financial costs or opportunity costs.

• Difficulty. Considering how difficult the requirement is to fulfill.

• Regulatory. Addressing regulatory or legislative requirements that have imminent

compliance deadlines first.

• Risk. Implementing high-risk requirements first to uncover issues early.

Some common techniques for determining priority are MoSCoW, multivoting, timeboxing, and

weighted ranking.

Define the Traceability Approach

Requirements that are documented but fail to trace to a business need are considered out of

scope. Requirements that fail to trace to a solution component identify areas where the product

is not in compliance with the requirements.

When sufficient traceability is established, it is much easier for the project team to understand

how a proposed change will impact the project. A sufficient amount of traceability ensures that

the impacts of requirements change are properly assessed and quantified from a risk, cost, and

time perspective.

Higher-risk or more complex projects may require more traceability.

The types of traceability decisions the business analyst should consider are:

• Types of requirements to be traced,

• Level of detail to trace to,

• Relationships that will be established and maintained,

• Requirement attributes to be tracked,

• Requirement states that drive the requirements life cycle (example, approve, defer, reject, etc

• Tools used to perform the traceability, and

• Process decisions regarding how traceability will be established and maintained.

BUSINESS ANALYSIS PLANNING

Creating the Business Analysis Plan involves:

Create the Business Analysis Plan

- Define the Communication Approach

- Define the Decision-Making Process

- Define the Requirements Verification and Validation

Processes

- Define the Requirements Change Process

- Define the Solution Evaluation Process

Define the Decision-Making Process

The following information can be considered when defining the

decision-making process:

• Types of decisions that will be made, including how requirements will

be approved,

• Roles and authority levels, for example, who is involved in the

discussions and who makes decisions, etc.,

• Process to follow when consensus cannot be reached and

requirements-related issues need to be escalated,

• Required turn-around time for a decision to be reached,

• How decisions are documented and communicated, including

requirements signoff, and

• Special tools or techniques that may be used to help teams evaluate

alternatives, for example, decision analysis, decision modeling, decision

trees etc..

Define the Requirements Verification and Validation Processes

According to the PMBOK Guide – Fifth Edition,

• Verification is the evaluation of whether or not a product, service, or

system complies with a regulation, requirement, specification, or

imposed condition.

• Validation is the assurance that a product, service, or system meets

the needs of the customer and other identified stakeholders.

Requirements verification is the process of reviewing requirements and

models to ensure they meet quality standards. Verification processes

often leverage checklists to define the quality attributes.

Requirements validation is the process of ensuring that all requirements

accurately reflect the intent of the stakeholder and that each

requirement aligns to one or more business requirements. Validation is

performed through the use of structured walkthroughs and traceability.

BUSINESS ANALYSIS PLANNING

Creating the Business Analysis Plan involves:

Plan the Business Analysis Work

- Determine Who Plans the Business Analysis Effort

- Build the Business Analysis Work Plan (Identify the

Deliverables, Determine the Tasks and Activities, Determine the

Timing and Sequencing of Tasks, Determine the Roles and

Responsibilities, Identifying the Resources and Estimate the

Work)

BUSINESS ANALYSIS PLANNING

Creating the Business Analysis Plan involves:

Assemble the Business Analysis Work Plan

Document the rationale for the Business

Analysis work plan

Review the Business Analysis Plan with Key

Stakeholders

Obtain approval of the business analysis plan

Sample Business Analysis Work Plan

BUSINESS ANALYSIS PLANNING

Exercise

Remember the image in the previous slide, an

adequate business analysis plan properly executed

would have helped avoid the challenge they now

face.

How will you now plan for this project in

retrospect?

BUSINESS ANALYSIS PLANNING