What are The Business analysis tasks

Each of the six business analysis knowledge areas has a purpose. The purpose of the Requirements Analysis knowledge area, for example, is to determine a solution to meet stakeholder needs.

A knowledge area is made up of tasks, each of which also has a purpose. Business analysts perform these tasks to accomplish the overall purpose of the knowledge area.

Although each business analysis task is unique, there are several characteristics that all tasks share:

  • they must be completed in order for the purposes of the associated knowledge areas to be achieved
     
  • they produce positive results that are valuable to the sponsoring organization, and
     
  • the results of tasks can be used as inputs for succeeding tasks, which may be performed by other people
     

Tasks are essential to the success of a business analysis initiative. Every task should be completed at least once during the course of an initiative. However, there is no limit on the number of times a task may be completed.

You might, for example, need to perform a task several times in order to determine an organization's current or future state.

There is no prescribed order for tasks. Business analysts can complete tasks in any order, as long as they possess the data needed to perform the tasks and produce results.

The data you require to perform a task sometimes changes over the course of an initiative. When this happens, the task might need to be completed more than once to produce updated results.

Business analysis initiatives may have iterative or agile life cycles. This dictates whether a business analyst performs several tasks in parallel, or breaks a project into specific phases and perform tasks from several knowledge areas during each phase.

Question

In what order are tasks performed?

Options:

  1. Tasks may be performed in any order
  2. Tasks are performed simultaneously
  3. Tasks are performed at the start of a project and upon its completion

Answer

Option 1: Correct. There is no prescribed order for tasks, but they each need to be performed at least once during an initiative.

Option 2: Incorrect. Tasks can be performed in any order and at any time, as long as you possess the required data to complete the task. During iterative projects, tasks are sometimes performed in parallel.

Option 3: Incorrect. Tasks can be performed in any order, as long as each one is performed at least once during a project.

Correct answer(s):

1. Tasks may be performed in any order

The only prerequisite for performing a task is that the data required to complete it is available. This data is called an input.

Task inputs may be generated by one of two types of sources:

  • by a business analysis task or
     
  • externally, outside the scope of business analysis activities
     

When you use an input to perform a task, generating a result doesn't necessarily mean that you've completed the task or fulfilled its purpose.

Instead, inputs and results might simply provide you with input for your next task, or enable you to begin performing additional work. For example, you might use several inputs to perform a single task several times. The results might enable you to examine several scenarios or move forward to an additional task.

Requirements are an important aspect of business analysis. They are the only inputs that are not produced from a single task. Requirements can be stated and classified in a number of ways when they're used as inputs. Sometimes no state or classification is listed and, in this case, any requirements can be used.

In most cases, a requirement is first listed by its state and then by its classification. For instance, stated requirements indicate that any classification can be used.

Stated requirements.

When there's no state listed, business requirements can be used in any state – prioritized, verified, or stated.

Business requirements.

Sometimes states are combined to describe requirements that have two states or to group all requirements that currently have either state. Requirements might, for example, be prioritized and verified.

Prioritized and verified business requirements.

The elements of a task describe the important concepts that business analysts need to understand in order to perform the task. They include aspects of its format and structure.

Because each business analysis initiative is specific, each task's elements are also unique.

Different sorts of tasks affect and require input from different kinds of stakeholders. For every task, a business analyst should list stakeholders who might be affected by or involved in performing the task.

Given that each business analysis task is unique, it would be impossible to create a list of all the possible stakeholders. In most cases, specific stakeholders' roles are included within broader, generic categories.

  Generic stakeholder categories in project include:

Business analysts

Business analysts are responsible for executing a project's business analysis activities, so they are stakeholders by default.


Sometimes business analysts are also responsible for roles that would normally be classed in different stakeholder categories. For example, business analysts sometimes perform subject matter expert, project manager, or tester roles, as well as performing business analysis activities.
 

Customers

Customers are internal or external stakeholders in a project or initiative. They are the people who use the products and services that a project or initiative provides. For example, if a project was implementing a new database in an organization, the customers would be the user group in the department using the new database.

Domain subject matter experts

Organizations sometimes also have contractual standards that they need to meet to uphold customers' moral rights.
Domain subject matter experts, or SMEs, are people with in-depth knowledge related to a business need.

Sometimes SMEs are also end users, managers, consultants, or legal staff. These are individuals who might use the project solution indirectly.
The term end users is most often used in software development. An end user is someone who interacts directly with a solution. In the software development environment, and end user refers to the individual who will actually use a software application once it is developed.
 

End users

In more general terms, an end user is anybody that participates in a business process.

Implementation subject matter experts

Implementation subject matter experts possess the expert knowledge necessary to design and implement the solutions that business analysts recommend.
 
Although there are too many kinds of implementation SMEs to mention, the more common kinds include software engineers, organizational change management professionals, system architects, trainers, and usability professionals.

Other generic stakeholder categories include

Project managers

Project managers are responsible for implementing the solutions that business analysts recommend. It's their responsibility to ensure that project objectives are met and to balance project constraints.

Constraints might include scope, budget, risk, resources, or schedule limitations.

Testers

Testers are responsible for ensuring that solutions meet the requirements that business analysts have specified.

They are also responsible for verifying that solutions meet quality standards, for minimizing the risk of failures and defects, and for ensuring this risk is understood.
Regulators are responsible for determining and enforcing standards. These might be standards that a solution must meet or standards that the team developing the solution must meet.

Regulators

Regulators help to enforce legislation, corporate governance standards, and audit standards. They also help to ensure that standards enforced by organizational centers of competency, such as business competency centers, are met.

Sponsors

Sponsors authorize business analysis initiatives. It is their role to instigate efforts to define business needs and find solutions that will meet these needs.
Suppliers are considered external stakeholders because they aren't usually part of the organization that is conducting a business analysis initiative. They are responsible for providing products or services to the organization.

Suppliers

Suppliers might have contractual or moral rights that organizations need to respect.

The results produced on the completion of a task are called outputs. An output is either a deliverable in itself or part of a larger deliverable.

A single output is usually created by a single task. However, it is possible for a task to have multiple outputs – for instance, when a single task is completed several times. Successfully completed tasks result in new outputs, outputs that are transformed, or outputs that have changed state.

The form an output takes depends on these factors:

  • the type of initiative or project being conducted
     
  • the sponsoring organization's standards, and
     
  • the form in which the business analyst will deliver information to stakeholders
     

For instance, in a business analysis project that includes accountants and financial clients as stakeholders, the business analyst would want to present information in a form that the stakeholders can understand. In this case, the accountants and financial stakeholders might be interested in financial data such as expenditure and budget, which you could present to them in a spreadsheet.

Because there is no prescribed order for performing tasks, an output doesn't necessarily mean that subsequent tasks using that output as an input should then be completed. Task outputs are often part of a larger deliverable and might not be in their final state. Outputs need only be in a state that enables subsequent work to begin.

 

Question

Identify the statements that describe the characteristics of business analysis tasks.

Options:

  1. They are used to accomplish the purpose of an associated knowledge area
  2. They produce positive and valuable outputs
  3. Their outputs cannot be used as inputs for subsequent tasks
  4. Requirements they use as inputs each exist only in a single state

Answer

Option 1: Correct. Just as each business analysis knowledge area has a purpose, each business analysis task has a purpose. A task's purpose supports achievement of the overall purpose of the associated knowledge area.

Option 2: Correct. The result or outputs of business analysis tasks are valuable to the sponsoring organization. Outputs are either deliverables or form parts of larger deliverables.

Option 3: Incorrect. Completed business analysis tasks produce outputs, or results, which can be used as inputs for tasks that follow.

Option 4: Incorrect. When used as inputs for tasks, requirements can be classified in different ways and exist in several states.

Correct answer(s):

1. They are used to accomplish the purpose of an associated knowledge area
2. They produce positive and valuable outputs