Business analysis planning

Once you understand why a project has been initiated and is being funded, you must plan your part of the work. Planning is an activity which is very important to a BA. Planning may be done at any time: before a project has been officially initiated and scoped, after project initiation, or during a project to re-estimate for changes. Planning the analysis work involves identifying the people with whom you will be working and understanding their communication needs. It requires the BA to decide which requirements analysis techniques will be used and which requirements deliverables to create. It also involves estimating analysis time.

Technique: Map the Project

A useful analysis technique to help start the planning process is shown in Table 7.5. Mapping a project helps the analyst determine what type of analysis work will be needed in two dimensions: what vs. how and current vs. future. Most projects require business analysis work in more than one quadrant. Understanding the type of analysis needed gives the team clear direction and helps to estimate the analysis time required.

Table 7.5: Mapping the Project
	Current (As Is)	Future (To Be)
Business analysis (the “what”)	Description of the current business area independent of how the work is done	New service or product for the organization
Solution/functional analysis (the “how”)	The current systems/procedures used to accomplish the business processes	The design plans for a new or updated system or procedure to better accomplish the business processes

One of the reasons for thoroughly analyzing the project scope is to have the facts necessary to build a realistic plan. Project planning and business analysis planning are very complex activities even when project objectives are well understood. The better the understanding of project expectations, the faster you will be able to develop an accurate plan.

The first dimension (the rows of the mapping quadrant) represents the what and the how of the business area. The what refers to business requirements.

• What are the core processes?

• What are the core data elements?

• What are the business rules?

• What are the goals of the business?

Generally, the what of the business does not change significantly over time. If an organization is a financial institution, the core business work of providing loans, servicing accounts, and managing funds will continue to be important goals of the business.

The how refers to the software, systems, procedures, and personnel that accomplish the business goals. The how of business changes frequently. Organizations are constantly trying to improve the efficiency with which they accomplish their goals. This is the area where most change takes place during projects.

Business analysis involves identification of both the what and the how, and it is important to differentiate between these two aspects of a business area. This differentiation helps to break down and plan the analysis work that will be needed. For example, in a business process re-engineering project, the team may be assigned to improve the how (procedures, systems, or personnel) of an existing business process without changing the what.

Table 7.6: Sample Project Map: Add a New Shipping Method

What analysis is very different than how analysis. What analysis involves asking questions to discover the business needs. How analysis involves imagining possible approaches for accomplishing the business needs and then “testing” them out for feasibility and flexibility.

The second dimension (columns in the mapping quadrant) represents the current state and future states of the business. Determine if it is important to analyze/document the current business area before making recommendations for changes (see Chapter 4 for a discussion of the advantages of learning the current system). Some projects require a formal analysis and deliverable on the current state, while others do not.

When a project involves work in more than one quadrant, an arrow is drawn to show the planned sequence of the analysis work. Typically, the current analysis is done before the future. See Table 7.6 for an example of mapping.