Summary of Perfect Technology

Perfect technology can be very useful for an analyst who comes from an IT background. Sometimes BAs get focused on how to fix a problem before completely understanding it. Another reason why these assumptions are important to understand is that many subject matter experts assume them naturally. People who have not been intimately involved with technology assume that it works correctly, is infinitely fast, and has no limitations.

On the other hand, as users become more and more experienced with software, and see its true limitations, they may have a hard time imagining perfect technology. A subject matter expert may unconsciously limit his or her own requirements because he or she doesn’t think that technology will be able to support them. This limiting of requirements is exactly what BAs are trying to avoid. It is critical to elicit the true, full requirements even if you know that they can’t completely be fulfilled at the time. Technology continues to evolve, and using one’s imagination about what may be possible leads inventors to create even more sophisticated products. As an analyst, it is critical that a BA understand the way stakeholders think, since it influences the way they communicate. Also, make sure that the requested requirements are truly requirements.

The one caution about using these concepts of perfect technology is setting user expectations too high. No organization has perfect technology. The assumptions are used to facilitate analysis and help to get to the true requirement. Users must understand that once the requirements are understood, the team will determine the best solution based on known technology capabilities and the project budget. This will involve getting collective agreement on which requirements are included in the solution scope. As the solution is designed, the BA will keep subject matter experts informed about any requirements that may have to be compromised. For example: “We can display the customer’s account history as soon as the telecommunications system identifies the customer phone number—but it may take as long as 10 seconds to display. Is this lag acceptable? Or we could display the most recent activity (last 6 months) with the rest of the history on another screen.”

Essential Business Processes

An essential process is a core activity of a business that is described independently of how it is performed. These core, essential processes describe the business objectives and work in a way that remains relatively consistent over time. For example, one of the essential processes of a bank is to accept deposits. Over the history of banking, deposits have been accepted in many different ways: cash carried into a branch of a bank, funds wired from another bank, direct deposit from payroll systems, etc. Regardless of how this business activity is performed, it is and always will be an essential business process of the organization.

Much business analysis work depends on the ability to identify and clearly define processes. To understand the business architecture, BAs should look at the essential business processes. Business process improvement is performed by looking at how work is done in a business area and then pulling out the essential processes to find more efficient procedures to accomplish each one.