Seeing Things from the Top and from the Bottom

It is critical that a BA know as much about his or her business as possible. You may not be able to know everything, but the more you know, the better able you will be to identify problem areas and recommend effective solutions. This requires an understanding of the business at both a macro level and a micro level. In other words, you must be able to see the big picture: Why is the organization in business? How does the organization make money? You also must be able to see the detailed work that goes on inside the business: When a customer orders a product, how is inventory checked for availability? How do products get to the customer?

Being able to see the big picture (abstraction) and the low-level detail will make you a very valuable analyst. Most people in an organization cannot do both. Most of the executive-level people in an organization are very good at looking at the big picture. They can see opportunities for growth in the marketplace. They can see trends in the industry. They can envision the organization doing new things with new people. But most executives cannot or do not want to know about the day-to-day details of making the organization work. And realistically, they don’t have time.

At the other end of the scale, individuals working in the business, performing individual tasks like customer service or claims adjusting, see work at a very detailed level. They know exactly which procedure is required for each type of transaction, but they may not understand how their detailed work fits into the big picture. They know which transaction code sets up the correct account in their software application. They know how to get around an approval requirement if the customer is important. Many of these people are very good at details but cannot or do not want to look at processes from a higher level. They are not comfortable with abstraction. This is where the BA comes in. BAs can listen to the broad, high-level plans and visions of the executives and imagine how the detailed work processes could support those plans. This is a skill that is never completely mastered but can continue to be improved.

A great diagramming technique to help analyze the business from the top and the bottom is the decomposition diagram. This is one of the best diagrams to use when you are analyzing a business area. It allows both high-level and subprocesses to be shown on one diagram and allows you to pull everything together for presentation and confirmation. The decomposition diagram allows the analyst to see things from the top down and the bottom up.

The decomposition diagram is a straightforward, simple diagram that is easy to use. It may be one of the first diagrams that a BA learns. Most people in business are familiar with an organizational chart, which is also drawn as a decomposition diagram. This familiarity makes the decomposition diagram easy to introduce to stakeholders. Figure 4.3 shows a decomposition diagram.

Implementation Planning

Part of knowing your business environment is truly understanding how the business area will be impacted by the solution designed for a project. Implementation or transition requirements describe the necessary actions to ensure a smooth transition of the project work (the solution) into the day-to-day operations of the business area. No matter how well built the solution is, a rough, unplanned implementation may be disruptive and negatively impact the business. It also may create a negative attitude in business stakeholders. These negative impacts can be avoided by implementation planning.

BAs are the change agents tasked with assessing the impacts of a change and planning the best approach to implement the change. Implementation planning involves analysis of the current (as is) business environment against the future (to be) business environment. The analyst identifies all aspects of the business that will be impacted by the change and plans each transition.

Change impacts may necessitate training, setting specific rollout dates, and updating employee job descriptions, procedures manuals, and policies.