CBAP Business analysis planning and monitoring

CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Adaptive Processes © Be with the Best! 1

Business analysis planning and monitoring



Home sweet homeIt was getting quite cold outside as the month of December was approaching. However, Dinesh was very relaxed as his first large Oracle Financials implementation for a prestigious retail chain in Seattle was well on schedule. He was confident that his team would complete the project in the balance one month left and he would be back home in India after 6 months of on-site stint.

His phone rang. Todd, Head of Legal, wanted to see him. Dinesh had met Todd only during the project kick-off. For subsequent project review meetings, no one from legal function joined project review meetings.When he met Todd, his comments hit him hard. Todd told that most of the financial reports developed by Dinesh’s team need to be rewritten, as none met legal requirements with respect to US taxation. With just under a month left, Dinesh and his team were now faced with the task of completely rewriting these reports that had taken over 3 months to create.



What is planning?

How planning helps?

What the BA should be planning?



Business analysis planning and monitoring

Plan business analysis approach

Conduct stakeholder

analysis

Plan business analysis

activities

Plan business analysis

communication

Plan requirements management

process

Manage business analysis

performance



Tools for planning

Lets review the handout and present



What are the common approaches for business analysis?



Plan driven approaches vs. Change driven approaches

Attribute Plan driven (Waterfall) Change driven (Iterative/Agile)

Focus To detail as much as possible in the beginning to maximize control and reduce risk.

To discover as we go.

Approver Sponsor Designated person

Applicable situation

Complex, high cost of failure, well drafted requirements possible.Challenging stakeholder interaction.

Low cost of failure Requirements amorphous

Degree of change expected

Low High

Level of detail High Low

Change management

Formal process Through product backlog, time driven

Communication

Formal Informal



Plan business analysis approach

Decide BA approach.

Decide req. prioritization approach.Decide change management approach.

Decide BA planning process.

Decide communication approach.

Req. analysis and management tools.

Estimate BA effort.



BA approach vs. Project approach

Project approach

BA approach

Waterfall Waterfall

Agile Waterfall

Agile

Even when project is agile, make sure all NFRs are collected in a waterfall approach.

Functional requirements are better with agile based approach.



Who are stakeholders?

Why stakeholder analysis is critical?

How do we analyze stakeholders?Identify > Prioritize or Categorize

> Manage


Key roles and their primary responsibilities in business analysis


Business analyst Understand business need, Identify solution approach and select appropriate solution, gather and maintain requirements.

Sponsor Provide funding and approve requirement, Accepting the solution

Project manager Estimation of schedule and cost, manage resource and project

Domain SME Provide requirements of the process

Implementation SME

Provide technical solution

Tester Ensure quality of solution

Operational support

Provide logistical support



Steps in stakeholder management

Stakeholder

Identification

Identifying key stakeholders who will or will be influenced

by your project

Stakeholder

Analysis

Understanding needs, expectations, and interests of

key stakeholders

Stakeholder

Management

Managing stakeholder expectations and helping them

adapt to change


Stakeholder influence patterns


Positive

High Influen

ce

Negative

High Influen

cePositiv

e Low

Influence

Negative Low Influen

ce

You are lucky!

Identify what should be done to move these stakeholders to high influence zone

Understand reasons for discomfortEngage activelyCommunicate frequentlyIdentify positive influencers who can influence these stakeholders

Understand reasons for discomfort.Engage actively.Communicate vigorously.Identify positive influencers who can influence these stakeholders.



Stakeholder charter• Many stakeholder

management issues can be resolved by having an appropriate stakeholder charter.

• A stakeholder charter sets ground rules for engagement with all stakeholders.

• This is a joint responsibility of the project manager and business analyst.

Adaptive Stakeholder Charter

Lets have a look at sample stakeholder charter!



Conduct stakeholder analysis

Identify stakeholders.

Determine complexity of stakeholder

groups.

Assess stakeholder

attitudes towards business

analysis and towards project.

How do we identify our stakeholders?



Sources of stakeholders

Sponsor

Legal function /

Client

Organization chart

Process flow

Interviewing

stakeholder

Users of existing system

Suppliers



Plan business analysis activities• Determine BA activities to be

performed• Deliverables to be produced.• Estimate effort.• Identify tools required to measure

progress.• Consider

– Geographic distribution of stakeholders.

– Type of project or initiative.What is the difference between work product and deliverable?



Plan business analysis communication• Describe structure and

schedule for communications regarding business analysis activities.

• Consider geographic locations.• Consider cultural diversity.• Consider type of project.• Determine communication

frequency.• Consider communication

formality.



Plan business analysis communication

Challenges Best practices

• Geographical spread• Diction• Cultural aspects

• When geographically dispersed, maintain more written document.

• Speak slowly.• Formally record decisions.



Manage business analysis performance

To manage performance of business analysis activities to ensure they are executed as effectively as possible.

Determine BA performance measures.

Prepare performance reports.

Identify preventive and corrective actions.



Develop and present business analysis plan for the given

case study.

Preparation : 30 Minutes Presentation : 30 Minutes



Lets test our understanding with sample questions from

the chapter.



Question 11. Which statement completes the following statement the

LEAST effectively? When considering the impact of 'project approach' on business analysis planning for the customized component of a new software package, the approach will.

a) Have an impact on planning and monitoring business analysis tasks as well as the roles and responsibilities for business analysis.

b) Always be a predecessor to the start of requirements planning and management.

c) Always be a successor to the start of requirements planning and management.

d) Determine the formality of communication with the developer(s).



Correct option for Question

Correct option: c) Business analysis approach should be defined prior to requirements planning. Since the question is looking for a negative answer, this is the choice.



Question 22. Non-functional requirements should be gathered ina) Linear manner in the beginning of the

project. b) Iterative manner.c) Should be collected after functional

requirements. d) No need to be collected.




Correct option: a) Since NFRs are difficult to change, they

should be collected in the beginning of the project.



Question 33. Which statement about techniques is the

most correct?a) They are required for all tasks. b) They are prescribed by the BABOK. c) Describe different ways a task can be

performed. d) Provide supplemental information about

one and only one task.



Correct option for QuestionCorrect option:

c) From the BABOK's description of a Technique, Section 1.6.



Question 4 4. Why the task to determine the appropriate

format for requirements is important to the project?

a) It assures that the same organizational artifacts are used consistently by all BAs in all situations.

b) It assures that each requirement is described in a unique format that respects the title and authority of the highest ranking stakeholder in the audience.

c) It assures that requirements are understandable to their particular stakeholders.

d) It assures that the presenter has sufficient time to learn new tools to enhance each presentation of requirements to different target audiences.




Correct option: c) A theme of the BABOK, requirements must be presented in a format suitable for the audience. BABOK 4.4.2.



Question 55. You are a business analyst in a project

which involves multiple location satellite development project. You will recommend the following approach

a) Waterfall approach. b) Agile approach.c) Hybrid approach.d) Scaled agile approach.



Correct option for QuestionCorrect option: a) Waterfall approach as the failure cost is very high.



Question 66. The document that describes various stakeholders roles and responsibilities during business analysis isa) Business analysis plan. b) Requirements management plan. c) Business analysis communication plan. d) Traceability matrix.



Correct option for Questionb) Requirements management plan contains

stakeholder list, roles and responsibilities.



Question 77. In a short, 3-month project to implement a COTS system, the BA determined that a detailed Software Requirements Specification document was not necessary and planned instead upon Use Cases for the analysis technique and documentation format. This is an example ofa) An assumption that could become a risk. b) Appropriate use of risk mitigation. c) A common mistake leading to prescriptive

requirements. d) Determining appropriate requirements

analysis and documentation activities.



Correct option for Questiond) The BA determines the best techniques to be used on the project regarding the requirements process. BABOK 2.3.2.



Question 88. Knowledge of a specific department's organization structure is a) Organization knowledge. b) Business knowledge. c) Domain knowledge. d) Department knowledge.



Correct option for Questiona) Knowledge about an organization or organizational unit is organization knowledge. BABOK 8.3.3



Question 9In order to assess business analysis performance, business analysts need nota) Capture effort spent on BA activities. b) Hold daily meetings with the project

manager. c) Collect stakeholder feedbacks. d) Measure quality of BA deliverables.



Correct option for Questionc) Rest all options are needed for business analysis performance.



Question 10

10. Which of the following statements best describes a plan-driven approach?a) These approaches tend to be preferred when

taking an exploratory approach. b) Agile methods of software development are

typical examples. c) This approach tends to be preferred when

requirements can be realistically defined prior to implementation.

d) The risk of an incorrect implementation is low.




Correct option: c) These approaches tend to be preferred in situations where requirements can effectively be defined in advance of implementation, the risk of an incorrect implementation is unacceptably high, or when managing stakeholder interactions presents significant challenges. BABOK 2.1.4.



End of module

Would you like to clarify any thing on the module?

Any suggestions for improvement?