Business analysis is a process used to identify business needs and provide solutions to various business problems. In other words, business analysis involves a set of tasks and techniques that help establish communication among stakeholders, enabling them to understand an organization’s structures, policies, and operations. This understanding allows them to develop solutions that help the business achieve its objectives.
Business analysis is conducted on various innovations within an organization. These innovations may be strategic, tactical, or operational, and they can be implemented either within the scope of a specific project or across the entire organization.
You can use business analysis to understand the current state, define the future state, and determine the activities and actions required to transition from the current state to the desired future state.
The Business Analysis Standard can be applied from various perspectives. The BABOK Guide describes several of these perspectives, including organizational agility, business intelligence, information technology, business architecture, and business process management.
Why is Business Analysis Important?
Below are some of the key reasons for using business analysis methods:
- It helps you understand the structure and dynamics of your company.
- It enables you to identify existing problems within your organization.
- It allows you to identify improvement opportunities and find solutions to help achieve your goals.
- This concept helps you identify the need for change and facilitate discussions about it.
- Ultimately, by using these methods, you can increase the value delivered by the organization to its stakeholders.
Business analysis is important because it enables an organization to gain financial strength and competitiveness in the market. In fact, through business analysis, an organization learns and enhances both business skills and technical techniques.
These skills are acquired through structured and well-planned methods, which are highly attractive to employers.
BABOK Standard:
The BABOK Standard stands for the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge, developed by the International Institute of Business Analysis (
IIBA
) in the United States. This standard serves as a framework that defines and describes the business analysis discipline and outlines its key tasks and responsibilities.
What are the essential skills for a Business Analyst?
- Interpersonal and Consulting Skills
- Verbal and Written Communication Skills
- Analytical Thinking Skills
- Problem-Solving Skills
- Awareness of Business Structure
- Organizational Skills
- High attention to detail and the ability to flesh out details
- Ability to Analyze Costs
- Ability to Model Processes
- Ability to Understand Networks, Databases, and Other Technologies
Business Analysis Process
How can a business and its needs be analyzed?
To answer this question, the following points should be considered:
Investment Analysis:
This section includes a set of pre-project activities that lead to project selection. These activities help maintain your business architecture and prepare you for informed decision-making. For this reason, they are highly valuable in business analysis.
Requirements Planning and Management:
In this stage, you need to define the tasks and resources associated with your planning. In fact, this step helps you ensure that the activities being carried out are appropriate and aligned with the project’s objectives.
Requirements Elicitation:
This stage involves researching and identifying requirements from users, customers, and stakeholders.
Requirements Analysis:
In this stage, the way stakeholders’ needs are analyzed—along with the structure, design, and implementation of solutions—is described. Requirements analysis helps you define the methods and tools used to process and interpret raw data.
Requirements Communication:
This stage involves a set of activities to communicate the outcomes of the requirements analysis. In addition, before implementing a solution, it must be reviewed, evaluated, and approved.
Solution Evaluation and Validation:
In this stage, it is determined whether your solution can meet the defined objectives or not.
As mentioned earlier, creating change in your business is achieved by identifying requirements and proposing solutions that create value for stakeholders. This process enables the organization to clearly define its needs and the underlying reasons for change, and to design value-driven solutions accordingly.
