Business Analysis

Definition

Business Analysis

the requirements engineering task during which the context of the customer organization’s business enterprise is analyzed

Classification

As illustrated in the preceding figure, Business Analysis is part of the following inheritance hierarchy:

• Type: Abstract
• Superclass: Activity
• Subclasses:
  • Business Case Development
  • Competitor Analysis
  • Customer Analysis
  • Market Analysis
  • Stakeholder Goals Identification
  • Stakeholder Profiling
  • Technology Analysis
  • User Analysis

Responsibilities

The typical responsibilities of Business Analysis are to:

• Identify and profile all significant stakeholders of the business enterprise.
• Analyze the customer organization’s business enterprise.
• Identify and analyze the enterprises that compete with the customer organization’s business enterprise.
• Identify and analyze the markets in which the customer organization’s business enterprise competes.
• Identify and analyze the technologies that can significantly impact the customer organization’s business enterprise.
• Identify and analyze the users of the customer organization’s business enterprise.
• Thereby prepare the development organization to elicit, analyze, and specify requirements for:
  • The business enterprise.
  • One or more applications to be produced for the customer organization.
  • One or more reusable components to be produced for the customer organization:
    • Data components.
    • Hardware components.
    • Software components.
  • The application domain:
    • A vertical market such as banking or oil refinement.
    • A common horizontal subject matter area such as content management, customer relationship management, fulfillment, supply chain management, etc.

Preconditions

Business analysis can typically begin when the following preconditions hold:

• The business strategy phase has begun.
• The business strategy team and the technology strategy team are staffed and adequately trained in their respective business analysis subtasks.

Completion Criteria

Business analysis is typically complete when the following postconditions hold:

• The selected component subtasks are complete:
  • Business Case Development
  • Competitor Analysis
  • Customer Analysis
  • Market Analysis
  • Stakeholder Goals Identification
  • Stakeholder Profiling
  • Technology Analysis
  • User Analysis

Steps

Business analysis typically involves the following teams performing the steps of the following tasks in an iterative, incremental, and parallel manner:

• Business Strategy Team, which performs:
  • Business Case Development
  • Competitor Analysis
  • Customer Analysis
  • Market Analysis
  • Stakeholder Goals Identification
  • Stakeholder Profiling
  • User Analysis
• Technology Strategy Team, which performs:
  • Technology Analysis

Techniques

Business analysis can typically be performed using the techniques of its component subtasks:

• Business Case Development Techniques
• Competitor Analysis Techniques
• Customer Analysis Techniques
• Market Analysis Techniques
• Stakeholder Goals Identification Techniques
• Stakeholder Profiling Techniques
• Technology Analysis Techniques
• User Analysis Techniques

Work Products

Business analysis typically results in the production of the following work products:

• Customer Stakeholder Profile
• Customer Analysis
• Competitor Profile
• Market Analysis
• Technology Analysis
• User Profile
• User-Task Matrix
• User Analysis
• Glossary

Guidelines

• Business analysis is definitely required for business reengineering endeavors.
• Business analysis is usually required for application or component development endeavors (if not previously performed during a business reengineering endeavor).
• Some level of business analysis is usually needed to provide a foundation for the eliciting, analysis, and specification of an application’s or component’s requirements.