Business Analyst Study Notes: What is Business Analysis?

In today's challenging business environment, there is an increased need for business analysis, and accordingly an increased demand for the services of business analysts (BAs). BAs  help organisations to analyse the internal and external environment, innovate, and strive towards their strategic goals. Business analysis provides a fascinating and varied career path for those who wish to help facilitate the delivery of feasible and desirable change.

Two of the most prominent organisations that promote and develop the business analysis profession are BCS (The Chartered Institute for IT)and IIBA® (the International Institute of Business Analysis™). Both organisations provide useful and complementary definitions.

The BCS book Business Analysis defines business analysis as:
An advisory role which has the responsibility for investigating and analysing business situations, identifying and evaluating options for improving business systems, elaborating and defining requirements, and ensuring the effective implementation and use of information systems in line with the needs of the business. 

IIBA® similarly defines business analysis as:
The practice of enabling change in an enterprise by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders. (International Institute of Business Analysis 2015)
 

The BA role can include strategic analysis, pre-project problem analysis, requirements engineering, solution evaluation, the facilitation of benefits management and much, much more. Yet, in practice, not every BA will be involved with all of these activities. The particular activities and areas of engagement are likely to depend on the organisational context, the point of engagement (whether early or late in the business change lifecycle)and the experience of the BA.
For example, newer BAs may start with a very narrow and prescribed project assignment, perhaps working under supervision to elicit, analyse and document requirements. Yet, as a practitioner gains experience, they are likely to gain exposure to more complex situations. As a practitioner’s career develops, the skills and competencies needed change also. Knowing this can be useful and can help us as individual practitioners to plan our own career trajectories. 

BAs work with a wide range of stakeholders – internal and external – in order to help the organisation meet its strategic goals. It is certainly the case that information and technology are crucial enablers, but IT does not exist in isolation. A change or improvement to an IT system will be successful only if it meets an underlying business need and if it fits with the wider organisational context.

A very useful model, developed by Assist KD and published by BCS, is the POPIT™ (People, Organisation, Processes, Information & Technology) model

This model shows four views of the business system, each of which is dependent on the others:
- People: Organisations are, essentially, collections of people who are brought together to achieve a common purpose. In order to be successful, any change made within the organisation will need engagement and buy-in from the relevant stakeholders. Seemingly simple changes might have vast knock-on impacts – it is very easy to merge two swim lanes on a process model, but this may mean that there is a change in job design, requiring consultation and training. Introduction of new IT may require support and training.
- Organisation: The organisational culture and structure may affect or be affected by changes. A programme to outsource facilities management, for example, will by its very nature change the organisational structure. It may also have an impact on the organisation’s culture and additionally may require new ‘relationship management’ or ‘contract management’ roles to be created. The style of management is also relevant here – in some cases there may be a desire to move towards a flatter, egalitarian structure. This will be quite a change if the organisation is currently organised according to a tall hierarchy with strict lines of command and control.
- Processes: An organisation’s processes determine how the work is done, how (for example)goods or information flow around the organisation, and how the goods or services are delivered to end customers. A single process is likely to span multiple teams, departments and IT systems; therefore, a change to a process may imply wide-ranging changes.
- Information & Technology: This includes IT infrastructure and applications, whether they are in-house, remote, bespoke or off the shelf. As alluded to above, a change to a process may necessitate IT changes (or vice versa), and any change to IT may have an impact on people, who need to be supported and trained. This aspect of the POPIT™ model also includes the structure, storage and processing of the information held by these IT systems. We may find situations where the IT itself appears to be operating well but little thought has been put into the underlying information model, leading to situations where (for example)there are, unintentionally, multiple conflicting records representing the same customer information, making it difficult to achieve a single customer view.

POPIT is a useful model for framing the profession of business analysis. 

Why Business Analysis?

BAs can help to ensure that an organisation’s operations, activities and change projects are aligned to strategy. Most organisations – whether public, private or third sector – exist within fast-changing and volatile environments. Customers increasingly expect quick and flawless service – as alluded to earlier in this chapter in the example of providers moving to same-day delivery – and this raises the bar for everyone.
New technological innovation has emerged that has disrupted (or even destroyed)traditional business models.
Layer on top of this the volatile political and regulatory environment, and changing socio-cultural trends, and it is easy to understand why some people describe a constant state of change as the ‘new normal’. It is the organisations that can lead and adapt to their environment that will thrive – and the quicker that adaptation can take place, the better. Organisations that are unable to keep up the pace may well survive, for now, but they may lose market share and see their profits dwindle over time. 

This raises a number of important questions that organisations need to address, including:
- Why and when should we adapt?
- What should be changed?
- How should change be made?

The discipline of business analysis can help organisations and executive decision makers to ensure that the organisation is able to adapt, change and strive towards its goals.

Why and when to adapt
Strategic business analysis involves assessing the internal and external business environment. This requires assessment of the opportunities and threats that are relevant for an organisation and of the organisation’s strengths and weaknesses. It is necessary to understand a range of relevant external factors, sources of competition and market forces as well as to understand internal factors such as strategy, business architecture and enterprise architecture. It involves understanding the outcomes that the organisation is striving for, and recommending potential options that will help to achieve them.
It is crucial to consider the timing – there might be strategic priorities that mean that certain opportunities are chosen over others. Having a firm grasp of the organisation’s vision, mission, objectives and strategy is crucial. Strategic analysis helps us to determine when change is necessary. Perhaps the external environment is changing and the organisation needs to adapt to stay relevant. Or perhaps an internal weakness is preventing the organisation from seizing an opportunity.
Often this type of analysis involves gaining a firm understanding of the underlying problems and core needs.
This may appear to be a very clearly exclaimed ‘need’. 

What to change
This involves assessing, in more detail, the existing processes, IT systems, information, organisational structure and so on. It involves eliciting, analysing and documenting the requirements for change. It also involves assessing the impacts of change in more detail. For example, implementing a new process may have a knock-on impact on the way work is carried out (which may impact the types of skills that are needed, necessitating training). Successful delivery of change hinges on appropriately understanding and defining all relevant impacts – and this includes investigating areas that stakeholders might not have immediately considered.

Often the impact of a change can be much, much wider than first anticipated. As an example, take the following stakeholder assertion:
We are changing our trading name from ABC Company to XYZ Company, and our logo will also change.

It would be understandable to think that this would be a simple change – perhaps involving a logo change on a website and a new letterhead. Indeed, the stakeholder in question might initially have the view that the change will be simple and quick.

But the implications could be much greater – for example, a five-minute brainstorm yielded the following potential areas that could be affected by such a change:
- bank accounts, direct debits and cheque books (so that payments are made and debits are presented with the correct trading name);
- marketing materials, both in PDF and hard-copy formats;
- websites;
- signage that appears on premises;
- telephone and other directories;
- ‘voice’ branding – for example, interactive voice response (telephone menu systems);
- stock legal papers and contracts (including agreement on what to do with contracts formed under the previous trading name);
- ID badges;
- internal branding on mouse mats, screensavers and so on;
- press releases to announce the transition;
- communication to key partners and suppliers to inform them of the change;
- processes to handle customer, supplier and partner queries about the change.

This is certainly not an exhaustive list, and a longer analysis would yield further factors for consideration. Each of these areas would need to be considered and their relevant requirements understood. The level of understanding will vary throughout each change initiative, starting with a high-level ‘thousand-mile-high view’ and moving on to a much more granular view once a decision has been made to proceed and funds have been committed.

How to change
Additionally, BAs work with stakeholders to identify specific options for the implementation of change. Initially these options may be very broad, perhaps representing a range of high-level solution approaches, and may be used for comparison in a business case. As the change initiative continues and as more and more is known about the situation, it becomes increasingly important to relate the what to the how. Put more formally, it is important that there is clear traceability between objectives, needs, requirements and solutions (and from requirements back to the source, which might be a person who raised them or a piece of legislation or regulation that implied or imposed them, and up to the higher-level needs and objectives). As a detailed view of the solution emerges, there will be a fine line between business analysis, on the one hand, and systems analysis and solution architecture, on the other.

BAs often play a part in helping an organisation purchase, lease, procure, change or build some type of solution. Yet there will be other stakeholders who are experts in the relevant solution components, and we are fortunate in being able to lean on their expertise.
There may also be times when we do happen to know the detail of how a particular solution works.

Business Analysis & SFIA
A useful framework for considering the BA role is the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). Basically, SFIA is a practical resource for people who manage or work in or around information and communication technologies, digital transformations and SFIA includes a categorised list of skills which can apply at up to seven different levels of responsibility (although it should be noted that not all levels are relevant for all skills).

The seven generic levels are:

1 Follow
2 Assist
3 Apply
4 Enable
5 Ensure, advise
6 Initiate, influence
7 Set strategy, inspire, mobilise

The SFIA framework specifies which levels are relevant for each skill, and provides a short textual description of each skill and of the responsibilities that a practitioner will have at each SFIA level.

Common role titles within a BA practice are described below:

Junior business analyst: An entry-level business analysis role, where a practitioner is working under significant direction and supervision. The individual will have basic knowledge of core business analysis tools and techniques but will not (yet)have significant experience.
Business analyst: A role for an experienced practitioner who has knowledge of a wide range of tools and techniques, along with experience of deploying them on various projects and in various contexts. Possessing refined interpersonal skills, a BA is able to work under minimal supervision, typically having a fair amount of autonomy over how they undertake their work.
Senior or lead business analyst: The responsibilities of a senior or lead BA vary between organisations – however, commonly these practitioners are responsible for shaping how analysis work will be undertaken and for assigning that work to a team. This may be a temporary team that is assigned to the manager for the duration of a project or a permanent team that they manage. Senior or lead BAs, therefore, typically require additional leadership and management skills.
Business analyst manager: Responsible for anticipating likely demand in the business area and resourcing accordingly. Maintains relationships with senior stakeholders at a portfolio level. Accountable for development and definition of BA standards, defining a training and development plan, and so forth.
Head of business analysis: Has overall responsibility and accountability for the BA team, typically reporting to a director or senior manager. However, the reporting lines will depend very much on the context, structure and size of the organisation.

This list is by no means exhaustive. There are a whole range of roles in use within the BA community, but it is likely that most will at least broadly map onto one of the levels described in the table. Some organisations may create hybrid roles – for example, a ‘principal BA’ may take on the role of a BA manager whilst also carrying out strategic analysis, essentially retaining an element of the lead BA skillset too. Other organisations might choose to have fewer levels or might create hybrid roles that span disciplines. As with so much in business analysis, context is king.