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Business Analysis Accelerator Course / Modules / Business Analysis Tools & Techniques /

Business Analysis Techniques

1:40:00

Business Analysis Techniques Mark As Complete

Read Case Study 1&2 (attached) and answer the questions for chapter 10. Note your answers down and post your answer in the group. Click
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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:08.800]

Now, we've looked at the commonly used tools by business analysts, we're going to look at the commonly used business analysis techniques
now note that without the techniques, we won't have any reason to use the tools. So, first of all, we need to know what techniques do we use as
a business analyst and then what tools we would use for the techniques. So we're going to be looking at techniques. We're going to be looking

at commonly used techniques of business analysts, not all the techniques you see here, are stated in the Babok Guide — Business Analysis
guide.

[00:00:37.150]

However, thought to, you know, talk about this techniques that you may be able to use in your work as a business analyst. You may not always
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need to rely on the techniques in the babok, but kind of valuable to your knowledge as a business analyst and depending on context you can
apply these tools I'm going to share with you, aside from the tools at the Babok will be looking at. So, yes, we're going to cover,

[00:01:01.360]

we're going to cover SWOT analysis, pestle analysis, most analysis, then collaboration techniques and diagramming and designing techniques.
So let's dive into the techniques. So the first technique we're going to look at is SWOT analysis. Now, what is SWOT analysis? The term SWOT
stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. SWOT analysis is a very simple yet powerful technique used by business analysts
to analyze both internal and external organizations on their analysis.
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When you're using the SWOT analysis as a business analyst, you're going to conduct a thorough analysis of the internal. The internal are the
strength and the weaknesses and the external are the threats and opportunities. So you've got to look at the actors and the factors at play in
your space and in the industry where your organization operates in. So when you're, you know, reviewing the SWOT analysis technique, you're
going to be looking at the four quadrants, right.

[00:02:11.710]

So we're going to talk about this quadrants, you know, regarding SWOT analysis. So we have the strengths, weakness, opportunities and
threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal to the organization. Opportunities and threats are external to the organization. Now, what are
strengths? Strengths are the characteristics of the business or project that give it an advantage over others. Weaknesses are the
characteristics of the business that place the business or project at a disadvantage in relation to competitors or other projects.

[00:02:48.410]

Opportunities are the elements in the environment that a business or project could exploit to its advantage, and the threats are elements in
the environment that could cause trouble for the business or project. So when do we use the SWOT analysis? It is useful in understanding the
position of the organization and helps to recommend the capabilities the organization needs to build or the feasibility of any initiative based
on the results of the analysis. So basically, we need to be asking ourselves a couple of questions where we're using this technique and we're
going to ask about the strengths and opportunity strategies, how can a group strand can be used to exploit potential opportunities? Your
strength and opportunity strategies are fairly straightforward to implement.

[00:03:33.590]

You've got to look at your weakness and opportunity strategies as well. How can the group use an opportunity to eliminate or mitigate a
weakness? Does the opportunity warrant the development of new capabilities? You're going to look at your strengths and your threats as well.
How can the group use its strengths toward of potential threats and can threats be turned into opportunities? And in the last quarter, we're
going to be looking at weakness and threats, so how can the group restructure itself to avoid the threats?

[00:04:06.200]

Should the group consider getting out of this market? Your weaknesses and threat strategies involve your worst case scenarios. So as a
business analyst on this project, you want to list out all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. You want to be able to also do
this, do this task with all your stakeholders, call for a session and have all the key stakeholders and you're asking yourselves these questions.
This is a task you would do alone because it definitely the input of everyone involved in this project to make this decisions.

[00:04:40.580]

Most analysis. So we will be looking at this technique that's called most analysis, don't know if any of you have ever heard of it before it's called
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mission objectives, tactics and strategy. OK, so moles, M is for mission, O for objectives, S for strategy, T for tactics. Now, the most analysis is a
very simple and extremely powerful framework tool used by business analysts for analyzing and planning the details of what an organization
does and initiatives the organization should be looking at doing and helps to maintain strategic alignment. It can also be used to give the
business organization a fresh sense of purpose and capability. Now, the most analysis is a highly structured method for providing targets to
team members at every level of an organization working from the top down. It ensures that you retain focus on the goals which matter most to
your organization. Now, the most analysis comprises of four elements, these four elements are mission, objectives, tactics, strategy. Now, what
is mission? Mission is the top level, the overall reason for being in business, and it defines the outcomes the organization wants to accomplish.

[00:06:07.530]

The more specific the business is when defining the mission, then the more success the business will have later on trying to define their
winning points within the two. Then we have objective, objectives are one step down from the mission. Think of these as a collection of
individual goals that will add up to reach the overall mission. Just like the mission, objectives should be specific enough to guide decision
making and planning for the future. With the mission in place, it should be relatively easy to develop a list of objectives.
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Objectives should be smart, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. So otherwise go cripple sets in and the objectives will become
fuzzy and difficult to implement. Now, S for strategy, these are the things that the organization of business will do to reach the objectives, what
actions should be taken to accomplish the objectives? And in turn, the mission strategies offer a way to quickly review and group the tactics
implemented on the ground floor so that it makes sense as methods to achieve your objectives.

[00:07:18.410]

Strategies, basically the how. How do we achieve the objectives? The objectives help us to achieve the mission. Now that we have our strategy,
what are our tactics, these are the methods you use to carry out your strategies. So the what, they should be simple and relatively discrete
processes that can easily be understood and carried out even by people who do not have a high level overview of the most analysis. So once
you have your mission defining, you know, what the business and organization is in and what is intended to achieve, you have your objectives,
which are the key goals against which the organization achievement can be measured.

[00:07:59.340]

You have a strategy which is the medium to long term approach chosen to achieve organizational objectives, and then you have your tactics,
which is more like the short term and operational plans, your day to day plans that would help you implement a strategy. Then you have your
most analysis to set up. So when do we use most analysis? The most analysis is used to ensure the business analyst recommends the solutions
that the organization needs to meet its objectives and mission. It is also use for alignment.

[00:08:31.170]

We're trying to align the business goals. We want to make sure we're using a tool like most analysis. So this technique is very good where
you're doing your business cases, your business alignment, you're basically working in the strategic level and the tactical level at this point
because you're looking at the organization's long term and short term goals.

[00:08:53.770]

OK, now the next tool will be looking at Pestle analysis, and if you ever heard about Pestle or anyone who's done business degree, you
definitely heard of Pestle analysis. Is very commonly used in the business space. So Pestle, P for politics, E for economic, S for social or socio
cultural, T for technological, L for legal, E for environmental. These are basically the questions we need to ask ourselves as a business, how the
political landscape of the environment, the business operates and how it can affect or change our business?

[00:09:34.370]

What are the important economic factors happening, has happened or will happen in our business environment and what they mean to our
business. The social is what cultural aspects are most important that we need to pay attention to? What are the trends and innovations in the
technology space that will impact, and what impact will they have in our organization? What are the regulations or legislations and how do they
affect our business and environmental? What are the environmental considerations we need to make in our business?

[00:10:06.950]

So this is the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental framework of Pestle. So we're going to be looking into this. I'd
like you to take a look at this table. And it basically gives examples of the different scenarios where politics, economics, social, technological,
legal and environmental situations can affect our business. So for politics, we say here, increasing political focus on health care. Global
governments look for health care savings.

[00:10:40.550]

In the example we'll be talking about, Britain voted to leave. Europe causes political turmoil. Look at economic as well, increasing labour or cost
inflation. So shall we look at the fact that the pharmacy was fined for pollution issues, opportunity, advertised through social media legal. The
company was fined for pollution, pollution issues, environmental adverse weather conditions, causing temporary suspension of some
factories. So you want to look at all these things and how they affect the business and affect your project.
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[00:11:12.260]

So the awareness of the influence of the environment and what this influence has on the organization. The business is always working with the
Pestle analysis is a very important factor in any of business analysis engagement. The Pestle analysis, which is also called pest analysis,
sometimes is a tool that is used to identify and analyze the key drivers of change in the strategic or business environment. The analysis looks at
the drivers and factors in the following and how they're happening in those areas influence the decisions and types of recommendations the
business analyst gives the organization.

[00:11:49.580]

So you're definitely looking at a political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors. Now, when do we use pestle analysis?
We use pestle analysis to understand the factors and drivers within the environment the organization operates and how these factors
influence the narratives of the organization. So this is another technique that business analysts use, depending on the situation, your market,
your industry, you want to be always looking at the external factors because this can, you know, affect your business, you know, positively or
negatively.

[00:12:28.040]

Now we're going to be looking at collaboration techniques. So these are techniques that above Babok has listed for us and are basically
grouped them into the different uses. We're looking at a couple of collaboration techniques out of the babok. And the first technique will be
looking at is brainstorming.

[00:12:47.570]

So what is brainstorming? Brainstorming is an excellent way to foster creative thinking about a problem. The aim of brainstorming is to
produce numerous ideas. New ideas and derive from them themes for further analysis. So brainstorming is a technique intended to produce a

diverse or broad set of options when looking for several options and several new ideas, we're asking a lot of questions to answer specific
questions relating to a problem. And this technique works by focusing on a topic or a problem and then coming up with as many possible
solutions to it.

[00:13:27.800]

This technique is best applied in a group as it draws on the experience and creativity of all the members of the group. In access of a group, one
could brainstorm on one's own to spark new ideas to heighten the creativity. Participants are encouraged to use new ways of looking at things
and to freely associate in any direction.

[00:13:47.870]

When this technique is facilitated properly, brainstorming can be very fun, engaging and productive. Now, the next technique we'll look at is
collaborative games, collaborative games referred to several structured techniques inspired by gameplay and are designed to facilitate
collaboration.

[00:14:10.420]

Each game includes rules to keep participants focused on a specific objective. The games are used to help participants share their knowledge
and experience on a given topic, identify hidden assumptions and explore that knowledge in ways that may or may not occur during the course
of normal interaction. The shared experience of the collaborative game encourages people with different perspectives on the topic to work
together in order to better understand an issue and develop a shared model of the problem or of potential solutions. Many collaborative
games can be used to understand the perspectives of various stakeholder groups.
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Collaborative games often benefit from the involvement of a neutral facilitator who helps the participants understand the rules of the game
and enforces those rules. The facilitators job is to keep the game moving forward and to help ensure that all participants play a role.
Collaborative games usually involve a strong visual or tactile element. Very visual and handy activities could be moving sticky notes, scribbling
on whiteboards or drawing pictures to help people overcome inhibitions for creative thinking and think laterally. There are also games that like
legos as well, building blocks to actually help people to think more and

[00:15:33.040]

collaborative games are fantastic ways to build collaboration. The next technique are the focus group. Focus group technique is composed of
prequalified participants whose objective is to discuss and comment on a topic within a context. The participants share their perspectives and
attitudes about the topic and discuss them in a group setting. Sometimes as a business analyst. You know, you're leading the focus group, and
this may also make the participants re-evaluate their own perspectives in light of others experiences. You may also have a moderator who may
want you, who you may want to lead the focus group session.

[00:16:17.270]

But the idea, the focus is whether you are focusing on one thing. You know, with brainstorming, we are talking about several things we want
several ideas at the same time. So we may have done brainstorming and then we have several ideas and then we can vote on which one we're
choosing. So if we choose on option A, we can now have a focus group that's more focused on that problem or on that issue. OK, so you may
also want to have a moderator to help you to moderate your focus group session and the moderator will manage the preparation of the
session, assist in selecting participants and facilitating the session.

[00:16:57.140]

If the moderator is not the business analyst, then he or she may work with the business analyst to analyze the results and produce findings
that are reported to the stakeholders. They may also be observers present at the focus group or during the focus group session the observers
will not participate. So a focus group can be utilized at different points in initiative to capture information or ideas in an interactive manner. So
if the group's topic is a product on the development, the group's ideas are analyzed in relation to the stated requirements.

[00:17:32.360]

This may result in updating your existing requirements or uncovering new requirements. If a topic is a completed product that is ready to be
launched, then the group's report is a completed product. Many group reports should actually influence how to position the product in the
market. So the focus group is a form of qualitative research, the activities that are carried out as similar as that brainstorming session. Except
that the focus group is more structured and focused on the participants perspectives concerning a specific topic.

[00:18:05.160]

Now, the next technique on that collaboration is mind mapping. Mind mapping is a form of note taking that captures thoughts, ideas and
information in a nonlinear diagram. Mind maps are used to capture images, words, color, and connect relationships. So basically, all the words,
color, you know, ideas and all are connected together and they apply a structure and logic to your thoughts, ideas and information. In mind
map has a central main idea supported by secondary ideas or topics, followed by as many layers of ideas and subtopics as necessary to fully
capture and articulate the concepts.

[00:18:52.020]

The connections are made between the ideas by branches, and that typically have a single key word associated with them that explain the
connection. So in the babok shows how a mind map look like. You have the main topic in the middle and you have the topics as branches and
the topics have sub topics as, you know, branches, offshoots of the topics, and that's basically the mind map. So on each of them, you have
separate topics and they're basically going through all the ideas, you know, in your head. All the information in your head and you are basically
dumping everything there and making sense of them by carrying out this branches later on.
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So that's the mind map. Business analyst use the mind map to think through and generate ideas on complex concepts or problems. The
business analyst also use mind maps to explore relationships between the various facets of a problem in a way that inspires creative and
critical thinking and also presents a consolidated view of concepts, complex concepts or problems. Would now be looking at mind mapping the
next technique or we've looked at mind mapping, we're going to look at interviews. Now, the interview is a common technique for eliciting
requirements.

[00:20:10.470]

In fact, as a business analyst you're almost always carrying out interviews, it involves direct communication with individuals or groups who are
part of the initiative. In an interview, the interviewer directs questions to the stakeholders in order to obtain information. One on one.
Interviews are the most common in a group interview with more than one interviewee in attendance. The interviewer is careful to elicit
responses from each participant. Now, there are two types of interviews that a business analyst can do. It is the structured interview on
structured. Now in structured interview.

[00:20:43.020]

You have predefined set of questions, and in the unstructured interview you don't have a pre-determined format or order of questions. The
questions vary based on the interviewees responses. In general practice, the business analyst may use a combination of two types by adding,
dropping and varying the other questions, you know, as the case may be. So for your interview process to be successful, it depends on a
couple of factors. These include the level of understanding of the domain by the interviewer, the business analyst, the experience of the
interviewer in conducting interviews, the skill of the interviewer in documenting discussions, the readiness of the interviewee to provide the
relevant information, and the interviewer to conduct the interview.

[00:21:27.210]

The degree of clarity in the interviewees mind about the goal of the interview and the rapport of the interviewer and the interviewee. Now, this
rapport is very important. You want to make sure you have, you know, set the common ground. You've built that rapport with the interviewee.
Interviewee is comfortable with you and open to ask your questions and tell you even more than be expected to. Once you'll able to build that
in the common ground and build that relationship and that trust, then you're able to increase the stakeholder involvement and build support
for your proposed solution.

[00:22:02.720]

Now we're going to look at the next technique for collaboration, which is observation. Now, observation is — it taking a lot of us have used
knowingly or unknowingly, you're basically trying to elicit information by viewing and understanding the activities. We use it to identify needs,
understanding new business process. You know, you're setting new performance standards, you're evaluating solution performance. However,
another term for observation is job shadowing, basically, which involves, you know, examining your work activity first hand as it is performed
by the end user.

[00:22:37.280]

It can be conducted either in natural work environments or especially constructed laboratory condition. You know, the objective of observation
is to dictate how it is planned for and methodological, you know, conduction. So observation can be passive or active. Active observation is

basically when the observer, you know, is aware that you're observing them and you're asking them questions and they're answering your
questions. Passive is you're not interrupting the work that the user is doing.

[00:23:14.450]

You're basically observing and taking notes. You're asking questions during the observation process. The next collaboration technique is
reviews. When do we carry out reviews? We carry out reviews to actually evaluate the content of your work product. So we're reviewing
business analysis work product it may be complete or incomplete, it may just be a deliverable. You can be several deliverables. It can be a
portion or a work in progress as well. Here in the review process, business analyst is a participant in the process.
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And the business analyst are basically carrying out review. All the stakeholders are carrying out the review and they are validating that the work
is complete or correct, as the case may be. So a review can include an overview of the work product and the review objectives, the checklist and

reference materials that can be used by the reviewers. They are reviewing the work product and conducting the findings and verifying any
work, and then, of course, there will be feedback from the review with the business analysts going to use of the work product.

[00:24:27.070]

So very collaborative. The business is actually working with all the stakeholders and they are reviewing the work products of the business
analyst. So in prototyping in this technique, like prototyping because it is the fastest way to get stakeholder feedback from business analysis
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information, you're basically creating a model or a design of your requirements and you're eliciting and getting stakeholder validation through
the prototype. And it's a proven method for doing a product design, you work by providing that early model or the final result known as a
prototype.

[00:25:05.450]

And with this prototype, you share it with your stakeholders and you get their thoughts on your final work. This is what a final work look like.
We have something that looks like right now. What are your thoughts? What are your views? It is just a work representation of what the final
work product would look like. It could be a mockup. You know, it could be a three way prototype. You could always use tools like your pencil,
whiteboard or software to draw it out, or it could be an evolutionary or functional prototype.

[00:25:35.720]

Evolution of functional prototypes are prototypes that are created to extend initial requirements into a functioning solution as requirements
are further defined through stakeholder use.

[00:25:48.820]

Now, your prototype can be a proof of concept, which is a model created to validate the design of a system without modeling the appearance.
It could be a form study prototype, which is used to explore the basic size, the look and feel of a product that will be manufactured eventually.

It can be a useability prototype, which is a product model created to test how the end user interacts with the system. It could be a visual

prototype, which is a product model created to test the visual aspects of the solution.

[00:26:19.750]

Itcould be a functional prototype as well, which is a model created to test software functionality, the quality of the system for the user and the
workflow. So prototyping is a very quick and easy way to get feedback fast relating to your product, especially if what you're going to be
creating is somewhat physical or, you know, something that can be modeled, the easiest way to get feedback is to model it as a prototype and
get your stakeholders point of view or get their Buy-In or get their requirements or, you know, get their sign off as the case may be.

[00:27:00.840]

Now, the next technique is workshops, a workshop is basically bringing all the stakeholders together into a room, working together to
collaborate and achieve one goal. We don't want to make a decision or we want to review a work product or we were carrying out whatever it
is. You know, we just have one goal, so it is a focused event attended by key stakeholders and subject matter experts for certain period of time.

A workshop may be held for different purposes, including planning, analysis, design, scoping requirements, elicitation, modeling or any
combination of these. A workshop may be used to generate ideas for new features or products to reach consensus on a topic or to review
requirements or designs.

[00:27:49.020]
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of your stakeholders, a defined goal, interactive and collaborative work, a defined
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work product, and also have a facilitator. Workshops are really great because they are in person, they promote trust, mutual understanding
and strong communication amongst the stakeholders and produce deliverables that structure and guide future work efforts. Now, the last
technique for collaboration is surveys or questionnaires. Why do we use surveys on questionnaires? They are used to elicit business analysis
information. We use it all the time.

[00:28:29.130]

Ifwe get information from our customers, we want to get information about our products, about the work practices internally or the attitudes
of our customers, or even internal, internal or external customers. Could even be for your co-workers. So we just want to get information from
a group of people in a structured way in a short period of time when you have a large audience or a large sample size, the survey is the best

way to go to gather as much information as fast as possible.

[00:29:00.960]

So you present a set of questions to your stakeholders, subject matter experts whose responses are then collected and analyzed in order to
formulate the knowledge about the subject matter of interest. The questions can be submitted in written form or administered in person or via
telephone or using any technology that records the responses and earlier we talked about the tools you can use to carry out surveys or
questionnaires. So there are two types of questions use in the surveys. They are close ended and open ended. The close ended is basically
asking the respondent to select from a list of predefined responses like yes or no or a multiple choice or rank order like agree, completely

[00:29:42.320]

agree, agree, disagree, neutral. Those kind of take you know, questionnaires are actually closed ended questions. Now open ended, actually
allows the respondent to answer the questions in a free form. They are giving some space to actually write down their answers. So it's not a yes
or no situation. And this is really good because more issues are known. You know, it gives more detail and you get much wider responses than
the close ended questions. The close ended questions are

[00:30:17.280]

you know, are just yes — no, you don't really get people's point of view. It's not really well defined. But the only thing is that the open ended
question is a lot more difficult and time consuming to now categorize the answers with the closed ended it is easy to categorize answers based
on responses. But open ended, you know, you have more you know, you have more more responses to deal with and categorization to do. So
these are collaborative techniques that can be used by business analysts.

[00:30:49.070]

You choose any of them that suits the context, the situation, the environment, the culture of the organization. And, you know, you could use
them for collaboration at work. So the next group of techniques we will be looking at are diagramming techniques. So the next group of
techniques diagramming techniques, the first technique will look at our data flow diagrams. Now what are data flow diagrams? They are
basically diagrams that show where that comes from, which activities, processes, data, and if the outputs results are stored or utilized by
another activity or external entity.

[00:31:35.910]

Basically, data flow diagrams are used to portray the transmission of data. Simple, it shows the movement and transmission of data between
external entities and processes. The outputs from one external or process is the input into another. With data flow diagram also illustrates the
temporary or permanent repositories referred to as data stores where data is stored within a system. So this technique is somewhat technical
because we at first it relates to like databases, but basically just showing how data comes in the input, the output where data is stored,
basically the transformation and the flow of data in our organization as it relates to our project.
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So that's how data flow diagrams are used and it is a diagram. So it has to be drawn or a design using a diagram tool.

[00:32:32.560]

The next technique is data mining, what is data mining? Data mining is used to improve decision making by finding useful patterns and insights
from data. Data mining is very analytical. Is analytical process used by data analysts that examines large amounts of data from different
perspectives and summarizes the data in such a way that useful patterns or relationships are discovered.

[00:32:58.480]

So give data from like a survey or a questionnaire to a data analyst. They are going to mine data. They are going to extract all the information
there and create a visualization of the board or a report from your survey or questionnaire. So they are tools that use for data mining. It is
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mostly used by people who are data analysts to actually create useful pattern of data. So these models created from data mining technique
can be deployed for human decision making through visual dashboards and reports out of Automated Decision-Making systems, through the
business rule management systems or in data base deployments.

[00:33:45.910]

So there are tools that are used for data mining, tableau, par, BI use for data analysis to mine data and to create a dashboard or report from
this data. So this is also another highly technical technique that you may not need to use unless you're involved in data analysis. So let's look at
the next technique, which is data analysis or my bad. This should be decision analysis. The next technique is decision analysis and this decision
analysis technique is used to examine and model the possible consequences of different decisions about a given problem.

[00:34:36.420]

So you have a problem and using different decisions to actually look at possible consequences of all these decisions regarding one problem.
So decision is the act of choosing a single course of action from several uncertain outcomes with different values. The outcome value may take

different forms depending on the domain. What commonly include the financial value is scoring or a relative like ranking dependent on the
approach and evaluation criteria. Now, in decision analysis you're basically going to be, you know, carrying out a couple of it's very technical.

[00:35:17.760]

It's also using like data science because you have to plug and play with some code to help you put in some decisions and you put in some
waiting and it's ranked the decisions and tells you the best decisions to be made. So when you're carrying out a business analysis you're going
to look at you defining the problem statement, defining the alternatives, evaluating the alternatives, choosing your alternatives to implement
and then implementing a choice afterwards so there are tools that are used for carrying out decision analysis, something that is very popular
in decision tree or decision table that is used to plug and play where you have different weight assigned to different decisions and you rank
decisions based on the weights.

[00:36:04.950]

OK, so that's decision analysis. We would look at the next technique, which is decision modeling and this is a model that is basically showing
how repeatable decisions are made for the business. Decision models show how data and knowledge are combined to make a specific
decision. Decision models are used for both straightforward and complex decisions. Straightforward decision models use a single decision
table or a decision tree to show how a set of business rules that operates on a common set of data elements combine to create the decision,
while the complex decision models breakdown decisions into their individual components so that each piece of the decision can be separately
described and the model can show how those pieces combine to make another decisions.

[00:36:53.100]

So it's very complex. Use a lot for, you know, there are tools that use for this. So once the decision tree or table is done, these tools are now
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used to model the final results for the decisions. You're looking into the Babok, the Babok shows how to decision tables and decision trees are
used.
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[00:37:17.400]

The next technique will be looking at functional decomposition. Functional decomposition is basically helping us to manage any complexities
that we have is basically breaking down processes, systems, functions or deliverables into simpler constraints or components. So let's say we
have a function, we can break it down into sub functions and that's sub function into processes and the processes, into the activities and
activities, into tasks, just breaking things down to make them really simple. And it's a technique that we should use in our everyday life, even at
work, not only on our projects, because making things simple, you know, helps you to understand them better.

[00:38:01.070]

OK, so this allows us to scale, and to track, and to measure our efforts for each item. It also facilitates evaluation of the success of each
subcomponent as it relates to the larger components. So functional decomposition is used a lot in business analysis. Definitely a technique
that you would be using in your business analysis endeavors. Now, the next technique is organizational modeling. Now, organizational
modeling is used to describe the roles, the responsibilities and the reporting structures that exist within our organization and to align those
structures with the organization's goals.

[00:38:38.670]

So you want to look at how the organization is structured. The purpose of an organizational unit is to bring together a group of people to fulfill
a common purpose. The group may be organized because the people share a common set of skills and knowledge to serve a particular market.

So you've got to break down the organizational structure and there are different ways to do that which the Babok explains. So the
organizational model is a visual representation of the organizational units, which define the boundaries of the group, the formal relationships
between the members, the functional role of each person, and the interfaces between the units and stakeholders as well.

[00:39:19.510]

Now, our next technique is process modeling. Now process analysis then will look at process modeling. So process analysis accesses a process
for its efficiency and effectiveness, as well as the ability to identify opportunities for change. So process analysis is used to look at our process.
How efficient is it? How effective it is? We're analyzing it and there are identified opportunities. Are we going to make changes or not? We use
personalities a lot we're looking at our access to be, which are current and our future state.

[00:39:53.820]

So when do we use process analysis? Is used to recommend a more efficient or effective process, like said, is used to determine the gaps
I

between the current and future state, it is used to understand the factors to be included in the contract or negotiation is used to understand
how data and technology are used in the process and is also used to analyze the impact of a pending change to a process. So something that is

really used for process analysis is like the Six Sigma and Lean, which we talk about business analysis accelerator program, which is quality
management relating to Six Sigma.

[00:40:29.460]

Look at processes and see what we need to do for example, are we going to reduce the time required to complete a task? Are we going to
modify the interfaces between our tasks? Are we going to remove errors? Are we going to automate some steps to remove all the manual
steps? And, you know, are we going to automate some processes? And also automate some decision making as well, so when analyzing the
process, you're going to look at how the process adds value to the organization, you're going to look at how the process aligns to
organizational goals and strategy.

[00:41:03.510]

You're going to look at what degree the process is and needs to be efficient, effective and repeated. You are going to also look at how the
requirements for a solution cover the future process and its external stakeholders, including your customer. So there's a lot to look at with
process analysis. You're doing a real deep dive into the processes in the business. It commonly used method is the SIPOC method, which is
used by Six Sigma to analyze processes, SIPOC stands for SIPOC. S for suppliers, for imputes, P for process, O for output, C for customers.
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Under that method, for purpose analysis as value stream mapping.

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[00:41:50.760]

You're basically analyzing the process as well. You're monitoring the inputs and application points for all the inputs starting from the front end
of the supply chain. So, you know, lean and Six Sigma is very helpful with process analysis because it looks at your process, breaks it down to
the barest minimum, and you're basically looking at what needs to go and what needs to stay. So analyzing processes, you know, ensures the
solution, addresses the right issues and you minimize the waste.

[00:42:21.000]

Now, the next technique here is process modeling, so we analyze the process, now we're going to model that process. Process modeling is a
standardized graphical model used to show how the work is carried out and is a foundation for the process analysis. It's basically describing
the sequence of flow of work, a business process model describes the sequential flow of work across different tasks and activities through an
enterprise or through a part of an enterprise. While a system process model describes the sequential flow of control among the programs or
units in the computer system, a programme process flow shows the sequential execution of program statements within the software and a
process model can also be used in documenting operational procedures.

[00:43:11.310]

So when can we use process models? That can be used to describe the context of the solution or a part of the solution. They can be used to
describe what actually happens and is desired to happen during a process. It can be used to provide an understandable description of a
sequence of activities to an external observer. They are used to provide a visual to the company to accompany a text description or provide a

basis for process analysis. So process modeling what goes hand-in-hand with process analysis, where we analyze a process, we're going to
model it.

[00:43:45.450]

There's so many ways to model processes, different limitations. There's the value stream mapping, there is flowcharts, there's data flow
diagrams, there's a unified modeling language, your email. There's a business process model notation BPMN, and there is integrated definition
notation and that's IDEF. There is imputes guide, outputs and enabler diagrams, IGOE, and there's a SIPOC and value stream analysis. So you
don't need to know all this notation. It only depends on what you do with your work.

[00:44:23.220]

The most common IDUML and BPMN and then the flow chart as well, basically showing you all the activities in a process. Now the next
technique is scope modeling. So when we talk about scope modeling, what do we mean? So scope models are basically used to describe the
boundaries of control, change or a solution or a need while looking at the limits or the boundaries, you know, internal or external to the scope.
So they can be used to delimits any simple boundary as distinct from the horizon, the properties or even the system.

[00:45:03.780]

So when we talk about scope, we sometimes say in scope or out scope. What an in scope mean? So this model identifies a boundary as seen
from inside, right. For example, it could be the function of the composition and an out of scope is basically the boundary as seen from outside,
and that we can have both too. We can see the boundaries, we can identify the boundaries from both sides, from inside and outside as well. So
scope modeling can be done, you know, to see the scope of control, see the scope of need, see the scope of solution, the scope of change.

[00:45:41.220]

It can be used in different contexts. Scope modeling are typically represented as a combination of diagrams, matrixs and text. And if the scope
is implemented in phases or iterations, the scope model should be described for each phase or iteration. Now, the next technique for

diagramming is sequence diagram. Sequence diagrams show how processes objects interact during this scenario, sequence diagrams are
often used to show how the user interface and components interact. It's basically showing how information means part objects in a system.
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This is a very technical technique to be used, basically used using the UML specification dignified modeling language and basically showing how
information is pass from one object to another, typically used for solutions and systems and software. And then the next and final
diagramming technique will be looking at our state modeling and state diagrams. So state models or diagrams are basically used to describe
and analyze the different possible states of an entity. An entity is an object or a concept within the system, and how that entity changes from
one state to another and what can happen to the entity when it is in each state.

[00:47:14.080]

So a state model, which is sometimes called state transition model or call the state diagram describes a set of possible states of the entity. It
shows the sequence of the state entity can be in and how an entity changes from one state to another. The events and conditions that caused.
The entity change states and the actions that can almost be performed by the entity in each state as it moves through its life cycle. So also very,
very technical use when you're working with, you know, software and software lifecycle.

[00:47:50.790]

Pretty technical, pretty technical to be used, not used in all cases. It's only used when you're looking at different states of the lifecycle of the
software.

[00:48:04.650]

If there's going to be changes, then you're going to be using like a state model or state diagram to show how the transition process goes.

[00:48:16.970]

So with that, we come to the end of diagramming techniques. Diagramming techniques are very technical, not a lot of them are very technical
and not a lot of them may be used. It depends on the scenario and the expertise of the business analysts. So if you're a business system
analyst, you would definitely be using a lot of the diagramming techniques because that's the core function of your role and business process
analyst, you do a lot of modeling and process. For business system analyst

[00:48:45.860]

you're going to be doing a lot of all these techniques, very technical and highly scientific, as the case may be. But these are all the techniques
that the BABOK talks about, and I've group them here into the diagramming techniques. Now we're going to look at the other analysis
techniques that Babok talks about and basically just having a review of each of these techniques, what they do and how you can use them as a
business analyst. So the other analysis techniques will be looking at are basically all the ones we that are in the babok that we're yet to review it
will start with acceptance and evaluation criteria.

[00:49:28.820]

Now, this technique is basically used to define the requirements, the outcomes or conditions that must be met in order for a solution to be
considered acceptable to the key stakeholders. The evaluation criteria are the measures used to access a set of requirements in order to
choose between multiple solutions, and it can be applied at all levels of a project from high level to a more detailed level.

[00:49:56.120]

So your acceptance criteria can be used to describe the minimum set of requirements that must be met in order for a particular solution to be
worth implementing. You can use to determine if a solution or solution component can meet a requirements. And it's also used when only one
possible solution is being evaluated and generally expressed as a pass or a fail. Now for evaluation criteria, it defines a set of measurements
which allow for ranking of solutions and alternative designs according to their value for stakeholders and evaluation criteria also represents a
continuous or discrete skill for measuring a specific solution, attributes such as cost, performance, usability or how well the functionality
represents the stakeholders needs.
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So when it comes to — an evaluation criteria we want to make sure that it's agreed upon by all stakeholders and that we have the right
processes in place for us to carry out the assessments. So when we assess we want to also tests, so you use a lot of what we're doing, use
acceptance testing once, make sure we are able to test, able to measure as well, is used a lot in agile and agile projects to test the acceptance
criteria for our products.

[00:51:25.660]

However. Something to note is that when you have an acceptance and evaluation criteria. It's basically a pass or fail. We want to make sure that
it's doing what it said it would do, is the system doing what it's supposed to do yes or no? So if it is, is it pass if it's not it's a fail. So that's how

acceptance and evaluation criteria works. We're going to look at a next technique, which is backlog management.

[00:51:57.030]

So the backlog is majorly used in agile project management, agile kind of projects, which is the adaptive. The backlog is used to record, track
and prioritize the remaining work items. A backlog of course when the volume of the work items be completed exceeds the capacity to
complete them therefore, we are going to need to manage our backlog. So we're going to be, you know, using different approaches to
determine what works items should be formally included. We're going to describe the work items, you know, how the work items should be
tracked, how the work items should be reviewed periodically, how they should be prioritized, how they should be selected, and how they
should be removed from the backlog.

[00:52:38.380]

So your backlog, you can have several types of items. When we say items, it could be a use case, user story, functional requirements, non-
functional requirements, design, customer orders, risk items, change request defects, plan rework, maintenance presentations and, you know,
completing the presentation or a document. So in your backlog, you must always prioritize. Now you have to choose a prioritization method,
you know, that works for you, prioritizing your high, medium, low and making sure that your high priority items are done first.

[00:53:13.930]

You also want to estimate, you know, your backlog items. You're basically looking at backlog items and estimating based on the size and the
complexity, determine how much cost and effort to complete them. You're going to use that to actually prioritize effectively. And of course, you
want to make sure you have a process in place to manage the changes in your backlog. Now, the next technique is balanced scorecard. So
balanced scorecard is used to manage performance in any business model, organizational structure or business process, it is basically a tool
use for strategic planning.

[00:53:51.110]

And management is used to measure organizational performance beyond the traditional financial measures. It is outcome focused and
provides a balanced view of our enterprise by implementing the strategic plan as an active framework of objectives and performance
measures. The underlying premise of the balanced scorecard is that the drivers of value creation are understood, measured and optimized in
order to create sustainable performance. Now, your balanced scorecard is divided into four dimensions learning and growth, business process
and then customer and financial. So the balance score card is a very great tool to use when you're trying to manage the performance of the
business model.

[00:54:36.380]

And the organizational structure is basically used in strategic planning.

[00:54:43.570]
Now, our next technique is benchmarking and market analysis. Now this is done and conducted to improve organizational operations, so you
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increase your customer satisfaction and to increase value to your stakeholders. You're basically comparing organizational practices. It gains
the best in class practices. The best practices may be found in your competitors to the government or your industry association. The objective
of benchmarking is to evaluate enterprise performance and ensure that the enterprise is operating efficiently. Benchmarking may also be
performed against standards for compliance purposes.

[00:55:19.840]

The results on your benchmark study may initiate change within the organization. Now market analysis involves researching customers in
order to determine the products and services that they need or want the factors that influence their decisions to purchase and the
competitors that exist in the market. The objective of market analysis is to acquire this information in order to support the various decision
making processes within an organization. So market analysis can also help us to determine when to exit the markets, when to enter the
market.

[00:55:53.920]

Itmay also help us to determine if the partner match or even to diverse our resources to other viable alternatives. So benchmarket analysis
are very key in any organization or any industry that you play in, because it gives you an understanding of what your competitors are doing
what industry is doing, what is happening globally and also what your customers want. The next technique is business capability analysis. Now,
this technique provides a framework for scoping and planning by generating a shared understanding of outcomes identified alignment with
strategy and providing a scope and prioritization filter.

[00:56:42.840]

Basically, business capability analysis describes what an enterprise or a part of an enterprise is able to do. The capability what are we able to
do? It describes the ability of an enterprise to act on or transform something that helps achieve a business goal or objective. Capabilities may
be accessed for performance and associated risks to identify specific performance gaps and prioritize investments. Many put on development
efforts and attempt to improve their performance of an existing business capability or to deliver a new one.

[00:57:20.220]

As long as an enterprise continues to perform similar functions, the capabilities required by the enterprise should remain constant, even if the
method of implication for the capabilities undergoes significant change. So the BABOK gives you examples of how business capabilities analysis
can be done. The next technique here are business cases. So a business case provides a justification for a course of action based on the
benefits to be realized by using the proposed solution as compared to the costs, the efforts and other considerations to acquire and leave
with that solution.

[00:57:58.440]

Basically, is the rationale for the change. Why are we taking up of this change? Why should we? Should we take up this change, yes or no? So a
business case is presented in a formal document or presented through informal methods. It can be a presentation. It can just be through a
meeting. The amount of time or resources spent on the business case should be proportional to the size and importance of its potential value.
The business case provides sufficient detail to inform and requests approval without providing specific entry cases about the method or the
approach to be implemented.

[00:58:32.070]

Itmay also be the catalyst for one or many initiatives in order to implement the change. So we're going to be looking in business cases, we are
going to look at the scope, the feasibility, the assumptions, the risk, the constraints and we're going to do financial analysis in the business
case. You know, once we've got a cost benefit analysis and do a value assessment as well as a risk assessment. Now, the next technique is
business model canvas. Now, this business model describes how an enterprise creates, delivers and captures value for its customers.
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The business model canvas comprises of nine building blocks that describe how an organization intends to deliver value. This nine building
blocks are the key partnerships, the key activities, key resources, value proposition, customer relationships, channels, customer segments,
cost structure and the revenue streams. This nine building blocks are arranged on the business canvas, and it shows the relationship between
the organization's operations, finance customers and all the product offerings. The business model canvas also serves as a blueprint for
implementing a strategy. So the Babok gives you an idea of what the business model canvas looks like and why it is important.

[00:59:54.330]

And it is an important tool for your strategy. So this is also used for strategy. It allows you to map out the program, the projects and other
initiatives in your organization, such as a recruitment initiative, for example, you're mapping it out to the strategy of the enterprise. It also
allows you to demonstrate where the efforts of the various departments and work units fit into and align with the overall strategy of your
enterprise. So this is a very good technique for strategy, planning and enterprise analysis.

[01:00:31.520]

So the next technique here is concept modeling, business rule analysis conference modeling. So business role analysis, what do we do with this
technique is basically used to identify, express, validate, refine and organize the rules that shape the day to day business behavior and guide
operational business decision making. So every business has their rules. There are rules in every business. Business policies are rules that
guide the day to the operation of the business and its processes, and then they also ship operational business decisions.

[01:01:11.910]

A business policy is a directive concerned with broadly controlling, influencing or regulating the actions of an enterprise and the people in it.
While the business policy is a specific, testable directive that serves as a criterion for guiding behavior, shaping judgments or making decisions.
A business rule must be practical, needing no for that interpretation, for use by people in the business and is always under the control of the
business. So why do we analyze the business rules? Analysis of business rules involves capturing business rules from sources, expressing them
clearly, validating them with our stakeholders, refining them to best align with the business goals and organizing them so that they can be
effectively managed and reused.

[01:02:01.620]

Where do we get our business rules? What are the sources? We get them from our business policies, regulations, contracts or even on
documented policies from our stakeholders and then our generally accepted business practices and the culture of the organization.

[01:02:21.570]

The next technique is concept modeling, a concept model is used to organize the business vocabulary needed to consistently and thoroughly
communicate the knowledge of a domain. So the concept model actually starts with the glossary, which we will be talking about in a bit, which
typically focuses on the core noun concepts of a domain. Concept models puts a premium on high quality design, independent definitions that
are free of data and implementation biases. Concept models are use to emphasize rich vocabulary and you'll be seeing an example of the
concept model in this module.

[01:03:03.240]

And basically explaining how the words are put together to create a concept model. Our next technique is data dictionary, what a data
dictionary? It is used to standardize a definition of a data elements and enable a common interpretation of our data elements. Is used to
document the standard definitions of data elements their meanings and their values. A data dictionary contains definitions of each data
elements and indicates how those elements combine into composite data elements. So basically, you know, data dictionary can refer to as
metadata repositories.
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And used to manage the data within the context of a solution. We have an example for you there that explains and shows you how a data
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dictionary looks like. The next technique we have here is document analysis. Document analysis is something that everyone does regardless of
your role. You're basically analyzing existing documents without having to talk to anybody analyzing documents, you can do it by yourself or
with your other stakeholders. It's used to elicit business analysis information including contextual understanding and requirements by
examining available materials that describe either the business environment or the existing organizational assets.

[01:04:37.810]

This technique may be used to gather background information in order to understand the context of a business need, or it may include
researching existing solutions to validate how those solutions are currently implemented. Documents analysis may also be used to validate
findings from other elicitation efforts, such as interviews and observations. So it is a great technique to use looking at existing documentation,
reviewing them and gathering information. Our next technique is estimation, estimation is used by business analysts to forecast the cost and
effort involved in pursuing a course of action.

[01:05:20.800]

So we use estimation to support our decision making by predicting attributes such as the cost and effort to pursue a course of action. The
expected solution benefits, the project costs, business performance, potential value from a solution, the cost of creating a solution, the cost of
operating a solution and a potential risk impact. So we use estimation a lot in business analysis and on our projects because we're estimating a
lot of things, we're estimating value, we're estimating costs. Nothing is really cast in stone.

[01:05:54.690]

But we are looking at different attributes, we're looking at past scenarios, we're looking at what our competitors have done based on our
research and use that to estimate what our expenses or cost would be also estimate our value.

[01:06:13.490]

So estimation is an iterative process and an estimate should be reviewed as often as possible. There are so many estimation techniques. One
of the most common and popular estimation techniques is basically estimating based on historical performance, because if we've done
something before, we have a baseline, you know, to carry out estimation. So estimation can be top down, it can be bottom up, it can be
parametric, it can be a rough order magnitude.

[01:06:47.190]

It can be a rolling wave. It can be Delfi or perts estimation methods. Several estimation methods listed for you in the babok. Now the next
technique is financial analysis. Financial analysis is used to understand the financial aspects of an investment, a solution or a solution approach
is basically the assessment of the expected financial viability, stability and benefit realization of an investment option. It includes a

consideration of the total cost of the change, as well as the total cost and benefits of using and supporting the solution.

[01:07:28.040]

Business analysts use financial analysis to make a solution recommendation for an investment in a specific change initiative by comparing one
solution or solution approach to others. Based on analysis, we look at things like initial costs and time frame in which the cost we include
expected financial benefits and the time frame. We look at the ongoing cost of using a solution as supporting the solution. We look at the risk
associated with the change, we look at the ongoing risk the business value.

[01:08:01.460]

So there are so many ways to carry out financial analysis with regards to the project. The BABOK analyses several financial calculations and
formula that can be used like NPV (Net Press and Value), internal rates of return (IRR), payback period (PBP), ROI (return on investment),
discount rates, present value financial calculations that can be used. Now, our next technique is the glossary, so the glossary defines all the key
terms relevant to your business domains. A glossary is important for you to have as a business analyst.
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[01:08:42.470]

Why? Because there are several words, acronyms, abbreviations that would be used on your project. Now we know that we will be working with
several stakeholders we want to make sure that everybody understands what we're talking about in a meeting. Everybody understands what
we're talking about when they receive a document. So you're basically listing all the key terms, explaining what they are. It's basically like a mini
dictionary related to the business domain. So this is more about the business.

[01:09:13.200]

Now, note that data dictionary is talking about data. Glossary is actually the key term. So it's used to provide a common understanding of
terms that are use by stakeholders. A term may have different meanings for any two people in list of the terms and established definitions
provides a common language that can be used to communicate and exchange ideas, a glossary, organize and continuously accessible to all the
stakeholders. So wherever you are hosting your documents you want to make sure you have a glossary there.

[01:09:43.080]

Were you're defining all the key terms, very important. Key terms relating to your project, related to your organization, relating to your
industry as the case may be. The next technique is interface analysis. So interface analysis is used to identify where, what, why, when, how and
for whom information is exchanged between solution components and across solution boundaries. So what is an interface? An interface is a
connection between two components or solutions. Most solutions require one or more interfaces to exchange information with one another.

[01:10:21.330]

And it can also base information with the business units or the business processes. The interfaces types could include user interfaces like a
human user. People extend out of the solution like your stakeholders or regulators. They could include your business processes, they could
include data interfaces. They could include application program interfaces, APIs or any hardware. Basically, interface analysis is seeing how do
two objects talk to another? How does how do our processes relate to one another?

[01:10:57.410]

How do our systems relate to one another? What's the interface? What is the interface between them? So you're going to clarify who will use
the interface, what information is being exchanged through the interface, when information will be exchanged, and how frequently, when
information exchange will occur, why the interface is needed and how the interface is or should be implemented? So interface analysis can be
for the solution, it can be for a process, it can also be for the organizational units as well.

[01:11:31.570]

The next technique will be looking at is item tracking. Item tracking is used to capture and assign responsibility for issues and stakeholders
concerns that pose an impact to the solution. Item tracking is an organized approach used by business analysts to address stakeholders
concerns. Stakeholders may identify certain item types, such as an action assumption, a constraint, a dependency, a defect, an enhancement
or an issue. When the stakeholder concern is first raised, it is access to determine if it is viable, if it is viable

[01:12:10.240]

The concern is classified as a specific item type so that it can be better tracked and controlled by a process that works towards the item
closure. During its lifecycle an item is assigned to one or more stakeholders who are responsible for its resolution. Item tracking tracks that I

item from the initial recording of the concern and it's degree of impact, so it's agreed upon closure. The item tracking record may be shared
with stakeholders to ensure transparency and visibility into the status and the progress of items in the record.

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a record created, an item is created and it is assigned to someone to resolve that
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item. So we instruct to when it is recorded, to when it is resolved and closed. The next technique we have here is our lessons learned, so the
purpose of lessons learned process is to compile and document successes, opportunities for improvement, failures and recommendations for
improving the performance of future projects and project phases. A lesson learned session, which can also be known as retrospective in agile,
helps us to identify either changes to the business processes and deliverables or the successes that can be incorporated into our future work
and future projects.

[01:13:38.980]

These techniques can also be beneficial at the close of any milestone within the efforts. So we don't have to wait till the end of the project.
Where we have a milestone, we've achieved something we've achieved a little success. We should carry out the retrospective or a lessons
learned session, review what we have done and what needs to be changed and what we can continue doing. So the lessons learned sessions
can include any format or venue that is acceptable to the key stakeholders.

[01:14:08.200]

It can be formal facilitated meeting. We set agendas on meeting rules or we it can be an informal working session. It's better when it's informal
because people are more relaxed and when we talk about our failures, people don't feel guilty or feel bad or feel like you're blaming them. Like
it is a blame game when it's more relaxed, we're able to talk about our failures and talk about our successes as well. So if they are noteworthy

successes a celebration may be included in a lessons learned session.

[01:14:37.930]

This is so, so important. You want to be able to celebrate your successes as a team. A team building trust it builds collaboration, it builds
motivation in your team, the team knows that whenever we said where we have a success, we should celebrate every milestone. You don't have
to wait till the end of the project to celebrate as you're carrying out the sessions celebrate your successes. So what can you review in lessons
learned? You can review your business analysis activities, your deliverables, your final solution, service or product.

[01:15:09.970]

You can also review your automation or technology that was introduced or eliminated. You can review impact to organizational processes,
performance expectations and results. Positive or negative variances, root causes, impact team performance results, and recommendations
for behavioral approaches. So so many things can be reviewed, not just your business analysis activities or deliverables or your products. You
can also review performance, processes as well. Our next technique is metric and key performance indicators. So this basically just measure
the performance of a solution, solution components or other matters of interest to your stakeholders.

[01:15:53.890]

Now, what's a metric? A metric is a quantifiable level or an indicator that our organization uses to measure progress. An indicator identifies a

specific numerical measurement that represents the degree of progress towards achieving a goal, objective, outputs, activities or further
inputs. A KPI (key performance indicators) is one that measures progress towards a strategy, goal or objective. Reporting is a process of
informing stakeholders of metrics or indicators in specified formats or specified intervals. So metrics are reporting are key components of
monitoring and evaluation. Monitoring is a process of data collection used to determine how well a solution has been implemented as
compared to the expected results.

[01:16:50.890]

Evaluation is the systemic and objective assessment of a solution both to determine its status and effectiveness in meeting objectives over
time and to identify ways to improve the solution to better meet objectives. The priorities of a monitor and evaluation system are the intended
goals and effects of a solution as well as the inputs, activities, and outputs. A lot of us have worked with KPIs measuring your progress,
measuring your performance, and there has to be metrics attached to it, which is a number, a numeric measurement attached to this KPIs.
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So what should be a good indicator have? A good indicator should be clear, it should be relevant, it should be economical, it should be
adequate, it should be quantifiable and should be trustworthy and credible. Now, our next technique is non-functional requirements analysis.
So non-functional requirements analysis examines the requirements for a solution that define how well the functional requirements must
perform. It specifies the criteria that can be used to judge the operation of a system rather than specific behaviors.

[01:18:09.350]

Now, these are basically just the attributes or the quality of service requirements associated with the functional requirements. The non-
functional requirements are basically looking at, they are not the core of the requirement. They are basically looking at how well the
requirements, what's the quality and quality of service, things like availability, compatibility, functionality, maintainability, performance,
efficiency, portability, reliability, scalability, security, usability, certification, compliance, localization service level agreements, extensibility. So if I

ask you today what kind of solution do you need to carry out your banking transaction?

[01:18:58.420]

You tell me, need to just be able to do transfers within my bank account and to other bank accounts. That's what matters to you. And say,
I I

OK, is there anything else might ask you? Like, OK, well, need to be able to make bill payments. So that's your functional requirements, as my
I I

stakeholder ypu've told me the functional requirements. Now as a business analyst I'm also going to documents nonfictional requirements you
didn't tell me, wanted to be secure.
I

[01:19:24.460]

Iwant my transactions to be secure, whereby if transfer money from my accounts to my daughter's accounts, don't want it to be
I I

intercepted. want a secure connection so that my funds are safe in my bank account. You didn't tell me you had a security, but know that
I I

that is required for the functionality of the solution, which is this banking app. also want to make sure that this solution is available.
I

[01:19:57.400]

It'savailable at least 99 percent of the time. Time is high. want to make sure that it's easy for you to use. It is user friendly. want to also make
I I

sure that it's easy for you to use in any environment you are. So I'm going to look at, OK, what kind of mobile? Is it going to be accessible to
mobile and PC desktop? On the mobile is it going to be accessible to Android and iOS?

[01:20:27.490]

So all this are non-functional requirements. They are not the core requirements that make the solutions perform. However they are required.
So non-functional requirements, we can say we want to ensure that we have 99 percent uptime. We want to ensure that we are able to provide
90 percent of responses. We want to ensure that we are able to get the system up and running within two hours of any complaints. So all those
are non-functional requirements.

[01:21:01.140]

Our next technique here is prioritization. So prioritization is a technique used to determine the relative importance of business analysis
information. The importance may be based on value, risk, difficulty of implementation or any other criteria. This priorities are used to
determine which business analysis information should be targeted for future analysis or further analysis, which requirement should be
implemented first and how much time or detail should be allocated to the requirements. So there are many approaches to prioritization
for the purpose of this technique, prioritization is classified into one of four approaches.

[01:21:47.420]

So, for example, it could be grouping. So classifying our requirements according to groups. So we group them and say, OK, this category will be
high. This category will medium or will be low. We can also rank. So rank from the most important to the least important is also a way of
prioritizing. We can also time books whereby business analysis information is based on the allocation of a fixed resource. For example, we
prioritize our requirements based on the amount of work that the project team is capable of delivering in a set period of time.
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[01:22:29.220]

Budgeting is also used when the project team haven't allocated a fixed amount of money. This approach is most often used when a fixed
deadline must be met or for solutions that are enhanced on regular or frequent basis. So we know we need five hours for this requirement and
we rank based on the hours. This take five hours or three hours, do we do three hours first or five hours first? This would cost us hundred
dollars. This would cost us fifty dollars.

[01:22:58.110]

Do we do fifty dollars first or hundred dollars first? And a prioritization method is negotiation, so negotiation approach involves establishing a
consensus among the stakeholders as to which requirements will be prioritized. Now, the next technique is risk analysis and management. Risk
analysis and management identifies areas of uncertainty that could negatively affect value. It analyses and evaluates those uncertainties and
develops and manages ways of dealing with the risks. So failure to identify and manage risk may negatively affect the value of the solution.

[01:23:43.370]

Risk analysis and management involves identifying, analyzing and evaluating risk where sufficient controls are not already in place, business
analysts develop plans for avoiding, reducing or modifying the risk and when necessary, implementing these plans. Risk management is an
ongoing activity. Continuous consultation and communication with stakeholders helps us to identify new risks and to monitor identified risks.
Our next technique is roles and permissions matrix. Now a roles and permissions matrix is used to ensure coverage of activities by actually not
seeing the responsibility to identify rules, to discover missing roles and to communicate the results of a planned change.

[01:24:34.630]

So your roles and permission metrics, you're going to identify all the rules for your projects and associate these rules with activities, who does
what and also you're going to notes the authorities who can't perform the activities. So a role is a level for a group of individuals who share
common functions, each function is portrayed as one or more solution activities. A single activity can be associated with one or more rules by
designating authorities, each individual that is assigned this authority can perform the associated activity.

[01:25:12.880]

So in the babok, it shows you what's a role and permission matrix is, we also have that available for you in the download section for your
templates and tools. The next technique is the root cause analysis. What's root cause analysis? Is basically used to identify and evaluate the
underlying causes of a problem. It is a systematic examination of a problem or a situation that focuses on the problems origin as a proper
point of correction, rather than dealing only with effects it applies an iterative analysis approach in order to take into account that there might
be more than one root cause contributing to the effects.

[01:25:59.220]

Root cause analysis looks at the main types of causes, such as people, human error, for example lack of training can be the root cause and
effects of a problem. It can also be physical and equipment failure. Poor facilities can be the root cause of your problem or organizational
issues as well like faulty processes or process design. Poor structures can be the root cause of your problem. So root cause analysis digs deep
into the problem statesman's qualities of data and identifying the causes of these issues.

[01:26:33.460]

So there are several ways you can actually carry out root cause analysis. You have the fish bone diagram and you have the five ways, which is

asking why five times.

[01:26:42.400]

So this two tools can be used to carry out the root cause analysis technique.
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[01:26:51.080]

Now, the next technique is stakeholder list, map or persona. So the stakeholder list, map and personas are very important. This is important
for you to carry this out so you can analyze your stakeholders, know their characteristics and identify who may be affected by this initiative,
understand who is affected directly or indirectly, what are the requirements and understanding those that share common business need. So
your stakeholder analysis, notes and consistent analyses, the various characteristics of identify stakeholders.

[01:27:33.770]

So the first thing is to identify your stakeholders and then you are now going to analyze their needs and analyze what they stand to gain from
your project. So you're going to look at the level of authority within the domain of change and within the organization, you're going to look at
attitudes towards the projects and the interest in the change as well. You're going to look at the attitudes towards your business analysis work
and your role. You also want to look at the level of decision making authority when analyzing your stakeholders.

[01:28:04.640]

You're going to create a list of your stakeholders. Everybody involved in that project should be on that list. Everyone don't exclude anyone. This
is very important because a lot of times when you exclude a stakeholder, you never know if that person is influential to your project. So that

person may not have a high role, but the person may have high influence. So you want to also carry out a map, you can use the stakeholder
matrix or an onion diagram and basically just map out influence and the impact.

[01:28:38.220]

So look at the influence of the stakeholder and the impact they have on your project, either high or low. You're also going to carry out a
responsibility matrix, which is the risk matrix as well. This technique helps you to understand we have a list. We've also looked at the level of
impact and influence of the stakeholders. We now want to look at who is responsible, who is accountable, who can be consulted and who
should be informed at all times.

[01:29:07.950]

This helps you with your communication to your stakeholders. Remember, not everyone needs detailed information based on their roles,
based on the responsibility you would assign, what kind of communication should be giving to them, should be sent to them, what role they
would play. Are they going to be held accounted and responsible? Should it just be consulted or informed at every point in time? Now,
personas are basically a fictional character that exemplifies the way a typical user interacts with a product.

[01:29:42.900]

So you can create a persona calling Miss Bob or call Miss Jane and see, how would Miss Bob interact with this solution? What would Miss Jane
response be? It's helpful for you to carry out personas when there is a desire to understand the needs held by a certain group or class of
users. So you assign several in human interaction or human thoughts or decisions to these personas, and they help you to understand how
your actual users will interact with your solution.

[01:30:23.070]

They help you to bring your user to life and in turn make the needs feel real to those who are going to design and build the solution. Now, you
can actually assign all these responses, the behaviors to your personas, what you've done so many citations say like interviews or surveys. You
get a lot of information and base on that, we know that, OK, we have three customer types base on information.

[01:30:54.720]

So we have to we call them, we call Bob, we call Jane, so we know what Bob likes on what Jane doesn't like. We know the age range of these
people. We know where they live, we know what they do for work. We know what makes them happy. We know what doesn't make them happy
and based on that it's easy to actually create a solution that would actually help and fulfill the needs of real life users.
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[01:31:21.840]

OK, the next technique is used case and scenarios. So used case and scenarios describe how a person or system interact with the solution be
modelled to achieve a goal. It's almost like using the persona, but the persona is just basically assigning a name and characteristics to a
fictional character. But the use case is basically describing the interaction between the primary actor, the user, the solution and any secondary
actors needed to achieve the primary actors goal. Used cases are usually triggered by the primary actor in some methods may also be
triggered by nervous system or by an external event or a timer.

[01:32:06.510]

A use case describes the possible outcomes of an attempt to accomplish a particular goal that the solution will support. So it's basically a
scenario whereby you have an actor with a person say, for example, we are looking at a scenario of where a user is interacting with our ATM
machine. A user wants to withdraw from an ATM machine. That's a used case and a scenario. The user, the you know, the customer or the use
of the ATM is the actor.

[01:32:39.950]

And we're going to look at how this interaction is going to go about, what are all the things that will be done throughout this interaction. And it

can be done using the UML diagram to draw out a use case diagram. So the used diagram in the babok as well, and then we also have
examples and template for you that you can use to see how these cases work. Used cases can have different relationships. It could be and
extend on include.

[01:33:17.320]

Extend allows for a certain additional behavior into the use case and the include as well can be making use of a functionality present in another
use case. So that's how used cases work in the program. There is video for a session where we talked about used cases in more detail. You can
definitely find that or just carry out a search to know more about used cases where explained
I that scenario in full detail. Now, user stories. A
user story represents a small or concise statement of functionality or quality needed to deliver value to a specific stakeholder.

[01:34:03.660]

Now, user stories are mostly using agile and adaptive projects, and they capture the needs of a specific stakeholder and enable teams to define
features of value to a stakeholder using short, simple documentation. And they can serve as a basis for identifying needs and allowing for the
prioritizing, estimating and planning of solutions. A typical users stories is about a sentence or maybe two, and it basically describes the need
addressed by the story, the gold the user is trying to accomplish and any other information that may be critical to the understanding of the
scope of the story.

[01:34:46.150]

Users stories can be used to capture a stakeholder needs and prioritize development of solutions, it can be used as a basis of estimating and
planning solution delivery or as a basis for generating user acceptance tests. So the Babok, you know, gives us an example of how a user story
is structured and how we can use it, basically is going to be a sentence where you assign a role and there will be necessary action. And why a

why a benefit to a value?

[01:35:19.690]

So you can say as a customer, need to be able to have this mobile application on my phone so that can carry out banking transactions
I I

anywhere. That's a user story. need to have an ATM card so that can make withdrawals from a banking machine at any point in time. You can
I I

also make the user story longer when you can also say giving that am a user when need to make a withdrawal, then need to use an ATM
I I I

card.
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So several ways to actually play out the story. And the user story is really good because it is used as a metric for the measure of delivery of
value, which can be used as a unit for traceability requirements, which can be used as a basis for additional analysis and we can also use it as a

unit for project management and reporting. It's a really, really good technique that's used. I'm mostly used in the agile project management
space. OK, and our last technique is vendor assessment, so vendor assessment is basically accessing the ability of a vendor to meet the
commitments and regarding the delivery and consistent provision of a product or service.

[01:36:43.780]

So in a situation where the solutions are provided by an external vendor who may be involved in the design construction implementation or
the maintenance of a solution or a solution component, or even when the whole solution is outsourced from a vendor. There may be specific
requirements in regard to the involvement of a third party, so there may be a need to ensure that the supplier is financially secure, capable of
maintaining specific staffing levels, compliance with standards, and able to commit appropriate skilled staff to support the solution.

[01:37:23.040]

Non-functional requirements can be used to define the service levels expected of a third party, due diligence may be conducted or certification
from an independent authority may be requested for a vendor assessment. Vendor assessment is conducted to ensure that the vendor is
reliable and that the products and service meets the organization's expectations and requirements. So for the vendor assessment, it goes
through a process and is usually a formal process whereby you go through the submission of the request for information, requests for quotes,
request for tender or a request for proposal.

[01:38:05.750]

It may also be informal through a word of mouth or recommendation or referral of the vendor. The standards of the organization and the
complexity of the organization also helps us to access our vendors and understand the level of formality in relating with our vendors. So you're
going to look at several things here, like, you know, the licensing of the vendors, the pricing, the vendors market position. You know, in your
industry, you're going to have terms and conditions signed off with the vendor, how you're going to have a service level agreements signed off
with the vendor, and also look at vendors reputation as the ability to provide that service.

[01:38:51.620]

So all those all those vendor assessment tools are also available for download in this program under your project management and business
analysis chain management tools and techniques and templates. So on that note, we come to rap on the commonly used business analysis
techniques, there are a lot of techniques. This is a very, very long lesson because there's a lot of techniques that we've covered, review the
Babok for more detail on these techniques. Also review the tools and templates where these are giving review the attachments as well.

[01:39:35.010]

And review also being in the Q&A calls where we had also reviewed a lot of these techniques. So on that note quality rap for the commonly
used business analysis techniques.

Downloads

Case_Study_2- Case_Study_1_-
_Simply_Investment_Gro _XYZ_LABORATORY.pdf
up_Business_Intelligenc
e_Implementation_Proje
ct_1_.pdf
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Previous: Business Analysis Tools Next: Technique Examples

TRANSCRIPT [00:00:08.720] OK, so we'll be taking a look at the commonly See attached examples of techniques, take note that not all are described the
used of business analysis tools, however, I want you to know that there are BABOK as the techniques used by Business Analysts are so many!
new tools and technology comes out every day....

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