Best of BATimes: A Checklist For Business Analysis Planning

Use the universal business analysis planning checklist when planning your business analysis approach.

Every project is a unique, temporary endeavor.

Business process management, regulatory compliance, and digital transformation projects that business analysts may be involved in have different goals, scopes, teams, timelines, budgetary dependencies, and risks. Although many projects follow similar methodologies, they are all tailored to project scope constraints and take advantage of available resources, opportunities, and lessons learned from previous work.

Each business analyst also comes with a unique set of skills and experience. Almost all business analysts have good communication skills and at least some knowledge of the business domain based on their experience. That’s why they became business analysts in the first place. All business analysts have acquired a unique knowledge of business analysis methods and business domains through personal study, practice, and experience. Many also receive training in extraction, requirements management, modeling, measurement, analysis, and documentation techniques. A growing number of companies are pursuing professional certifications such as the IIBA Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) and PMI Professional in Business Analysis (PMI-PBA).

What is a business analysis plan

Not only are the most seasoned business analysts familiar with many business analysis techniques, but they also consciously tailor their business analysis approach to each project they work on. They have learned to consider key project dynamics with their own capabilities and coordinate planned business activities. Deliverables tailored to the unique dynamics of each project. Regardless of your business analytics experience, maturity, and whether you have formal training or are certified, consciously assess the dynamics of each project and tailor your future business analytics work to maximize Unlock limitless productivity and value. Efforts in each project.

Some of the most important project dynamics include:

• A methodology or series of stages or major milestones and the expected business analysis deliverables or results by the end of each stage/milestone (and before starting the next stage).
• Budgets and schedules aren’t just about meeting them, they’re about taking advantage of contingencies, scheduling leeway opportunities, adding value and quality, and learning.
• Newly modified and formed relationships with key project stakeholders to play an active role in facilitating and building relationships with that team.
• The types and combinations of extraction techniques that are most suitable for creating or validating business analysis deliverables.
• Business domain knowledge and experience of various key project stakeholders, including a unique set of business analytical competencies.

Universal Business Analysis Planning Checklist

Following a consistent and clear agenda that considers common project dynamics will help you plan your business analysis approach more effectively.

The Universal Business Analysis Approach Planning Checklist covers the most common project dynamics. Using this as an agenda, you can derive and discover a comprehensive view of the project’s key dynamics, its opportunities, and use what you discover to adapt/adjust your business analysis approach.

As an exercise, think of a project you recently worked on, is currently working on, or will soon be working on. Answer yourself the questions in the following checklist.

Project life cycle

• What are the planned stages of this project?
• Where are we now?
• What is the business analysis deliverable (or set of deliverables) that I am responsible for at this stage?
• What are business analytics artifacts used for and by whom?

schedule and effort budget

• How much effort can you put into creating a business analytics deliverable and what is your target date?
• Is that what I estimated it would cost too?
• Are my effort or date estimates higher than my effort budget or target date? If so, how can I adapt my effort, scope, activities, or deliverables configuration? mosquito?

Project stakeholders and relationships

• • What are the main roles of the project team and who are on it?
    • Does this project have an Executive Sponsor, Project Owner or Product Owner, Project Manager, Specialists, and Business Subject Matter Experts?
    • What is the person’s name and title in these project roles?
  • Are significant new relationships being created in this project?
    • Who is new to each other on this team?
    • Do you have local team members and remote team members?
  • What are people’s responsibilities?
    • Who should create, approve, or consult or inform each of the key deliverables of the project, especially the business analysis deliverables?

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induction technique

• Which induction techniques are available?
  • Documentation review – What documentation or previous work products can be reviewed?
  • Interviews and Workshops – Who can I interview or participate in a workshop and what questions should I ask?
  • Observations – where and what kind of observations may be required and how can they be arranged?
  • System Review – What systems and information are available for review?
  • Surveys – Who can participate in surveys and what types of questions can be used?
• What are my business analysis capabilities?
  • Given the stakeholders and relationships for this project, the extraction techniques available to me, and my own core competencies, which extraction technique is the most suitable? Gather and validate business insights

organizational assets

• What specialized tools are available for drawers, documentation and modeling?
  • Collaboration tools, facilities, research tools?
  • Drawing or modeling software?
• What previous business analysis work (documents, models, etc.) can you draw from?
• Does my organization offer training in targeted business areas?

competence and knowledge

• Who on the project team has expertise in what business domains?
• What is my business domain knowledge?
• Who excels in core business analytics competencies?
• Where can you leverage the diverse knowledge and capabilities of your team?
• Who are the best stakeholders to be involved in extracting content or validating business analysis artifacts in this project, and what is the best extraction technique to use?

In retrospect, are you able to answer these questions yourself? Who would you include in this conversation when you walk into a project workplace?

Conclusion:

A business analysis plan is a recognized business analysis activity. IIBA’s Body of Knowledge (BoK) includes planning activities for business analysis approaches within the business analysis planning and management process. The BoK also describes the scope of what should be covered by a business analysis approach as “a set of processes, templates and activities used to perform business analysis in a specific context”.

The time and format you apply to your business analysis plan is up to you. At the financial institution where I work as a project and program manager, business analysts typically create and document a business analysis plan for each new project assigned.

I think of business analysis planning as a kind of insurance. Spend a little time upfront to ensure that most of the rest of your business analysis work is well-utilized and as effective as possible. The benefits of coordinating business analysis plans for all projects are:

1. This allows you to tailor your core business analytics capabilities to each project.
2. You and your project get the most value from your business analytics efforts.

It’s a value proposition.

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