4. Why know your BA?
Results of poor requirements:
60%-80% of project failure
Finding and fixing software
defects (bugs) 50% of total
product costs
25-40% of all spending on
projects budget is wasted as a
result of rework
40% of the problems are found
by end users in production live
systems
45% of System Functionality
Never Used; 19% Rarely used
5. The role of the BA
A liaison among stakeholders to elicit, analyze,
communicate and validate requirements for
business changes
The one who ensures that requirements are
visible to and understood by all stakeholders
6. Business analysis model
Investigate
the situation
Deliver Consider
change perspectives
Define and
Analyze
deliver
needs
requirements
Evaluate
options
8. Typical BA company size
Don't know
Fewer than 4%
100
12% Greater than
20k employees
25%
100-499
12%
500-999
5000 - 19999
8%
19%
1000 - 4999
20%
9. BA preferred industries types
Media Other
Retail 3% 5%
5%
Telecom Finance and
6% insurance
27%
Health care
6%
Manufacturing
8%
Business
services
Public sector 17%
9% IT Services
14%
10. Size of the team and location
Size - 58% have less than 25 members.
Virtualization - 64% of the teams have less
than 25% virtualization
Size of the project team Virtualization of the team
100 to > 250
50 4% > 75%
1% 50% to
50 to
100 75%
10%
< 10%
25% to
50%
25 to < 25
50 58%
10% to
27% 25%
12. BA typical methodologies
The role of the BA on an Agile project has not
yet solidified as a pure role in the team
A mix of processes from below 39.9%
Waterfall or modified waterfall 25.9%
Agile 19.2%
Iterative 8.4%
Other 4.3%
13. BA typical activities
% of BA are responsible for the following activities
80 69 69 68
70 63 63 59
60 52 49
50 47
40
40 32
30 20 20
20
10
0
14. BA most important techniques
Critical Very Important Important Somewhat important
Interviewing 30% 43% 21% 5%
Facilitation 31% 42% 23% 4%
Modelling 18% 40% 31% 8%
Negotiation 17% 39% 33% 10%
Business rule design 10% 38% 42% 13%
Change management 10% 33% 43% 24%
Data modelling 5% 25% 44% 25%
Quality assurance 7% 22% 41% 27%
Project management 6% 22% 41% 25%
15. BA most critical soft skills
Critical Very Important Important Somewhat important
Communication 69% 28% 3%
Analytical skills 70% 26% 4%
Collaboration 42% 42% 14%2%
Customer orientation 35% 44% 19% 2%
Planning, organization 29% 42% 25% 4%
Consulting, influencing 23% 46% 24% 5%
Leadership 20% 41% 30% 7%
Strategic 11% 33% 37% 3%
17. Requirements communication
Spreadsheets, word documents and emails
are the communicating link
Spread sheets or documents 83.2%
Email 42.0%
Requirements management… 31.4%
Meetings (daily stand-up) 31.1%
Requirements modelling… 21.6%
Write boards, post it notes 21.6%
Blog or wiki 11.3%
Other 6.6%
18. BA challenges
Missing or vague business requirements
Infeasible business requirements
Unrealistic timelines driven by real world
pressures (e.g. competition, budget)
Tribal business knowledge
Finding time with business
Business wants to dictate technology
19. Best practices
Identify the stakeholders and their
perspectives
Understand the area of impact for the change
Look for the alternatives while targeting
tangible results with minimal effort
Requirements traceability (one repository,
multiple ownership)
Speak truth to power
20. About the presentation resources
Various surveys conducted by Forrester, IIBA, Raven Flow, Jama
State of Requirements Management Report 2011
Get to know your BA 2011
Various studies and articles published by
IIBA www.iiba.com
BA times www.BATimes.com
Modern analyst www.modernanalyst.com
Requirements Network www.requirementsnetwork.com
Requirements www.requirements.net
Pictures courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net
21. Thank you!
Business analysts connect the
dots across your project!
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