Basic Business Analysis Lifecycle
Planning includes creating a work plan.
Planning is a team event. You need to collaborate with business users,
stakeholders throughout the phase of the project. Every day is not a Sunday similarly
no two projects are same. You may have large or small, complex or simple
projects but planning is critical part of every project. As a Business Analyst
the primary role during planning is scope of the effort.
2. Project Scope
Before starting to define and documenting
project scope we need to know why the project has been initiated and goals of
the project. The business analyst needs to thoroughly analyze business problems
before jumping to a solution. We can identify the opportunity or problem the
company needs to address.
As a Business Analyst this is very
important part of requirement gathering. As a business analyst you need the
understand business needs and find the root cause of business problems. Then you
discuss the requirements with business users and stakeholders. You must
communicate the requirements effectively and efficiently to all the parties. The
task also involves categorizing the requirements and ensure the project is
solving the right problem.
4. Design
Once the requirements are gathered and approved
by the business users the development team starts working on implementing the
solutions as stated in the requirement document. The business analyst should be
available to support the design and development team even though it’s not his
expertise area. If the business analyst who knows the system in and out can
work with development team more efficiently.
5. Build Solution.
Once all the requirements are gathered then
the business and project team need to make a decision whether to build the
system internally, outsource the project and buy a prepackaged solutions. At
the same you role is to ensure the solutions stills meets the business need as
stated in the business requirements. In the mean time you can start working on
test cases or scenarios.
After the solution has been
designed you need to validate the business needs raised during the project are
met. You work with test team to ensure the solution are met as stated in the
requirements. The business analyst needs to work with test team to make sure
their no bugs in the systems. The business analyst can perform sanity testing
or ask test team to perform. Once we complete the testing we can ask business
users to do the testing before the solutions is implemented in the main
environment.
7. Implement
Once all the solution are built
into the system you want business users to use the solution. You work with
business users and stakeholders as the solutions rolls out. You need to train
the users and make them comfortable with solutions. Regardless of how great
your solution is the individuals impacted by it determine the success or
failure of the project. The big part of your change management plan is managing
stakeholders’ experience with change. Failing to address human side of the
change the project is bound to fail.
8. Post-implementation Review.
When the solution are implemented
the business analyst need to make sure the goals in the project are being met.
If you find out that something is missing you need to start another project to fulfill
all the needs of the business users and stakeholders and is solving their problems.
There is problem with your car and you take the car for repairing. Once the car
is repaired you tend to check the car. But if you still feel there is a problem
with the car you ask mechanic to recheck the car. Similarly as a business analyst
you do the same thing with the project. You validate that your implemented solution
solve the business problems.