The business analysis body of knowledge defines 6 knowledge areas, which group together related sets of tasks and techniques. Each of these tasks and techniques describes the typical knowledge, skills, processes, and deliverables that the business analyst requires to be able to perform those tasks competently.
Business analysts are likely to perform tasks from all knowledge areas in rapid succession, iteratively, or simultaneously. Tasks may be performed in any order as long as the required inputs are available.
The following knowledge areas are not intended to represent phases in a project. It is certainly possible and permissible to proceed in a waterfall-like fashion, however, true business analysis does not require that you do so, and it should not be construed as a methodology for the performance of business analysis.
- Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring is the knowledge area that covers how business analysts determine which activities are necessary in order to complete a business analysis effort. It covers identification of stakeholders, selection of business analysis techniques, the process that will be used to manage requirements, and how to assess the progress of the work. The tasks in this knowledge area govern the performance of all other business analysis tasks.
- Elicitation describes how business analysts work with stakeholders to identify and understand their needs and concerns, and understand the environment in which they work. The purpose of elicitation is to ensure that a stakeholder’s actual needs are understood, rather than their stated or superficial desires.
- Requirements Management and Communication describes how business analysts manage conflicts, issues and changes in order to ensure that stakeholders and the project team remain in agreement on the solution scope. It also describes how requirements are communicated to stakeholders, and how knowledge gained by the business analyst is maintained for future use.
- Enterprise Analysis describes how business analysts identify a business need, refine and clarify the definition of that need, and define a solution scope that can feasibly be implemented by the business. This knowledge area describes problem definition and analysis, business case development, feasibility studies, and the definition of solution scope.
- Requirements Analysis describes how business analysts prioritize and progressively elaborate stakeholder and solution requirements in order to enable the project team to implement a solution that will meet the needs of the sponsoring organization and stakeholders. It involves analyzing stakeholder needs to define solutions that meet those needs, assessing the current state of the business to identify and recommend improvements, and the verification and validation of the resulting requirements.\
- Solution Assessment and Validation describes how business analysts assess proposed solutions to determine which solution best fits the business need, identify gaps and shortcomings in solutions, and determine necessary workarounds or changes to the solution. It also describes how business analysts assess deployed solutions to see how well they met the original need so that the sponsoring organization can assess the performance and effectiveness of the solution.
As I alluded to in the introduction, there are specific tasks, tools & techniques associated with each of these knowledge areas. I have spoken about a few of them in earlier posts:
- Scenario and Use cases - applicable to the Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring knowledge area
- Benchmarking, Metrics and KPI's - applicable to the Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring, Enterprise Analysis and Requirements Analysis knowledge areas
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