CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Business analysis planning and

monitoring

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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Home sweet home

It was getting quite cold outside as the month of December was
approaching. However, Dinesh was very relaxed as his first large
Oracle Financials implementation for a prestigious retail chain in
Seattle was well on schedule. He was confident that his team would
complete the project in the balance one month left and he would be
back home in India after 6 months of on-site stint.

His phone rang. Todd, Head of Legal, wanted to see him. Dinesh
had met Todd only during the project kick-off. For subsequent
project review meetings, no one from legal function joined project
review meetings.
When he met Todd, his comments hit him hard. Todd told that most
of the financial reports developed by Dinesh’s team need to be
rewritten, as none met legal requirements with respect to US
taxation. With just under a month left, Dinesh and his team were
now faced with the task of completely rewriting these reports that
had taken over 3 months to create.

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What is planning?

How planning helps?

What the BA should be planning?

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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Business analysis planning and

monitoring

Plan business analysis Conduct stakeholder Plan business

approach analysis analysis activities

Plan requirements Manage business

Plan business analysis
management analysis
communication
process performance

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Tools for planning

Lets review the handout and present

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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

What are the common

approaches for business
analysis?

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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Plan driven approaches vs. Change driven

approaches
Attribute Plan driven (Waterfall) Change driven (Iterative/Agile)
Focus To detail as much as possible in the To discover as we go.
beginning to maximize control and
reduce risk.
Approver Sponsor Designated person
Applicable Complex, high cost of failure, well Low cost of failure
situation drafted requirements possible. Requirements amorphous
Challenging stakeholder interaction.
Degree of change Low High
expected
Level of detail High Low
Change Formal process Through product backlog, time
management driven
Communication Formal Informal

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Plan business analysis approach

Decide BA approach.

Decide req. prioritization approach.

Decide change management approach.

Decide BA planning process.

Decide communication approach.

Req. analysis and management tools.

Estimate BA effort.

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BA approach vs. Project approach

Project approach BA approach

Waterfall Waterfall

Agile Waterfall

Agile

Even when project is agile, make sure all NFRs are collected in
a waterfall approach.

Functional requirements are better with agile based approach.

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Who are stakeholders?

Why stakeholder analysis

is critical?

How do we analyze
stakeholders?
Identify > Prioritize or Categorize > Manage

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Key roles and their primary

responsibilities in business analysis
Business analyst Understand business need, Identify solution approach and
select appropriate solution, gather and maintain requirements.

Sponsor Provide funding and approve requirement, Accepting the

solution
Project manager Estimation of schedule and cost, manage resource and project

Domain SME Provide requirements of the process

Implementation SME Provide technical solution
Tester Ensure quality of solution
Operational support Provide logistical support

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Steps in stakeholder management

Stakeholder Identifying key stakeholders who will or

Identification will be influenced by your project

Stakeholder Understanding needs, expectations, and

Analysis interests of key stakeholders

Stakeholder Managing stakeholder expectations and

Management helping them adapt to change

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Stakeholder influence patterns

You are lucky! Understand reasons for
discomfort.
Engage actively.
Positive Negative Communicate vigorously.
High High Identify positive influencers
who can influence these
Influence Influence stakeholders.

Identify what should be Positive Understand reasons for

done to move these
Negative discomfort
stakeholders to high Low Low Engage actively
influence zone Influence Influence Communicate frequently
Identify positive influencers
who can influence these
stakeholders

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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Stakeholder charter
• Many stakeholder management issues
can be resolved by having an
appropriate stakeholder charter.
• A stakeholder charter sets ground rules
for engagement with all stakeholders.
• This is a joint responsibility of the
project manager and business analyst.

Lets have a look at sample stakeholder charter!

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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Conduct stakeholder analysis

Assess stakeholder
Determine
Identify attitudes towards
complexity of
stakeholders. business analysis
stakeholder groups.
and towards project.

How do we identify our stakeholders?

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Sources of stakeholders
Sponsor

Legal
Suppliers function /
Client

Users of
Organization
existing
chart
system

Interviewing
Process flow
stakeholder

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Plan business analysis activities

• Determine BA activities to be performed
• Deliverables to be produced.
• Estimate effort.
• Identify tools required to measure progress.
• Consider
– Geographic distribution of stakeholders.
– Type of project or initiative.

What is the difference between work product

and deliverable?

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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Plan business analysis communication

• Describe structure and schedule for
communications regarding business
analysis activities.
• Consider geographic locations.
• Consider cultural diversity.
• Consider type of project.
• Determine communication frequency.
• Consider communication formality.

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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Plan business analysis communication

Challenges Best practices

• Geographical spread • When geographically dispersed,

• Diction maintain more written document.
• Cultural aspects • Speak slowly.
• Formally record decisions.

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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Manage business analysis performance

To manage performance of business analysis activities

to ensure they are executed as effectively as possible.

Determine BA performance measures.

Prepare performance reports.

Identify preventive and corrective actions.

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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Develop and present business analysis

plan for the given case study.

Preparation : 30 Minutes
Presentation : 30 Minutes

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Lets test our understanding with sample

questions from the chapter.

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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Question 1
1. Which statement completes the following statement the LEAST effectively?
When considering the impact of 'project approach' on business analysis
planning for the customized component of a new software package, the
approach will.
a) Have an impact on planning and monitoring business analysis tasks as well
as the roles and responsibilities for business analysis.
b) Always be a predecessor to the start of requirements planning and
management.
c) Always be a successor to the start of requirements planning and
management.
d) Determine the formality of communication with the developer(s).

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Correct option for Question

Correct option:
c) Business analysis approach should be defined prior to
requirements planning. Since the question is looking for a
negative answer, this is the choice.

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Question 2
2. Non-functional requirements should be gathered in
a) Linear manner in the beginning of the project.
b) Iterative manner.
c) Should be collected after functional requirements.
d) No need to be collected.

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Correct option for Question

Correct option:
a) Since NFRs are difficult to change, they should be collected
in the beginning of the project.

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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Question 3
3. Which statement about techniques is the most correct?
a) They are required for all tasks.
b) They are prescribed by the BABOK.
c) Describe different ways a task can be performed.
d) Provide supplemental information about one and only
one task.

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Correct option for Question

Correct option:
c) From the BABOK's description of a Technique,
Section 1.6.

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Question 4
4. Why the task to determine the appropriate format for
requirements is important to the project?
a) It assures that the same organizational artifacts are used
consistently by all BAs in all situations.
b) It assures that each requirement is described in a unique
format that respects the title and authority of the highest
ranking stakeholder in the audience.
c) It assures that requirements are understandable to their
particular stakeholders.
d) It assures that the presenter has sufficient time to learn new
tools to enhance each presentation of requirements to
different target audiences.
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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Correct option for Question

Correct option:
c) A theme of the BABOK, requirements must be presented in a
format suitable for the audience. BABOK 4.4.2.

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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Question 5
5. You are a business analyst in a project which involves
multiple location satellite development project. You will
recommend the following approach
a) Waterfall approach.
b) Agile approach.
c) Hybrid approach.
d) Scaled agile approach.

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CBAP Preparatory Workshop – BA Planning and Monitoring

Correct option for Question

Correct option:
a) Waterfall approach as the failure cost is very high.

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Question 6
6. The document that describes various stakeholders roles and
responsibilities during business analysis is
a) Business analysis plan.
b) Requirements management plan.
c) Business analysis communication plan.
d) Traceability matrix.

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Correct option for Question

b) Requirements management plan contains stakeholder list,
roles and responsibilities.

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Question 7
7. In a short, 3-month project to implement a COTS system,
the BA determined that a detailed Software Requirements
Specification document was not necessary and planned instead
upon Use Cases for the analysis technique and documentation
format. This is an example of
a) An assumption that could become a risk.
b) Appropriate use of risk mitigation.
c) A common mistake leading to prescriptive requirements.
d) Determining appropriate requirements analysis and
documentation activities.

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Correct option for Question

d) The BA determines the best techniques to be used on the
project regarding the requirements process. BABOK 2.3.2.

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Question 8
8. Knowledge of a specific department's organization structure
is
a) Organization knowledge.
b) Business knowledge.
c) Domain knowledge.
d) Department knowledge.

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Correct option for Question

a) Knowledge about an organization or organizational unit is
organization knowledge. BABOK 8.3.3

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Question 9
In order to assess business analysis performance,
business analysts need not
a) Capture effort spent on BA activities.
b) Hold daily meetings with the project manager.
c) Collect stakeholder feedbacks.
d) Measure quality of BA deliverables.

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Correct option for Question

c) Rest all options are needed for business analysis performance.

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Question 10
10. Which of the following statements best describes a plan-
driven approach?
a) These approaches tend to be preferred when taking an
exploratory approach.
b) Agile methods of software development are typical
examples.
c) This approach tends to be preferred when requirements can
be realistically defined prior to implementation.
d) The risk of an incorrect implementation is low.

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Correct option for Question

Correct option:
c) These approaches tend to be preferred in situations where
requirements can effectively be defined in advance of
implementation, the risk of an incorrect implementation is
unacceptably high, or when managing stakeholder interactions
presents significant challenges. BABOK 2.1.4.

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End of module

Would you like to clarify any thing on the

module?

Any suggestions for improvement?

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