What is Strategic Business Analysis?

 Supports business agility

 Realized by a Business Analysis Centre of Excellence
 Strategic business analysis involves outcome focused thinking,
simultaneously understanding business context, business
challenges, and the complexities of the internal and external
environment to frame the scope of the transformation, articulate
the business need/outcome, and shape the agenda for
transformation. Strategic business analysis requires a focus on
all aspects of the organization. It leverages business analysis,
change leadership, and program and project management.
Strategic business analysis focuses on ‘what and why’, not the
‘how’ of solution implementation.

 Strategic business analysts identify business needs and

solutions within the context of the overall direction of a
company. They develop and implement
critical business solutions through information gathering,
synthesis, review, and testing

 Strategic Business Analysis (aka Enterprise Analysis)

encompasses all of the pre-project work to identify business
problems, define business opportunities, develop a business
case, and recommend whether to initiate a project. This level of
business analysis is relatively methodology independent because
it has nothing to do with software development per se. The only
impact is the form in which the outcome is expressed. If
a traditional methodology is in place, Strategic Business
Analysis delivers business strategies, goals, and objectives and
develops Project Scope and Business Requirements. For
an Agile SDM, Strategic Business Analysis defines the high-
level of the project in terms of Themes and Business Epics,
which are less formal and postpone details until the developers
need them. In either case, those performing this level of business
analysis need a broad set of tools and techniques to ensure that
the resulting projects support the organization’s business goals
and objectives.

What is strategic business analysis?

An approach to business analysis with the following characteristics:

 Focused on value, business vision and strategic objectives.
 Interventions prioritized according to risk: Strategically
critical areas come first
 Encourages a balanced portfolio: Capability expansion +
Capability perfection