How do you define the scope of business analysis?
As broadly as you need to include all aspects of the change and its context. Which is always broader than just system changes.
A major pitfall of business analysis is a relentless focus on system changes – at the expense of the overall business context, with all its connections.
The complete solution to a business problem may include:
- Business process changes
- Organizational changes (new and changed roles and responsibilities)
- Business rules changes (including those implemented through policies and procedures)
- Logistics and environment (changes to locations, movement of people and materials, storage arrangements and relocation of resources)
- Communication requirements (including regulatory and mandatory communications)
- Reporting requirements, including aggregation and transformation rules
- Documentation updates (from user manuals to task descriptions)
- Marketing collateral and new customer notifications
- Investor notices
- Training requirements
A BA must discover, analyze and capture all these requirements – whether they involve technology or not. There is a reason for the word “business” in “business analysis”.
If you are a business analysis leader, you have to give your BA resources a broad scope, support them when they are asking business-related questions, and educate other stakeholders on what a BA can do for them – beyond documenting system enhancements.
The worst a business analyst can hear is “it’s none of your business!” or “it’s out of your scope”.
Contact Yulia for business analysis training options or explore these one-day corporate training programs. For self-paced business analysis courses visit Why Change Academy.