Business Analysis Key Terms

Requirement

A condition or capability needed by a stakeholder to solve a problem or achieve an objective.

A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK Guide)

a globally recognized standard for the practice of business analysis. It describes business analysis areas of knowledge, their associated activities and tasks, and the skills necessary to be effective in their execution.

Outputs

a necessary result of the work described in a task.

Solution

a set of changes to the current state of an organization that are made in order to enable that organization to meet a business need, solve a problem, or take advantage of an opportunity.

Customer

a stakeholder outside the boundary of a given organization or organizational unit.

Domain Subject Matter Expert (SME)

any individual with in-depth knowledge of a topic relevant to the business need or solution scope.

Business Analyst

any person who performs business analysis activities

Stakeholder Requirement

are statements of the needs of a particular stakeholder or class of stakeholders.

Transition Requirement

capabilities that the solution must have in order to facilitate transition from the current state of the enterprise to a desired future state, but that will not be needed once that transition is complete.

Non-Functional Solution Requirement

conditions that do not directly relate to the behavior or functionality of the solution, but rather describe environmental conditions under which the solution must remain effective or qualities that the systems must have.

Knowledge Area

define what a practitioner of business analysis needs to understand and the tasks a practitioner must be able to perform.

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.

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.

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, how requirements are communicated to stakeholders, and how knowledge gained by the business analyst is maintained for future use.

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.

Elicitation

describes how business analysts work with stakeholders to identify and understand their needs and concerns, and understand the environment in which they work.

Elements

describes key concepts that are needed to understand how to perform the task.

Underlying Competencies

describes the behaviors, knowledge, and other characteristics that support the effective performance of business analysis.

Business Requirement

higher-level statements of the goals, objectives, or needs of the enterprise.

Techniques

provide additional information on different ways that a task may be performed or different forms the output of the task may take.

Supplier

provide products or services to the organization and may have contractual or moral rights and obligations that must be considered.

Stakeholders

represents a class of people that the business analyst is likely to interact with in a specific way.

Inputs

represents the information and preconditions necessary for a task to begin.

Implementation Subject Matter Expert (SME)

responsible for designing and implementing potential solutions.

Tester

responsible for determining how to verify that the solution meets the solution requirements defined by the business analyst, as well as conducting the verification process.

System Architects

responsible for dividing a software application into components and defining the interactions between them.

Trainers

responsible for ensuring that the end users of a solution understand how it is supposed to work and are able to use it effectively.

Organizational Change Management Professionals

responsible for facilitating acceptance and adoption of new solutions and overcoming resistance to change.

Sponsor

responsible for initiating the effort to define a business need and develop a solution that meets that need. They authorize work to be performed and control the budget for the initiative.

Project Manager

responsible for managing the work required to deliver a solution that meets a business need, and for ensuring that the project's objectives are met while balancing the project constraints, including scope, budget, schedule, resources, quality, risk, and others.

Developers/Software Engineers

responsible for the construction of software applications.

Regulator

responsible for the definition and enforcement of standards.

Usability Professionals

responsible for the external interaction design of technology solutions and for making those solutions as simple to use as is feasible.

End User

stakeholders who will directly interact with the solution.

Domain

the area undergoing analysis. It may correspond to the boundaries of an organization or organizational unit, as well as key stakeholders outside those boundaries and interactions with those stakeholders.

Functional Solution Requirement

the behavior and information that the solution will manage. They describe capabilities the system will be able to perform in terms of behaviors or operations—specific information technology application actions or responses.

Solution Requirement

the characteristics of a solution that meet business requirements and stakeholder requirements.

Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring

the knowledge area that covers how business analysts determine which activities are necessary in order to complete a business analysis effort.

Business Analysis

the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison among stakeholders in order to understand the structure, policies, and operations of an organization, and to recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.