The Business Analysis Key Concepts chapter includes information that provides a foundation for all other content, concepts, and ideas within the BABOK® Guide.
It provides business analysts with a basic understanding of the central ideas necessary for understanding and employing the BABOK® Guide in their daily practice of business analysis.
This chapter consists of:
- Business Analysis Core Concept Model™ (BACCM™): defines a conceptual framework for the business analysis profession.
- Key Terms: provides definitions of essential concepts, which are highlighted because of their importance to the BABOK® Guide.
- Requirements Classification Schema: identifies levels or types of requirements that assist the business analyst and other stakeholders in categorizing requirements.
- Stakeholders: defines roles, and characteristics of groups or individuals participating in or affected by the business analysis activities within a change.
- Requirements and Designs: describes the distinction between – and the importance of – requirements and designs as they relate to business analysis.
2.1 The Business Analysis Core Concept Model™
The Business Analysis Core Concept Model™ (BACCM™) is a conceptual framework for business analysis. It encompasses what business analysis is and what it means to those performing business analysis tasks regardless of perspective, industry, methodology, or level in the organization. It is composed of six terms that have a common meaning to all business analysts and helps them discuss both business analysis and its relationships with common terminology.
Each of these terms is considered to be a core concept.
The six core concepts in the BACCM are: Change, Need, Solution, Stakeholder, Value, and Context. Each core concept is an idea fundamental to the practice of business analysis, and all the concepts are equal and necessary. Each core concept is defined by the other five core concepts and cannot be fully understood until all the concepts are understood. No single concept holds greater importance or significance over any other concept. These concepts are instrumental to understanding the type of information elicited, analyzed, or managed in business analysis tasks.
The BACCM can be used to:
- describe the profession and domain of business analysis,
- communicate about business analysis with a common terminology,
- evaluate the relationships of key concepts in business analysis,
- perform better business analysis by holistically evaluating the relationships among these six concepts, and
- evaluate the impact of these concepts and relationships at any point during a work effort in order to establish both a foundation and a path forward.
| Core Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Change |
The act of transformation in response to a need. Change works to improve the performance of an enterprise. These improvements are deliberate and controlled through business analysis activities. |
| Need |
A problem or opportunity to be addressed. Needs can cause changes by motivating stakeholders to act. Changes can also cause needs by eroding or enhancing the value delivered by existing solutions. |
| Solution |
A specific way of satisfying one or more needs in a context. A solution satisfies a need by resolving a problem faced by stakeholders or enabling stakeholders to take advantage of an opportunity |
| Stakeholder |
A group or individual with a relationship to the change, the need, or the solution. Stakeholders are often defined in terms of interest in, impact on, and influence over the change. Stakeholders are grouped based on their relationship to the needs, changes, and solutions. |
| Value |
The worth, importance, or usefulness of something to a stakeholder within a context. Value can be seen as potential or realized returns, gains, and improvements. It is also possible to have a decrease in value in the form of losses, risks, and costs. Value can be tangible or intangible. Tangible value is directly measurable. Tangible value often has a significant monetary component. Intangible value is measured indirectly. Intangible value often has a significant motivational component, such as a company’s reputation or employee morale. In some cases, value can be assessed in absolute terms, but in many cases is assessed in relative terms: one solution option is more valuable than another from the perspective of a given set of stakeholders. |
| Context |
The circumstances that influence, are influenced by, and provide understanding of the change. Changes occur within a context. The context is everything relevant to the change that is within the environment. Context may include attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, competitors, culture, demographics, goals, governments, infrastructure, languages, losses, processes, products, projects, sales, seasons, terminology, technology, weather, and any other element meeting the definition. |
Table 2.1.1: The BACCM
The core concepts can be used by business analysts to consider the quality and completeness of the work being done. Within each knowledge area description there are examples of how the core concepts may be used and/or applied during the tasks within the knowledge area. While planning or performing a task or technique, business analysts can consider how each core concept is addressed by asking questions such as:
- What are the kinds of changes we are doing?
- What are the needs we are trying to satisfy?
- What are the solutions we are creating or changing?
- Who are the stakeholders involved?
- What do stakeholders consider to be of value?
- What are the contexts that we and the solution are in?
If any of the core concepts experience a change, it should cause us to re-evaluate these core concepts and their relationships to value delivery.
2.2 Key Terms
Business Analysis
The BABOK® Guide describes and defines business analysis as the practice of enabling change in an enterprise by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.
Business Analysis Information
Business analysis information refers to the broad and diverse sets of information that business analysts analyze, transform, and report. It is information of any kind – at any level of detail – that is used as an input to, or is an output of, business analysis work. Examples of business analysis information include elicitation results, requirements, designs, solution options, solution scope, and change strategy.
It is essential to expand the object of many business analysis activities from “requirements” to “information” to ensure that all inputs and outputs of business analysis are subject to the tasks and activities described in the BABOK® Guide. For example, when performing “Plan Business Analysis Information Management” it includes all the examples listed above. If the BABOK® Guide described “Plan Requirements Management”, it would exclude important outputs like elicitation results, solution options, and change strategy.
Design
A design is a usable representation of a solution. Design focuses on understanding how value might be realized by a solution if it is built. The nature of the representation may be a document (or set of documents) and can vary widely depending on the circumstances.
Enterprise
An enterprise is a system of one or more organizations and the solutions they use to pursue a shared set of common goals. These solutions (also referred to as organizational capabilities) can be processes, tools or information. For the purpose of business analysis, enterprise boundaries can be defined relative to the change and need not be constrained by the boundaries of a legal entity, organization, or organizational unit. An enterprise may include any number of business, government, or any other type of organization.
Organization
An autonomous group of people under the management of a single individual or board, that works towards common goals and objectives. Organizations often have a clearly defined boundary and operate on a continuous basis, as opposed to an initiative or project team, which may be disbanded once its objectives are
achieved.
Plan
A plan is a proposal for doing or achieving something. Plans describe a set of events, the dependencies among the events, the expected sequence, the schedule, the results or outcomes, the materials and resources needed, and the stakeholders involved.
Requirement
A requirement is a usable representation of a need. Requirements focus on understanding what kind of value could be delivered if a requirement is fulfilled.
The nature of the representation may be a document (or set of documents), but can vary widely depending on the circumstances.
Risk
Risk is the effect of uncertainty on the value of a change, a solution, or the enterprise. Business analysts collaborate with other stakeholders to identify, assess, and prioritize risks, and to deal with those risks by altering the likelihood of the conditions or events that lead to the uncertainty: mitigating the consequences, removing the source of the risk, avoiding the risk altogether by deciding not to start or continue with an activity that leads to the risk, sharing the risk with other parties, or accepting or even increasing the risk to deal with an opportunity
