11.5.5 Impact on Knowledge Areas
This section explains how specific business analysis practices within business process management are mapped to business analysis tasks and practices as defined by the BABOK® Guide. This section also describes how each knowledge area is applied or modified within the business process management discipline.
Each knowledge area lists techniques relevant to a business process management perspective. BABOK® Guide techniques are found in the Techniques chapter of the BABOK® Guide. Other business analysis techniques are not found in the chapter, but are considered to be particularly useful to business analysts working in the discipline of business process management. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of techniques but rather to highlight the types of techniques used by business analysts while performing the tasks within the knowledge area.
.1 Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring
Progressive elaboration is common in the planning of BPM initiatives due to the fact that the amount of information available for full planning may be limited in the initial stages. BPM initiatives involve continuous improvement activities, and a common cause of failure of BPM initiatives is the failure to plan for ongoing monitoring of the effect of changes to the process. In BPM initiatives, the initial focus of business analysis work is on analyzing and improving the business process before looking at the technology used to support the process, and any changes that might be required to software applications or work procedures.
BABOK® Guide Techniques
- Estimation (p. 271)
- Item Tracking (p. 294)
- Process Modelling (p. 318)
- Reviews (p. 326)
- Stakeholder List, Map, or Personas (p. 344)
- Workshops (p. 363)
Other Business Analysis Techniques
- Inputs, Guide, Outputs, Enablers (IGOE)
.2 Elicitation and Collaboration
For the BPM initiative to be successful, the scope of the initiative and the scope of the affected process must be defined and understood.
Process modelling and stakeholder analysis are generally utilized during the elicitation phase of a BPM initiative. During elicitation, the business analyst focuses on cause and effect of both changing existing processes and keeping the processes as they are through the elicitation and collaboration effort. As an existing process is changed, the effect of any process improvements identified on the organization, people, and technology are considered. Process maps are an important tool to drive elicitation in BPM initiatives and stakeholders are frequently consulted during their development. Effective elicitation and collaboration is critical in process modelling analysis and design work.
Process changes can have significant impacts across the organization, so managing stakeholders and their expectations is particularly critical. Without effective stakeholder management, process changes may not be successfully implemented or the changes may not meet the organization’s goals and objectives.
BABOK® Guide Techniques
- Brainstorming (p. 227)
- Document Analysis (p. 269)
- Focus Groups (p. 279)
- Interface Analysis (p. 287)
- Interviews (p. 290)
- Metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) (p. 297)
- Observation (p. 305)
- Process Modelling (p. 318)
- Prototyping (p. 323)
- Reviews (p. 326)
- Root Cause Analysis (p. 335)
- Scope Modelling (p. 338)
- Stakeholder List, Map, or Personas (p. 344)
- Survey or Questionnaire (p. 350)
- Use Cases and Scenarios (p. 356)
- User Stories (p. 359)
- Workshops (p. 363)
Other Business Analysis Techniques
- House of Quality/Voice of Customer
.3 Requirements Life Cycle Management
BPM is a set of approaches that focus on ways to deliver value across multiple functional areas through a process-centric lens. Delivering additional value is often related to deliberately undertaking change but could also result from an ad hoc request or review of processes. The impact of BPM activities on requirements life cycle management is significant as it can drive out business requirements resulting in new design, coding, implementation, and post-implementation changes. It is the responsibility of the business analyst to maintain this connection and ensure that communication is effectively conducted with stakeholders and process owners who are the ultimate decision makers when it is about processes, change, and supporting solutions.
The documentation of business processes is available to all stakeholders as it is to be used in the daily operation of the business. If the process is automated through a BPMS, the representation of the process may be directly executable.
BABOK® Guide Techniques
- Acceptance and Evaluation Criteria (p. 217)
- Backlog Management (p. 220)
- Brainstorming (p. 227)
- Business Rules Analysis (p. 240)
- Non-Functional Requirements Analysis (p. 302)
- Prioritization (p. 311)
- Process Analysis (p. 314)
- Process Modelling (p. 318)
- Prototyping (p. 323)
- Scope Modelling (p. 338)
- Workshops (p. 363)
Other Business Analysis Techniques
- none
.4 Strategy Analysis
In a BPM context, strategy analysis involves understanding the role the process plays in an enterprise value chain. At a minimum, any process that interacts with the processes affected by the initiative must be considered.
The current state is likely to be described by the as-is value chain and the current performance measures for the business process. The future state will be described by the to-be value chain and target performance measures. Continuous improvement methods may simply focus on the performance measures to determine the strategy. The change strategy will involve the identification of possible process changes.
BABOK® Guide Techniques
- Document Analysis (p. 269)
- Functional Decomposition (p. 283)
- Interviews (p. 290)
- Lessons Learned (p. 296)
- Process Analysis (p. 314)
- Process Modelling (p. 318)
Other Business Analysis Techniques
- Drum-Buffer-Rope
- House of Quality/Voice of Customer
- Inputs, Guide, Outputs, Enablers (IGOE)
- TOC Thinking Processes
.5 Requirements Analysis and Design Definition
Requirements analysis and design definition will focus on defining the to-be process model. The requirements architecture is likely to include the process model, associated business rules and decisions, information requirements, and the organizational structure. Solution options typically include changes to IT needed to support the process, outsourcing of aspects of the process, and similar changes.
BABOK® Guide Techniques
- Benchmarking and Market Analysis (p. 226)
- Business Rules Analysis (p. 240)
- Decision Modelling (p. 265)
- Estimation (p. 271)
- Functional Decomposition (p. 283)
- Metrics and Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs) (p. 297) - Prioritization (p. 311)
- Prototyping (p. 323)
- Scope Modelling (p. 338)
- Stakeholder List, Map, or Personas (p. 344)
- Workshops (p. 363)
Other Business Analysis Techniques
- Kaizen Event
- Process Simulation
.6 Solution Evaluation
Solution evaluation typically occurs repeatedly during BPM initiatives in order to assess the performance of the business process. As processes are evaluated for different scenarios, they can be refined and the results are monitored. Solution evaluation tasks provide insight into the understanding of the impact of process improvements and the value delivered by business process change. The solution may also involve process mining which uses such techniques as audit trails or transaction logs to obtain process details.
The analyze solution performance task is performed to understand the differences between potential value and actual value. This analysis is performed to discover why there is a variance between potential and actual value, to determine if a solution can perform better or realize more value. The evaluation examines opportunities or constraints of the implemented solution, how it satisfies needs, or how it could be improved. This may trigger further optimization of the process and a repeat of the BPM life cycle.
BABOK® Guide Techniques
- Acceptance and Evaluation Criteria (p. 217)
- Balanced Scorecard (p. 223)
- Benchmarking and Market Analysis (p. 226)
- Brainstorming (p. 227)
- Business Capability Analysis (p. 230)
- Business Rules Analysis (p. 240)
- Decision Analysis (p. 261)
- Document Analysis (p. 269)
- Estimation (p. 271)
- Interviews (p. 290)
- Metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) (p. 297)
- Observation (p. 305)
- Organizational Modelling (p. 308)
- Process Modelling (p. 318)
- Reviews (p. 326)
- Risk Analysis and Management (p. 329)
- Root Cause Analysis (p. 335)
- Stakeholder List, Map, or Personas (p. 344)
- Survey or Questionnaire (p. 350)
- SWOT Analysis (p. 353)
Other Business Analysis Techniques
- Kaizen Event
- Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA)
- Process Simulation
- Value Stream Analysis
