Business analysis approach definition
Business analysis approach choice will define how a business analyst will do business analysis activities. It involves a lot of processes but in general there are three types of a BA approach.
What types of BA approach exist?
The types are:
- Predictive
- Adaptive
- Interactive
Predictive
Approach where as much as possible is predicted. It is a plan driven approach. This goes mostly to waterfall type of projects. There are industries where you can only use such type of a BA approach. Shipbuilding or aviation industries, for example. Predictive approach also usually goes with more formal documentation.
Adaptive
It is an approach focused on adaptivity and flexibility where you go iteration by iteration slightly changing the requirements and the approach as the project continues. This approach is good when the form of a final solution is not certain or when you know that the requirements can be changed a lot of times during the development. In other words, it is a change driven approach.
Interactive
The focus of this approach is communication and collaboration between stakeholders to generate high quality requirements for the project. The process of identifying requirements can go throughout the whole project lifecycle constantly asking for and receiving feedback, receiving new out of communication between stakeholders and validating them. Visualisation tools can be heavily used in the approach to ensure that all stakeholders understand the information the same way.
Interactive vs. Adaptive
If predictive approach can be easily differentiated from adaptive and interactive, the last two may seem very similar as they both rely heavily on feedback and iteration. However, the main difference between them is their focus — adaptive approach focuses on adaptivity and flexibility whereas interactive on communication and collaboration.
What factors do affect the BA approach selection?
In this article I want to discuss those factors:
- Scope
- Business areas
- Type of a project
- Geographic & cultural considerations
- Background
- Outcomes
- Recourses
- Organization
- Stakeholder’s needs
- Stability of requirements
- Risks
- Number & availability of stakeholders
- Deadlines
- Number of systems affected
- How unique are the requirements
#1 Scope of the project. This includes the number of tasks and their complexity. The larger amount of tasks you have in the scope, harder it will be to plan them. The higher risk that everything will not go as planned. So, with huge scope it is better to choose adaptive approach as a lot could change in the process.
#2 Business areas. There are some business areas/industries where specific BA approach is more popular than another one. For example, if you are building a plane or a ship. All the technologies are known and it is clear what to do. This is the best place to use the predictive approach. Whereas, adaptive approach will better suit an innovative mobile application development, where you don’t know exactly what the users will like. A project can touch multiple business areas, so the number of them also affects the approach choice.
#3 Type. There are at least three types of projects: new development, take-over of an existing project, redesign. BA approach choice is affected by the type of a project.
#4 Geographic & cultural considerations. This may affect the schedule of meetings and type of interactions between stakeholders.
#5 Background. Each project has its own background. Most likely business analyst will not be engaged at the very beginning of it. So, there will already be some rules and processes established that should definitely be taken into consideration.
#6 Outcomes. This factor is about what deliverables are expected from the project. Is it an “out-of-the-box” solution? Or is it an in-house development? Will this project later be sold as a product? Will the buyer be a business, government, or private customer? This type could also be named as “Outcomes of a project”.
#7 Recourses. This factor is about if we can engage more analysts to prepare all business analysis deliverables. Do we have a budget for that? The need for this may come from the timeline of a project or its scope. There is a possibility that there will be analysts from the client if you are working as a contractor — this will definitely affect the approach too.
#8 Organization. There may be some ways the projects are being run in the organization. Those are the rules that people are used to. Those can be not optimal, but since our target may be to finish the project with low costs and little time — there will be no possibility to teach people other approach — it may be more productive to work as people are used to work. On the other hand, it may require teaching people to work differently to ensure successful end of the project. This will include considering risks if the organization is ready to change.
#9 Stakeholder’s needs. Each stakeholders has its own needs and expectations. You should consider the needs of all important stakeholders in you business analysis approach.
#10 Stability of requirements. This means if the requirements are likely to be changed through development process. For unstable requirements is better to use adaptive approach. For stable — predictive.
#11 Risks. If there are a lot of risks on a project then it is better to choose the adaptive approach as it deals with risks much better. It doesn’t require to do a project on one go.
#12 Number if stakeholders. This point is especially important on the project with multiple stakeholders. If you have a lot of stakeholders, then it is likely that you will choose interactive approach.
#13 Deadlines. If the deadlines are strict and the product is defined then it is better to plan everything in advance including risks and agree on that with stakeholders. However, if there is a lot of uncertainty and discovery, then it will be hard to establish a hard deadline and adaptive approach can come in handy.
#14 Number of systems affected. The more systems are involved in the change, the more risks and uncertainty they will bring. Also, more communications will be required to plan and execute everything.
#15 How unique are the requirements. If the requirements are unique then it can bring some level of uncertainty and the need for iterations as now one has ever done the work before.
How those factors affect BA work?
Selecting BA approach isn’t just about choosing between three types. So, those factors affect a lot more things in BA’s work. Let’s name those things:
- When the BA work will be done (timing)
- Level of detail and formality of business analyst’s deliverables
- Methodology for tasks prioritization
- Change management approach
- Business analysis tasks planning process
- Approach for Stakeholder communication
- Requirement management tools
- Agreement approach
#1 When the BA work will be done (timing). Predictive approach usually requires most of the analysts work being done before the start of the development. However, adaptive and interactive approaches are the ones when the analytics is done during the development because of the high risk of change.
#2 Level of detail and formality. Predictive approach is known for high level of detail and formality in the documentation of requirements. Predictive and adaptive approaches on the other hand usually come with lower level of formality and detail.
#3 Methodology for tasks prioritisation. As requirements can be changed easily in both adaptive and interactive approaches, prioritization is done a lot of times during the project. In predictive approach, on the other hand, prioritization is done in the beginning in most cases for technical purposes and the process of changing it is hard. Also, in adaptive and predictive approaches prioritization plays higher role as the concept of MVP is usually used, so most valuable and at the same time cost effective tasks are being released before pretty big part of other scope is developed. Whereas in predictive approach the product usually is being released after full scope was developed so the prioritization is done mostly for architectural purposes.
#4 Change management approach. Change management is different when requirements are likely to be changed a lot of times comparing to cases when the requirements are set once at the beginning of the project.
#5 Business analysis tasks planning process. The planning is done in advance for predictive approach whereas for adaptive and interactive it can be updated or redone every iteration to meet changing environment needs.
#6 Approach for stakeholder communication. In predictive approach it is very important to communicate with stakeholders in the beginning to collect all requirements and agree on them. For adaptive approach the communication never really ends as you continue to collect requirements before each iteration and get feedback after. In interactive approach the communication with stakeholders is the main focus so it is even more close and frequent then in adaptive.
#7 Requirement management tools. As in adaptive approach the requirements are likely to be changed a lot, then the tool you use must make those changes easy and fast. Interactive approach adds to that the importance that the tool should support collaboration and easy access to all stakeholders. In predictive approach, on the other hand, the tool should allow precise descriptions, firm agreements and approvals in the first place.
#8 Agreement approach. Agreements should be strict and formal in predictive approach. The details of each agreement should be documented with high level of detail. One of the reasons for that is that there is a lot of time between the agreements are signed and any result presented. On the other side, agreements for adaptive and interactive approaches are done fast, without high level of formality and you get to see the results of those agreements fast too.
As you can see there is a lot to consider when planning a business analysis approach — the things that can affect the future of the project. That’s why it is crucial to have a plan at the very beginning. Having all things that I’ve been writing above figured out from the start can give a solid ground to every BA’s work.
