Why do you need business analysis of the project?
Is it possible to stay without it?
It is usually recommended to start development of any product, service or project with business analysis. Is it necessary to do it? We decided to figure out objectively whether this service is useful or it is a waste of time and money
What is BA?
Let’s start with the meaning of this term. Business analysis is a complex of tasks and methods that are used to understand business peculiarities and find effective solutions to achieve the goals of a customer. BA solves the problems of both the owner and the end-user of the product.
Do not confuse a BA with a BA from an IT company. The first one works in a business context in general, and a BA in IT works on a specific/individual project.
His main tasks are
- To study the business model
- To collect the customer’s requirements
- To develop wireframes of an application or a website
- To write a specification
There are some smaller tasks
- Make a presentation for investors and clients
- To develop a unit-model
- To study the market
- To develop a scheme of business processes
- To analyze the compliance of customer’s requirements and the current project
It is necessary to think over how to deal with customer’s problems on each stage. The best solution is to offer him a decision that he has never thought about.
At the planning stage BA should think over everything to the smallest details/every single detail: starting with technology stack and adaptability and finishing with all development stages. The biggest BA achievement is when the customer and the developers understand the document well.
Why do we need BA?
Let’s provide an example from our life.
- You want to make repairs
- There are a lot of services on the market: from painting the walls to roof replacement
- You are confused, don’t know what to choose and you are ready to refuse from repairs
- You hire a foreman, who tells you that at first it is necessary to develop a design project, calculate budget and only after that you can make repairs
- he foreman helps you to choose necessary materials, makes a plan for contractors and discourages from unnecessary actions such as a balcony glazing, that you haven’t got
- The repairs have been made, you save your time and you have got exactly what you wanted
The same is with development of digital products. You have got an idea, but you need a professional help how to realize a useful application for a user. BA figures out your tasks and finds the best solutions by removing useless tools and technologies.
How BA occurs?
- Fill in brief. To start your work you need to answer simple questions about business and tell which processes should be optimized. It is necessary for BA to understand his future work.
- Interview with BA. During discussion on the phone or on Skype BA asks additional questions to understand better operational purpose and main product functions.
- Development of website’s wireframe prototype. BA specifies wireframes, so you can understand total number of application wireframes or website pages.
- Prototype matching. Business consultant discuss the prototypes with you and makes changes if necessary.
- Specification writing. A document is prepared based on prototypes with a list of all requirements.
- Specification approval. BA and developers discuss specification with you and make changes if necessary.
- Requirements preparation for developers. BA gives recommendations to developers on the choice of technologies and tools.
Is it possible to start development without BA?
It is possible, but we do not recommend you, because it is risky. Here are some reasons.
You get an unviable product
You can get a product, that will not work as it should or will work at all. It often happens that customer’s business model is poorly designed and it is unable to function in real life. In this case at the planning stage you understand that in this format the project will fail and it is necessary to change something — it is main BA advantage.
You will pay thousands of dollars
If you refuse of BA’s help, you will increase development time (40–60% average) that can cause your budget growth. It is a good scenario. If you get ready, but unviable product, you will have to refine it that causes additional money investment. The worst situation — you will have to develop the product from scratch that means losing some more thousands of dollars.
Disrupt deadline
BA mentions what functions the product will have and how they should work. Also BA is necessary for us, contractors, to develop the whole list of requirements, estimate the cost, organize the right team and the most important to name a real deadline of the project. Without business analysis and writing specification in the development process nuances can occur, that lead to terms’ growth and as a result disrupt final deadline.
In what cases you do not need BA?
You may do not need BA if a project is not developed from scratch and it is necessary to do some simple developments. There are customers with good technical background who can independently carry out a business analysis of their project and formulate competent requirements. But it is rarity.
Therefore, in most cases, business analyst services are necessary. You need a professional point of view, because customer’s view can be biased.
At what stage do you need BA?
If a project is developed from scratch, BA is necessary at the beginning. Then we will see the full picture, get the whole list of requirements and estimate the time and cost. Often we get projects with a rich history that are necessary to complete or redo. In this case business analysis is carried out at the beginning of our work. Sometimes a consultant is connected at intermediate stages if it is something wrong with a project and it is necessary to analyze the compliance of the product with the requirements of the customer.
Why do you need a Ba, if there is a PM?
Often a BA is confused with a PM and the functions of these specialists are really similar. PM is a link between the customer and the contractors. The specialist who manages the team and leads the project from the start to release. Both a BA and a PM involve into client’s business from A to Z. So what is the difference?
Business analysis is one of the PM responsibilities. It is assigned to a separate position so that the manager can switch between the projects. Moreover, division of responsibilities allows the team work alongside on project management and business analysis that speeds up the process.
Let’s consider the responsibilities of these specialists in detail.
Business analyst
- Plans future work within the project
- Studies business, market, understands your problems and comes up with their potential solutions
- Understands in details what you want to get within the chosen solution
- Collects and formulates the essence of the decision, transfers it to the customer and the contractors
- Finds the most effective technologies and tools
- Analyzes whether the selected solutions have helped your product
Project manager
- Assembles a team on a project
- Monitors compliance of the time and the budget
- Calculates possible errors in the development process and thinks in advance how to fix them
- Manages the work of the whole project team
- Cares about customer is always informed
In other words, BA knows WHAT to do, and PM knows HOW to do
How much is BA?
BA services are valued according to Time & Materials model, the cost depends on the time spent. First of all, this is affected by the project stage: it is developed from scratch or has come to us for further development.
For example, you asked to create an application in another company. When the product was 80% ready, you realized that the quality of the work was not satisfied and decided to give us the application for further development. In this case business analysis will take more time, because you need to study not only the project, but also the work of the previous team. Find out, which solutions were chosen and why. Do they work or need to use other tools and techniques?
On average BA cost is 3–5% from the project’s cost and save 30–50% of the budget.
