Two Techniques for Business Analysis Planning

How to plan for what you don’t know

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Planning business analysis may sound counter-intuitive. The purpose of business analysis is to discover and clarify business problems and needs to capture solution requirements — capabilities needed to achieve business objectives.

How can you plan the discovery and analysis of what you don’t know?

What do you do when your project manager asks you for a business analysis plan?

Without planning, business analysis activities may end up chaotic, and disorganized and ultimately, may hinder progress.

There are two useful approaches you can use for planning analysis.

Technique #1: Scope elaboration

When you get assigned to a new project as a BA, you will be provided with some initiative background including:

• The objective
• Initial scope statement
• Key stakeholders
• High-level timelines
• The history of the business problem
• System landscape
• Existing artifacts

If nobody shared any existing artifacts with you, don’t be shy to ask. You should have…