Why do I need a Business Analysis (BA)? When looking over an extensive quote from the best software development process agency, this is a common question raised by businesses.
This article provides answers to these and other queries about business analysis. Such as what it is, what practice they follow, the role of, and the benefits of having a BA.
What Is Business Analysis?
Given that business analysis is a broad field with numerous goals, it is difficult enough to define. To better understand what business analysis comprises, take into account two concepts provided by famous entities. The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) and the Project Management Institute (PMI).
By defining needs and suggesting solutions that provide value to stakeholders, business analysis. This practice allows change in an organizational setting, according to the IIBA. However, PMI has a somewhat different definition. Business analysis is the process of using knowledge, expertise, and methods to pinpoint problems. Furthermore, it also finds answers in order to meet business demands and manage stakeholder expectations for the successful implementation of a project concept.
In essence, these two concepts are practically identical. While PMI focuses on identifying customer demands, IIBA emphasizes the BA’s responsibility in bringing about change in the corporate setting. Both of the aforementioned points of view are valid. The right company will always believe that business analysis acts as a conduit between the development team and the client. Their duty is to try to present distinctive solutions to suit the needs and profitability.
How to Know That You Need A Business Analysis
You need business analysis to do market research. They analyze data, create business goals, and maintain communication between the development team and stakeholders. If you own a firm, whether it be software development, language instruction, or an internet store.
The ability to clearly identify business objectives is one of the key reasons a BA in software development is necessary. Without clearly defined goals, it’s possible to lose track of what needs to be done. To rule out such a possibility, an IT business analyst performs primary research and examines firm records. Additionally, BA thoroughly examines an organization’s internal goals and offers suggestions for how to accomplish each one. These methods are often known as needs elicitation approaches.
Additionally, to compete in the modern digital economy, you need business analysts on your software project team. They will create high-level plans for improving products, services, and business processes. With BA, you’ll take a broad view of business operations, taking into account the organizational structure, current business procedures, and IT systems.
Furthermore, BA is required to properly assess business requirements, and record and document the scope. Additionally, specifications of future systems, and investigate company goals and stakeholder expectations.
Why Is Business Analysis Important in The Development of Software?
Software Development Process
The first step is to go over the standard software development process in order to understand the role of the BA in that process. Try to optimize team productivity, and deliver superior quality. Moreover, turning on the iteration of excellent software necessitates through the use of our agile development methodologies, Scrum and Kanban.
- Ideate: Through a series of workshops with stakeholders who clarify requirements and their value, you can better understand your problems and needs.
- Plan: Create wireframes (low fidelity screen designs), user journey evaluations, and the draft of user stories (feature needs).
- Architect: Choose technologies, calculate effort and time, create an architecture, decide on a budget, and suggest a team structure.
- Develop: Utilize agile techniques to create the website services and clients, including the database, API/web services, web,
- Operationalize: Configure the production environment, roll out the application, host and manage it, and then distribute it to the company or end users.
- Repeat: By expanding and improving functionality and experience over iterations based on user feedback, creates responsive software.
The Role of Business Analysis in Software Development
A BA not only evaluates the development project itself but also pinpoints business objectives. Such as product benchmarks, key performance indicators (KPIs), and sales strategies. The BA informs the members of the production team. The team includes IT, of the business growth and expansion rates anticipated by management and stakeholders.
In accordance with the phases of software development, BAs’ levels of engagement and job scope will vary.
Ideate Stage
In close collaboration with a solution architect and a UX researcher, a BA assesses the product’s market potential. Furthermore, they find ways to design software at this stage.
- Examine Business Issues. The BA examines the market gap as well as the primary sources of pain for the owner. These issues will be taken into account both in the original technical proposal and the commercial specifications.
- Making An Estimate of Business Value. Understanding the trajectory of the product and the anticipated market niche typically has an impact on the core wireframes. This activity also comprises figuring out how a future product will relate to its target market and be profitable.
- Making Nonfunctional Requirements. The BA draws a description of the system’s operation and details its functional restrictions. When writing this documentation, they take into account the system’s quality characteristics, including usability, performance, security, dependability, availability, and scalability.
- Drafting Functional Requirements. A BA must properly record functional requirements as well. These are the characteristics that engineers incorporate into products to aid users in fulfilling their needs.
Plan And Architect Stages
The future product team has already conducted extensive preliminary research during these stages. The BA is crucial when comparing the entire scope to the anticipated business values.
- Story Mapping. One of the fundamental duties of the BA is to map the software. The process of narrative mapping involves a number of decision-makers, including the product/project manager, UX designers, stakeholders, and members of the development team. However, BA makes sure that a purported user flow adheres to the agreed-upon business values.
- Developing Acceptance Criteria. These standards are used to determine whether a feature satisfies the requirements of stakeholders and end users. This task is split between a product manager and a BA.
- Prioritizing Backlog Items. A BA can help you decide which group of duties is more important or pertinent from a business perspective.
Develop Stage
At this point, the business analyst’s job is to make sure that the development adheres to previously accepted business values and standards.
- Organizing Preparation Tasks. To make sure that each sprint is scheduled in accordance with the established requirements and objectives, the BA monitors the entire pre-development phase.
- Monitoring the Process of Development. Although the BA does not interact with developers directly. They still participate in daily Standup and Scrum meetings to guarantee that all business requirements are satisfied.
Operationalize And Iterate Stage
The BA’s duties during these phases include gathering customer reviews and examining the findings to identify potential improvement areas.
- Collecting And Analyzing Customer Feedback: There are still some things that need to be enhanced. Finding the final products related to business strengths and flaws is one of the BA’s responsibilities.
- Making the Plan for The Next Backlog. Based on customer feedback, the BA modifies the business issues to improve, customize, complete, or delete.
Benefits Of Business Analysis
The process of assessing an organization’s needs and coming up with workable solutions to business-related issues is known as business analysis. It entails developing new approaches or strategies for creating effective plans and implementing them into the company. A crucial tool for cost-cutting, business analysis can offer insights and workable solutions.
- Release Goods on Schedule. A plan is created by a business analyst that specifies each step and the time needed to complete it. This improves our time management and guarantees prompt delivery of a high-quality product.
- Effective Problem Solving. The main task of a business analyst is to find answers to stakeholder problems. In this sense, it is crucial to establish needs and requirements. However, requirements could alter as the project is being developed. If this happens, a business analyst must evaluate the needs and goals of the stakeholders and make suitable recommendations.
- Lower the Price of Development. Although a business analyst is not directly in charge of a project’s finances. They can still have an impact by laying out requirements precisely and minimizing rework.
- Organizational Requirements Discovery. A business analyst may identify new organizational requirements via analysis, which will assist the company in better comprehending the adjustments that are required for ongoing success.
- Prioritization of Business Needs. A business analyst uses methodologies for prioritizing requirements at various stages of the requirements life cycle, ensuring that shareholder efforts are concentrated on what is important
Bottom line
As you can see, business analysis is an essential component of software development. The benefits of including a BA on the project team typically outweigh the costs.
Applying business analysis methods to an issue will help you stand out as a candidate for positions. It will apply across a wide range of businesses and industries. Companies that recognize and take advantage of new opportunities in the fast-evolving business environment. Hiring a top creative digital agency can open up a world of opportunities for you. Whether you want to switch career fields or advance within your current employer.