Macroeconomic studies

Initially, the senior business analyst focuses on studying the feasibility and cost effectiveness and on the analysis and improvement of existing business processes.

Identification of business requirements

Once a project is approved, the business analyst produces the vision of the project, identifies the high-level business needs and translates them into user cases. These needs are then prioritized in order to develop a "project scope" that meets budget and time constraints.

Identification of stakeholders

The business analyst identifies all the stakeholders involved in the project under consideration (e.g. customers, users, shareholders) and gathers their requirements.

Collecting business requirements

The requirements are gathered and detailed via interviews, group sessions, studies, feedback on the current system, etc.

Planning and analysis of business requirements

The planning of business requirements and the implementation of a traceability strategy between these business requirements, and the use of tools are important factors to consider in a requirements management process. The following items must be considered as part of the analysis:

• Feasibility study for each requirement
• Analysis of risks and constraints
• Prioritization to rank requirements

Analysis

The analysis structures the information gathered. A variety of techniques are used:

• Requirements modelling: translating business needs into object models
• Data modelling: translating information needs into data models

Additional specifications

This stage involves detailing each business requirement, specifying the following:

• Sources of the requirement
• Complexity of implementation
• Expected performance
• Level of priority attributed
• Degree of urgency
• Level of stability

Etc.

Documentation

The documentation must be sufficiently clear to be used by any player involved in the project. The business analyst should avoid using terms that are too technical and make frequent use of visual representations.

Validation and management

The business analyst continues to validate and check the tracking of business requirements throughout the development of the solution. Having worked on the functionalities to be implemented, he/she is often the best person to develop test scenarios.

Change management

The work of the business analyst doesn't stop with collecting, identifying, planning and analysis. He/she also takes care of tracking changes in business requirements when they occur during the project lifecycle, as well as later, once the system is operational.