Oct

25

What is Business Analysis?

October 25, 2007 |

It’s almost ready for public release. In fact most of it has been done for some time now, as you may have noticed if you looked at the presentations. At this point it’s mostly a matter of a little editing and finalizing the list of techniques.

As part of this effort I’m working on the definition of business analysis. It’s not nearly as much fun as it sounds like. The biggest problem, quite honestly, is that I have 3 or 4 perfectly serviceable definitions handy and now I need to figure out how to balance the tradeoffs between them. As a concrete example, one proposed definition reads (in part):

Business analysis involves understanding and enhancing an organization’s business architecture.

In a real sense, that’s a very good definition of what a BA is–almost all BA work is focused on the kinds of things that are included in a business or enterprise architecture, and it does clearly distinguish between business analysis and some similar but not identical disciplines, like product management, which does very similar work in a different context. The problems, of course, are that this definition presupposes you know what a business architecture is and also will be taken by many to suggest that BAs are primarily strategically focused, rather than working on tactical initiatives (as most of us do).

Another element I want to maintain in the definition is an acknowledgment that the BA role involves balancing the competing requirements of a number of stakeholders against the strategic purpose of an initiative.

Oh, and I want to make it at most two sentences, preferably one.


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