Revised Exam Crammer Book Available in December 2016

Looks like the revised CBAP book will be available in early December, at least according to amazon.com. Check it out...

Time for Susan to start posting some helpful hints and pointers about the revised exams. Stay tuned!

Revised Certified-Business-Analysis-Study-Guide

Exam Crammer Revision Just About Done

Wow, this book revision has been an eye opener for me. The changes between versions 2 and 3 of the BABOK Guide are significant and will result in more complex exam questions covering a broader range of content.  I have completed all of the chapter revisions now and they are in or heading to production. Right now, my focus is on updating the practice exam questions that come with the book to reflect the new version of the standard.  By the end of September, all will be done and moving towards publication. When I know the new publication date, I will let you know!

Susan

Defining Business Requirements

Let’s remind ourselves what the business requirements are and how they relate to developing, validating and managing our project's requirements. The business requirements consist of a set of "big picture" deliverables that scope out and frame your project's products and work activities. The BABOK® Guide recommends that you develop four deliverables as part of your Enterprise Analysis knowledge area tasks that together become your project’s business requirements. Let's take a look at each of these deliverables:

Business need  The business need describes the problem or opportunity that an organization is facing. This problem or opportunity exists within the framework of that organization’s business goals and objectives. The business need and the desired outcome from addressing that need guide the identification, definition, and selection of possible solutions and solution approaches for that situation.

Required capabilities  The required capabilities define the new capabilities that may be required to meet a business need. These capabilities may be multifaceted, addressing processes, staff and application features of the new solution.

Solution scope  Solution scope defines the major features, functions and interactions of your proposed solution. It describes what must be delivered to meet a business need including any effects the solution might have on the business and technology operations and infrastructure of the organization.

Business case  Your project's business case justifies the cost of doing the project in terms of the value the resulting solution adds to the business. A business case looks at both sides of the equation, comparing the costs and benefits of a proposed solution. The expected business benefits of the solution are evaluated relative to achieving the business objectives and meeting the business need.

These four deliverables are not always found in a stand-alone deliverable or document. They are each part of the project’s business requirements and are typically included in a more comprehensive business requirements document or as part of the project’s business case.

Happy requirements development!

Susan

Solution Assessment and Validation Knowledge Area: The Four Assessments

For all of you CBAP/CCBA exam crammers, remember that there are four different assessments created by and used in the Solution Assessment and Validation knowledge area, so make sure you can distinguish between them!

The  Solution Performance Assessment describes how the operational solution is performing relative to business goals and objectives.

The  Solution Validation Assessment assesses the solution’s ability to meet the business need at an acceptable level of quality.

The Organizational Readiness Assessment describes stakeholder readiness to accept the change associated with a solution and their ability to use the solution effectively.

Your Assessment of Proposed Solution or Solutions assesses the value delivered by each proposed solution and recommending the best solution.

Happy studies!

Susan

Recommended Techniques: Baselining and Signoff

When you are performing tasks in the Requirements Management and Communication knowledge area, there are two techniques you should use to make sure that your requirements are formally approved and that the approval is duly noted. Let’s look at those two techniques that may be used as part of the managing solution scope and requirements task in greater detail.

A baseline is a snapshot of the status and state of a project deliverable, such as a requirements document, at a specific point in time. Baselined requirements are considered to be the basis for your future project work. Once you have a baseline state for the project requirements, future changes to those requirements can be formally recorded and tracked. Any changes to the baselined requirements must go through a formal change control process versus just being added in. The specifics about the change control process relative to project requirements can be found in the requirements management plan for the project.

Baselining requires the business analyst and the team to follow the project or the organization’s change control process when making any changes to the requirements. Maintaining the baselined requirements assigns you the responsibility to maintain a description of the requirements change, the name of the person making the change and the documented reason why the change was made.

Requirements signoff represents formal agreement from the stakeholders that the content and presentation of the requirements was accurate and complete. Most organizations require formal signoff on their requirements documents. The signoff technique typically involves a face-to-face final review of either all of the requirements or a subset of the requirements with the approving stakeholders. At the end of the review, the approving stakeholders are asked to formally approve the requirements that were presented, either verbally or in writing.
Well, there you have two common techniques used to manage solution scope and requirements... holler if you have any questions.

Happy studies!

Susan

Know Your Knowledge Areas?

The BABOK® Guide is based upon a set of knowledge areas guiding you when you perform business analysis activities at any point in your project or product life cycle. Knowledge areas define what you need to understand and the tasks you should perform. Knowledge areas do not represent project phases and their activities are not intended to be performed in a linear fashion. Tasks from one or more knowledge areas may be performed in any order (such as in succession, simultaneously or iteratively) provided that the necessary inputs to each task are available.

Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring is the knowledge area where you plan how to approach your business analysis effort. The business analysis approach is a set of processes, templates, and activities used to perform business analysis in a specific context. The results of this knowledge area govern the tasks found in the remaining five knowledge areas and set the performance metrics to be used to evaluate all business analysis work on your project.

Enterprise Analysis focuses on how you identify the business needs driving your proposed project by performing problem definition and analysis. In addition to defining and refining these business drivers for a project, you are responsible for defining a feasible solution scope that can be implemented by the business. This work may also include developing a business case or feasibility study for a proposed project. Typically, the tasks in this knowledge area occur prior to or early in the project life cycle.

Requirements Analysis describes how you progressively elaborate and prioritize stakeholder and solution requirements. In essence, you are taking the elicited information and making sense of it to derive the real requirements for your project. This knowledge area also focuses on graphically modeling the requirements as well as documenting them. When performing these tasks, you should ensure the feasibility of the requirements while defining, describing, and refining the characteristics of an acceptable solution.

Elicitation is where you work with stakeholders to identify and gather requirements and understand their needs and concerns. The elicitation techniques found in this knowledge area are selected and used to elicit requirements at many levels of detail, including your project’s business, stakeholder, solution, and transition requirements.

Requirements Management and Communication defines how you approach communicating requirements to stakeholders. Tasks and techniques for managing changes, conflicts and issues related to requirements are also described. You are expected to perform requirements communication activities as part of your requirements development work.

Solution Assessment and Validation focuses on assessing and validating proposed, in progress, and implemented solutions before, during, and after the project life cycle. While many tasks in this knowledge area take place later in the project life cycle, some solution-focused activities may occur quite early on in your project.

You will need to know these definitions for your certification exam, as well as more details about each task found within the knowledge area and all of the techniques and deliverables that are involved with getting your job done and done well. You can read more about all of the exam topics in our new certification prep book, CBAP/CCBA Certified Business Analysis Study Guide.

Happy studies!
Susan