SQL, data analysis, reporting, UML, Visual Basic programming, Microsoft Office

Automation

http://www.it-career-coach.net/2008/12/16/the-accidental-business-analyst/

1. UML (Requirement gathering & analysis method)

2. Process mapping techniques like Flowcharting, IDEF, and excellent process
mapping skills.
3. impact analysis
4. software applications and architectures
5. RDBMS concepts
6. Familiarity with Software Development Life Cycle
7. data analysis, reporting, UML

UML: Unified Modeling Language – modeling language developed by Object

Management Group (OMG). UML 2.3 was formally released in May 2010. There are 2
types
1. Structural diagrams
2. Behavior diagrams

Structural diagram: It represents the structure that is used in documenting the

architecture of software systems. The things in the system are modeled.

Behavior diagrams: It illustrates the behavior of the system; it is used to describe the
functionality of the systems.

Use case diagram: describes the functionality provided by a system in terms of actors,
their goals represented as use cases, and any dependencies among those use cases.

Valuelabs – May’06 – jan’08 (20month)

I3 software – mar’08 – jan ’10 (22 months)
Chakkilam infotech – Mar’10 – dec’10 (9months)

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 FLOWCHARTING

i. Operations, sequence
ii. Top, down
iii. Flow line
iv. Equality, inequality
v. connectors
vi. Off -page
vii. Terminal
viii. documenting
ix. ANSI (American National Standards Institute)
x. Flowcharting template

START

READ
A, B, C

IS IS
B>C? A>B? IS A>C?

PRINT PRINT PRINT

B PRINT C A
C

END

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Use Case: It is the sequential flow of activities. It adds value to actors and fulfills the
goals of an actor. In other words, a use case describes "who" can do "what" with the
system.

Actors Use Cases

Students 1. Create a schedule

2. Select four courses
3. Select 2 others, if first choice become full or cancelled
4. Can change the schedule
5. Add or delete courses
6. When registration is done, bill is sent to the student

Tutors log in to the system

Find out which classes they teach
Find out the students

Registrar log in to the system

Administer the system

Primary Actor Use Cases

Students 1. Create a schedule
2. Select four courses
3. Select 2 others, if first choice become
full or cancelled
4. Can change the schedule
5. Add or delete courses
6. When registration is done, bill is sent
to the student

Tutors 7. log in to the system

8. Find out which classes they teach
9. Find out the students

Registrar 10. log in to the system

11. Administer the system

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 Business rule is a statement that defines or constrains some aspect of the business. It
is intended to assert business structure or to control or influence the behavior of the
business. Business rules describe the operations, definitions and constraints that apply
to an organization. Business rules can apply to people, processes, corporate behavior
and computing systems in an organization, and are put in place to help the
organization achieve its goals.

Functional requirements documents define how a system must behave when

presented with certain inputs or conditions. It is same as use cases.

Vision and Scope:

Background, Business Opportunity, and Customer Needs

Business Objectives and Success Criteria
Business Risks

Project

InsureBill: InsureBill is designed to minimizing the manual entry activities by

automating tasks. It is an extension for invoicing processes.

Gap Analysis: It is a tool that helps a company to compare its actual performance
with its potential performance. "Where are we?" and "Where do we want to be?"
Gap analysis is a formal study of what a business is doing currently and where it
wants to go in the future. It can be conducted, in different perspectives, as follows:

Organization (e.g., human resources)

Business direction
Business processes
Information technology

The planning gap may be divided into three main elements:

1. Usage gap
2. Product gap
3. Competitive gap

Gap Analysis Document: This document usually includes an

1. Introduction: states the purpose of the analysis and the methods used to
complete the study.
2. Summary: summary of the current situation, the goals the company wants to
achieve, and the detailed plan to achieve these goals.

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 3. Management: management approves the action plan and budget. If approved, the
plan is put into action. Tracking of each step is required to ensure that the plan
remains on schedule and within budget.

Business Requirements Specification: In short BRS is a document which explains the

expected out put what exactly the client wants. This is the first document which will be
referred by development team and testing team from start to end. It contains the details of
the end to end business. What is all the process they want to implement? It could be a
new feature or existing one.

In general this document will help to understand the client’s requirements.

BR nothing but client requirements, this doc gives overview of entire application.
BRS is nothing but initial requirements of the client, but the requirement doc is nothing
but high level interaction between people of client and businesspeople of our
organization.

Software Requirements Specification: SRS is a comprehensive description of the

intended purpose and environment for software under development. The SRS fully
describes what the software will do and how it will be expected to perform.

It is a way of converting raw customer requirements into well-formed and organized

ones. It is a method to provide a description of what a system should do, in terms of its
interactions or interfaces with its external environment.

A good SRS defines how an application will interact with system hardware, other
programs and human users in a wide variety of real-world situations.

System: A system is an interdependent group of people, objects, or procedures formed to

achieve a goal.

Requirement: A requirement is something a system must do. It is a condition or

capability a user needs in order to solve a problem or achieve an objective.

RFP, Due Diligence, MS – Visio,

Request for Proposal : A request for proposal (RFP) is an early stage

in procurement process, issuing an invitation for suppliers, often through
a bidding process, to submit a proposal on a specific commodity or service.

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MS Visio: It is a diagramming program for Microsoft Windows that uses vector
graphics to create diagrams. Current version is Microsoft Office Visio 2010 for
Windows. Office Visio 2010 (14.0; Standard ($249.99), Professional ($599.99), Premium
($999.99).

It is a diagramming tool helps in simplify complexity with dynamic, data-driven visuals

and new ways to share on the Web in real time.

1. It offers a wide variety of options to meet diagramming needs for IT, business,
process management, and more.
2. The tools you need quickly.
3. Diagrams can be drawn faster.
4. Complex diagrams can be drawn using Sub processes and Containers.
5. it looks diagrams look professional and appealing
6. Diagrams can be connected to Excel or SQL Server and real time data can be
reflected in diagrams.
7. Diagrams can be shared on web; users can view real time info (even if they don’t
own Visio). They can pan and zoom in the diagram, follow hyperlinks in shapes,
and refresh the data.
8. Ensure consistency and accuracy with diagram validation.
9. we can export and import sharepoint workflows and visio
10.

Business requirements: It is the expected outcome of the business. It talks about the
business value rather than the specific functions of the system.

Functional requirements: It describes what the system, process, or product/service must

do in order to fulfill the business requirements. It is further broken up into sub-business
requirements and many functional requirements.

User (stakeholder) requirements: They are a very important part of the deliverables; the
needs of the stakeholders will have to be correctly interpreted. This deliverable can also
reflect how the product will be designed, developed, and define how test cases must be
formulated. However, stakeholders may not always be users of a system.

Non-functional requirements: They are requirements that do not perform a specific

function for the business requirement but are needed to support the functionality. They
are called as illities. For example: performance, scalability, quality of service (QoS),
security and usability. These are often included within the System Requirement, where
applicable.

The traceability matrix: A traceability matrix is a document, usually in the form of a

table, that correlates any two base lined documents that require a many to many
relationship to determine the completeness of the relationship.

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It may be used to check to see if the current project requirements are being met, and to
help in the creation of a Request for Proposal, various deliverable documents, and project
plan tasks.

Knowledge Areas

1. Define and Scope Business Area: A BA should be given the “project scope”
before requirements gathering is started. Or he has to document the scope as a
part of the requirements gathering stage.

Before documenting the scope, a BA has to understand why a project is initiated.

(Statement of Purpose) and goals of the project (project objectives). A complete
project scope will include all the organization involved with the project. It
includes people, systems, internal departments, and outside organizations (project
external interactions).

Other components include project viewpoint, project assumptions, and business

risks. It should also include high level description of the business process. A BA
should maintain a system for project information. All this is required before
entering into requirements gathering stage.

2. Elicit Requirements: The most important task of a BA is to gather requirements.

He must ask right questions to right people for accurate requirements.

Business Requirements talks about business needs and Functional Requirements

talks about software functionality. It is important to understand the business needs
completely before defining a software solution.

A BA must assess the type of project, people involved and volume of information
required and then find how and where to find requirements. Different techniques
like: interviews, information gathering sessions, surveys, questionnaires,
observation, and existing documents.

The requirements should be prioritized in such a way that the most critical issues
should be addressed.

3. Analyze and document requirements: Requirements elicitation is a iterative

Process.

Every organization has their own standard documentation process or a BA

prepares his own documentation, it should be easy to understand for both IT and
business area experts. Documentation could be in textual descriptions, others in
diagrams or graphical displays.

Requirements are categorized into Business, Functional and Technical.

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 Functional Requirements: These define how a product/service/solution should
work from end user’s perspective.

Operational Requirements – These define operations that must be carried out in

the background to keep the product or process functioning over a period of time.

Technical Requirements – These define the technical issues that must be

considered to successfully implement the process or create the product.

Transitional Requirements – These are the steps needed to implement the new
product or process smoothly.

4. Communicate Requirements: A BA act as a liaison between the business area

Experts and the technical team. He should be the best communicator. He works
closely with the project manager to assure that project plan is adhered to and
scope changes are approved and documented.

Key skills required for a BA are active listening skills, ability to ask pointed, open
ended questions, and facilitating the group meetings and bring consensus.

BA should speak the language of IT and subject matter experts. He should arrange
formal and informal meetings and try to bridge the gap in requirements to bring a
quality document.

5. Identify Solution: BA works closely with subject matter experts to make

Recommendation for solution and technical team to design it.

The recommendation may include software changes to existing systems, new

software, procedural or workflow changes, or some combination of the above. If a
package is going to be purchased, he should talk to all stakeholders. Even then
business and functional requirements needs to be done.

6. Verify Solution Meets the Requirements: BA involves in the project even after
Technical team takes over. He reviews technical designs for usability and to
Assure Requirements are met.

Once the solution is developed, BA assesses the software and sees if it meets the
objectives. QA team takes care software testing and QA.

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