Paul Mulvey

In the business analysis profession, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. As you develop your project type, you need to know all the tools available to you; think through all the variables related to the people, project characteristics, and the process; and then determine what tasks you need to complete. Data warehouse projects A data warehouse is a solution that brings together information from diverse sources and puts it in a format that stakeholders can easily access when making complex business decisions.

The data flow diagram is a helpful diagram for business analysts that shows the parties and systems involved with a particular process, as well as the data and interfaces involved when dealing with external agents (those parties or systems that exchange information with the project but over which your project has no control).

In prototyping, you create a model of the proposed solution. In business analysis, a prototype, or mockup, generally means a representation of a computer screen and examples of how the user will interact with the application to accomplish a task to solve the business problem. The business analyst creates the prototype, usually with help from the technical team.

Verification is what most people think of when they hear the word testing — it’s the process of testing whether a business analysis solution does what it’s designed to do. During verification, the testing team (which may consist of developers, quality assurance [QA] people, and some business analysts [BAs]) put the software through its paces to both confirm that it operates as expected and ensure that it conforms to the design specifications laid out earlier in the project.

When you’re involved in process improvement projects as a business analyst, a key task is to take time to define the metrics you’ll use to measure success. The measures differ, depending on the industry and what you’re trying to improve, but the important thing is to make sure you have enough time to discover the baseline measurements and then calculate what the measure of success is.

As part of a business analysis, a business case outlines an opportunity and a recommendation to invest resources to take advantage of it. Think of the business case as your marketing or sales brochure for your idea. It may be your one shot to get approval for a project that may have a significant strategic, structural, or political corporate impact.

Process in business analysis refers to the project processes that are in place at the company where you’re working that you can use as a guide. There are four different methodologies: waterfall, agile, spiral/rational unified process (RUP), and rapid application development (RAD)/evolving prototype. As the business analyst, you must figure out what needs to be addressed when planning under these project processes.

Aside from fulfilling a business analyst (BA) role at a company, you may have the opportunity apply your various business analysis skills to other roles. You can parse out individual business analysis skills to make yourself more marketable, take advantage of opportunities, and meet a company’s specific needs for growth and improvement.

Test cases are step-by-step instructions, including specific inputs and conditions, that testers follow to validate the system’s functionality as part of the business analysis and implementation. They also include the expected result. You and the project team can create hundreds — if not thousands — of test cases when supporting the testing effort.