Business Analysis: BPMN, Data Analytics For Business Analyst

We will first define business analysis which we defined in our first lesson as the practice of enabling change in a business by analyzing and breaking down concepts to define needs and recommended solutions that delivers value to stakeholders by enabling a business to articulate its needs that are necessary for change through designing and describing solutions that deliver value to the clients. 

A technique on the other hand is a systematic procedure through which something is accomplished; we can hence say that business analysis techniques refers to a skillful or efficient ways of exploiting business opportunities, addressing business problems, defining results and evaluating alternatives to improve efficiency and the profits in a business and they do this by offering management tools, and the methodologies to explain the why, what and how things happen so as to enable change within a business. 

We will first define a business rule, which is a specific, actionable, testable directive under the control of an organization that describes how company policies or practices apply to a specific business activity by explaining the appropriate action that needs to be taken by removing any ambiguity regarding the correct course of action that must be followed for business activities. 

Business rules are a set of activities designed to produce a specific output and they are used to capture the specific ordering of work activities, including inputs, outputs, triggers and actions, they describe the operations, definitions and constraints that apply to an organization and they 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 and they are meant to control, influence and assert business structure or the behavior of the business conditions that define how the business operates and should hence be analyzed alongside business requirements. 

Producing valid requirements refers to generating requirements which are based on logic and facts and they should outline what needs to be done to meet a business need or objective by clearly stating what the end result or future state should be since they are developed for a specific business activities or project and are normally created when looking for solutions to address a business need, goal or objective hence they need to be clear and concise and provide a focused way to address specific business needs or objectives and help in achieving the organizations vision as well as its goals by focusing on the needs or expectations of various stakeholders, such as investors, clients, customers, the general public, suppliers, business partners and other groups for the smooth running of an organization. 

We will define risk assessment which is the process of identifying risks and assessing risks by understanding the potential impacts resulting from the interruption of time sensitive or critical business processes and finding ways to minimize their impacts hence assisting your business recover quickly if an incident occurs. 

There are various types of business risks which can be classified either as internal vs. external or natural vs. man made all of which can cause risk to your business directly or indirectly making you to incur loss hence just like an insurance company would do, you need to work out the likelihood of any incident occurring and the consequences it would have on your business that is whether the risk is high meaning that it has a high probability of occurring or if it is low risk and risk should be analyzed in relation to what you are currently doing to control it though you have to keep in mind that the risk in most cases is unavoidable hence you can only try to control the risk or reduce its impact on your business. 

A business impact analysis is a systematic process by which an organization gathers and analyzes information about its important business functions and processes by predicting the consequences of disruption to a business, this information is used to determine how the organization would be affected if these functions were interrupted by a disaster or accident and using information collected to develop recovery strategies as well as establish the basis for setting recovery priorities and selecting appropriate recovery strategies. 

The business impact analysis focuses on the effects or consequences of the interruption to critical business functions and attempts to quantify the financial and non-financial costs associated with a disaster, it also looks at the parts of the organization that are most crucial hence it can serve as a starting point for a disaster recovery strategy and examine recovery time objectives, resources and materials needed for business continuance.

Elicitation refers to the process used to draw out a response with a question elicitation procedure, any of various data collection techniques to gather knowledge or information from people the process of getting information from someone the process of making someone react in a particular way so when preparing to conduct elicitation the first thing should be to get a thorough understanding of what the business requires so as to avoid mistakes when asking for procedures and to determine the appropriate partners and elicitation techniques to use. 

Elicitation is normally used to help achieve a consensus among a group of people where no one knows the answer and it is an important technique for various reasons such as helping business analyst to develop a customer centered dynamic and this enables them to choose the best and necessary procedures by acting as a link between new and old information which can help produce a dynamic and stimulating business environment as normally all stakeholders are involved in getting the necessary information. 

We will do this by first defining visual modeling concepts which is the use of various techniques for graphic representation of objects and systems of interest using diagrams, pictures and models that help breakdown information so that it can be understood more easily as stakeholders and other key team members in your organization require a way through which they can understand with a quick look what the visuals concepts you have chosen to use mean that is do they describe process, impacts or even offer solutions. 

Visual modeling concepts are used to make sense of complex tense unlike documents which one cannot fully understand by taking a glance and they do this by making it easier for you and other people to see the connections and relationships between elements, moreover thy help managers or analysts to understand and analyze requirements as requirement gaps and errors become more obvious than they would be in text when diagrams or models are created to help analyze them. 

A business model is the specification that expresses how an organization fulfills its purpose which mainly is to achieve profitability by focusing strictly on the way in which a company does business, while at the same time building a recognized brand that customers like and commit to by being consumer centered and trying to solve challenges that end users might have, furthermore business models describe the conceptual structure supporting the viability of a business such as it purpose, goals and plans for achieving growth and profitability in an organization. 

In addition to this they also illustrate the way in which a company generates revenue and makes a profit from its operations through the use of gross profit which is calculated by subtracting the cost of goods sold from revenues collected and it is used as a way to compare the efficiency and effectiveness of an organizations business model by telling you which solutions work better than the other competing ones and therefore it is believed that the best business models can run themselves. 

A Technical model is the specification that expresses how an software model systems work or operate to fulfill their purpose which mainly is to achieve profitability by focusing strictly on the way in which a company does business and also trying to solve challenges that end users might have as they have the conceptual structure supporting the viability of a business such as looking at the weaknesses that the system is prone to and outlining what needs to be changed or fixed so as to achieve growth and profitability in an organization. 

Technical models can be defined as having special and usually practical knowledge especially of data, business processes, the tool sets, performance averages, table structures, indexes, constraints, data relationships, failure ratios, system resource utilization ratios, performance numbers in short technical models are heavily centered in the IT division as technical models monitor and manage IT and physical environments hence enabling the systems to run and to add value to whoever is using it.

Lifecycles refers to a series of activities which are necessary to fulfill project goals or objectives and are necessary since the subdivisions bring about ease in management, control, and planning and for lifecycles to be successfully implemented you first have to have a thorough understanding of the project, its goals and objectives and lifecycles can be divided into three broad categories which are planning, analysis and implementation. 

Planning which involves strategic planning of the specific challenges and opportunities, goals and milestones of a project and making sure that they are incorporated from the beginning of a particular project which minimizes on wastage that can occur by failing to consider on the various issues that may affect the project later on, you can avoid this by creating a work plan and thinking through on what needs to be done and the available resources which will enable you to explain the project plan to key stakeholders and to discuss key components of the project however the project plan is not firm and only acts as a guide for the project and hence changes can be made later on depending on the challenges encountered further on. 

Analysis can be described as the systematic examination and evaluation of data or information, by breaking it into parts to discover their interrelationships through an examination of data and facts which have been received and complied hence enabling you to understand cause-effect relationships, thus providing basis of recognizing business needs and findings solutions to various business problems hence it is simply put a set of tasks and techniques which work as a connection between stakeholders and an organization by helping to get information and to sole challenges noted. 

The importance of Analysis is that it helps you to understand the organization’s structure, policies, and operations and it recommends solutions to help the business reach its goals and objectives by enabling you to understanding how your organization functions hence enabling you to utilize resources fully and it also involves important in defining the abilities an organization requires to know to provide products and services by connecting a company’s goals to specific objectives and lastly it enable you to make a detailed plan to help achieve the goals and objectives by defining how the stakeholders and different organizational units interact or relate to one another as it gives you an overview of the current state of your company hence enabling you to identify your business needs and to confirm solutions which meet business needs or goals. 

A viability study refers to analysis which is carried out through the use of research, experience and business principles and through this analysis one is able to determine the probability of the project to sustain itself, grow, meet the objectives of the project and offer the expected returns to the stakeholders hence the results of this analysis, may vary depending on who you speak to and to get a highly specific guess you should get advice from an expert of that area. 

It tries to answer the question of should we continue with the proposed idea, by focusing on areas such as the location of the business, competitors based in the area, the market for your product or service and most importantly the sustainability of the proposed idea since determining early that a business idea will not work saves time, money and energy and a viable business venture is one where the business will generate adequate cash-flow and profits, withstand the risks it will encounter, remain viable in the long-term and meet the goals that were set  regardless of whether your business is a start up,  an existing business or the expansion of current business operations. 

RACI matrix refers to a table which is used to describe the type and degree of involvement that stakeholders have in completing tasks or deliverables for a project or business process and it is used to illustrate the role of various people in the organization by stakeholders and the acronym RACI stands for responsible, accountable, consulted and informed which are the qualities used to describe the responsibilities and roles given to the relevant stakeholders for specific tasks or processes and it is a common tool used by business analysts and project managers for establishing roles and responsibilities early on in a project hence RACI matrix reduces project risks and sets expectations about the level of participation that is expected from the various stakeholders as it classifies stakeholders according to one of the following roles as represented by the acronym which stands for ‘’responsible’’ which refers to the ability of a stakeholder to perform the project work activities and it can also refer to the person who does the work to achieve the task as they are responsible for getting the work done or making decisions. 

Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is the use of diagrams to represent chronological flow of information, processes and decisions for a particular business process and is the most widely used representation for complex business processes and it used during the Analysis Phase of a project when it is important to understand and analyze the current and future business processes as it is an easy and clear way to show how a business process should be executed within a business to perform a certain function hence communicating clearly and accurately to your intended audience and making sure they understand what is represented on the diagrams is important. BPMN is a graphical notation for modeling business processes that can be used to model complex business processes as it is a standardized notation for creating visual models of business or organizational processes since people often understand visual representation of a large amount of information much faster than a written description of steps to be completed hence it is often used to represent and explain complex steps and sequences of tasks that must be performed to achieve a certain business process outcome by creating a consistent way to compare models and communicate with various stakeholders across an organization by allowing you to produce detailed requirements.