The Business Analysis Body of Knowledge, better known as the BABOK® v3 Guide, is the complete definition of what business analysis entails from the perspective of the International Institute of Business Analysis (the IIBA®).

The BABOK® v3 Guide is used across the business analysis industry as the guideline for best practice and can be used to apply effective analysis across different types of organizations for a wide variety of reasons. In this section, we will outline the guide’s content in terms of its structure and high-level sections. This guide is the primary source of information for all business analysis knowledge areas and techniques. 

The BABOK® v3 Guide comprises of the following types of content:

• Core content: This comprises business analysis tasks organized into six knowledge areas. 
• Extended content: The extended content helps guide business analysts to better perform their jobs, and includes the following topics:
  • Business analysis key concepts
  • Underlying competencies
  • Techniques
  • Perspectives

We will start by explaining briefly what is described by each of the listed types of content. We will follow the same sequence of content as it is outlined in the BABOK® Guide itself so that you can easily follow the summaries of what is contained in the BABOK® Guide, as shown in Figure 1: