The purpose of this document is to present the case to establish < or improve, or transform> our business analysis practices at <company name>. This business case was authored by <insert name of author> in collaboration with:

• < name/title>

A strong, effective, value-based business analysis practice is needed for us to significantly improve our return on project investments. Since we are dependent on complex IT-enabled projects to grow and remain competitive, we propose to use the discipline of business analysis to change the way we do projects to focus on business value and innovation.

While there are some world-class BA practices in existence, far too many attempts to implement a business analysis practice have been only marginally successful. Too often the improvements have been driven exclusively from the bottom up. While support is needed from all levels of the organization, grassroots efforts tend to be project-specific, disappearing gradually as project teams are disbanded. Therefore, we are recommending a holistic, top-down approach to implementation of a value-based BA practice.

2 BUSINESS VISION

2.1 BUSINESS NEED

<Company name> has recently centralized its business analysts, who were previously placed in various business units and in IT. The BAs are now part of <group>, which comprises multiple shared services including the PMO, IT training, the project services group, the vendor, and testing and program management offices. This centralization of business analysts was the first step in creating a value-based business analysis practice that is integrated with other project support disciplines.

2.2 CORE PURPOSE

The purpose of implementing a value-based BA practice is to enable <company name> to:

• Build the capabilities to optimize our business practices to execute strategy

• Transition our IT-enabled business projects from a focus on technology to a focus on business value

• Ensure that adequate enterprise/strategy analysis is conducted prior to building a business case for a proposed new project to ensure the business need is understood and the most innovative solution is proposed

• Increase our capability to elicit, analyze, prioritize, specify, and validate business requirements

• Validate the assumptions and forecasts made in the business case throughout the solution development phases to continuously confirm the case for continued investment

• Measure the business benefits of newly deployed business solutions

• Ensure that business benefits are achieved and technology is used as a competitive advantage

• Integrate the practices of business analysis with business architecture; business process; business rules and decisions; project, program, and portfolio management; and business strategy and transformation to build and sustain an organization that drives business/technology innovation.

2.3 CORE VALUES

The core values of the BA practice include the following:

• Collaboration – We are a team of BA consultants who work together with all project stakeholders to add value to our customers and wealth to the bottom line.

• Recognition – We will recognize the involvement of all project team members and strive to build high-performing project teams.

• Honesty and Integrity – We will build a team of BA consultants who are open, honest, knowledgeable, expert, and trustworthy.

• Innovation – We will foster creativity and innovation to consistently explore new ways of delivering value.

• Empowerment – We will foster critical thinking, problem-solving, and adaptability to enhance professional growth.

• Business Benefits – We will implement a decision-making process based on adding value to our customers and wealth to the bottom line.

2.4 ENVISIONED FUTURE

We envision a future business analysis practice that ensures that:

• Critical change initiatives realize the forecast business benefits (as documented in the project business case)

• Business analysis practices are transformed into a value-creating management tool

• Business analysts are viewed as respected consultants

• Technology is used as a competitive advantage.

3 STRATEGY

3.1 GOALS

The goals of the business analysis practice include:

• Establishing clearly defined business analyst roles

• Developing a capable high-performing BA team

• Modernizing BA methods and tools

• Fostering creativity and innovation

• Delivering business benefits through projects in terms of:

Value to our customers

Wealth to the bottom line.

3.2 OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the business analysis practice are updated annually.

3.2.1 Year 1

• Secure executive approval of the BA practice implementation business case.

• Form governance structure (BA practice executive sponsor and steering/advisory committee).

• Appoint a BA practice lead.

• Establish a centralized BA team.

• Implement the initial infrastructure needed for the BA practice (soft implementation of a BA center of excellence, perhaps called a BA community of practice).

• Review BA staffing assignments to ensure that critical projects have appropriately skilled BAs.

• Ensure that critical projects have an approved business case and an executive sponsor.

• Establish BA role definition, required competencies, and career progression in alignment with best practices.

• Identify individual BA strengths and opportunities, accompanied by recommendations for learning and development.

• Assess the current state of BA practices and develop a plan to close the gaps.

• Initiate a BA professional development program.

• Initiate a BA communication program.

3.2.2 Year 2

• Implement a formal BA center of excellence.

• Augment the BA team to fill competency gaps with consultants/mentors.

• Reassess the maturity of practices and capability of BAs and fill gaps.

3.2.3 Year 3

• Implement a formal balanced scorecard measurement system that is consistent with corporate performance reporting.

• Implement a strategic communications program.

• Develop a corps of enterprise/strategic level BA consultants.

• Develop an innovation program.

3.3 ALIGNMENT

This initiative will positively advance the following strategic and operational goals.

Relationship of BA Practice to <company name> Strategic Goals

Strategic Goal	The BA Practice Maturity Program will:

Relationship to <company name> Operational Goals

Operational Goal	The BA Practice Maturity Program will:

3.4 STAKEHOLDERS

The stakeholders involved in the implementation of a value-based BA practice are identified below. We will involve these individuals and groups in all critical decisions about the BA improvement effort.

Legend*

3.5 OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS

The BA practice will be designed to solve business problems and seize valuable business opportunities.

3.5.1 Business Problem

Currently, executives, managers, and supervisors are only marginally aware of the value of enterprise/strategic business analysis practices as they relate to our strategy execution, innovation, value to customers, and wealth to the bottom line. The adverse impacts of this problem are felt by our BAs:

• We are struggling to implement business analysis practices from the bottom up in the absence of leadership from the top. The collective result is wasted resources, inadequate return on project investments, and loss of revenue as a result of failed and challenged projects.

• As individual business analysts strive to improve their BA performance, their efforts are only somewhat successful as a result of lack of organizational and managerial support.

3.5.2 Business Opportunity

The expected benefits include:

• Increased ability to understand and document the real business need

• A stronger focus on business value throughout the project lifecycle

• Agility to make course corrections as more is learned or business needs change

• Realization of business benefits from newly deployed solutions in terms of value to the customer and wealth to the organization

• Fewer failed and challenged projects

• Ability to execute strategy through project outcomes.

3.5.3 Desired Outcome

The desired outcome of this initiative is to:

• Understand the current state of our BA practice

• Understand the current level of our BA workforce capability

• Develop a BA practice maturity program and roadmap to close the gaps in both BA practices and BA workforce capabilities

• Measure the benefits of improved BA capability and practices

• Measure the business benefits realized from new solutions in terms of ROI of project investments, value to customers, and wealth to the bottom line.

4 CAPABILITY GAPS

4.1 CAPABILITIES OF OUR BA TEAM

A BA individual/workforce capability model is useful in determining the capabilities of our BA workforce. The model is designed to help us determine the level of BA capability that currently exists within our organization as well as the level of capability needed to successfully execute projects based on their complexity. From this information, we are able to identify the gaps in skills and competencies and draft a recommended BA learning and development plan. The model is four-tiered, with the levels of the model based on the escalating complexity of typical BA assignments.

Area of Focus	Business Outcomes
Operations and Support Focused Projects	Business operations are maintained and enhanced.
Project Focused Projects	Business objectives are met through projects.
Enterprise Focused Projects	Business strategy is executed through projects, programs, and portfolios.
Competitive Focused Projects	New business strategy is forged and competitive advantage is improved through innovation and business/technology optimization.

Operations and Support Focus

To maintain and enhance business operations, both generalists and system specialists are needed. These BAs typically spend about 30 percent of their time doing business analysis activities for low to moderately complex projects designed to maintain and continually improve business processes and technology. The remaining time they are often fulfilling multiple roles, including developer, engineer, SME, domain expert, and tester. As legacy processes and systems age, these BAs are becoming more valuable since they are likely the best (and often the only) SMEs who understand the current business processes and supporting technology.

Project Focus

To ensure business objectives are met through projects, both IT- and business-oriented BAs are needed. These BAs work on moderately complex projects designed to develop new/changed business processes and IT systems. Competencies at this level encompass the skills needed to be successful at level 2 of the organizational practice maturity model.

• IT-oriented PMs and BAs improve operations through changes to technology. The BAs are mostly generalists, with specialists that include experience analyst, business rules analyst, business process analyst, and data analyst.

• Business-oriented PMs and BAs improve operations through changes to policy and procedures. Business-oriented PMs and BAs are mostly specialized, focused on finance, human resources, marketing, manufacturing, etc. In decentralized organizations, these PMs and BAs are dedicated to a major business area, improving the processes and the corresponding technologies used to run the operations. In more centralized organizations, these PMs and BAs are organized as a pool of talent whose efforts can be transferred seamlessly to the areas of the enterprise that are in most need of project support. Competencies at this level involve the skills needed to be successful at level 2 of the BA workforce capability model.

©Kathleen Hass and Associates, 2012

Enterprise, Strategic Focus

At this level, BAs are trained and experienced in highly complex projects, programs, and portfolios. These BAs often specialize into two groups: enterprise analysts and business architects. They operate at the enterprise level of the organization, ensuring that the business analysis activities are dedicated to the most valuable initiatives and that business analysis artifacts (deliverables such as models and diagrams) are considered corporate assets and are therefore reusable. Enterprise BAs focus on the analysis needed to prepare a solid business case to propose new initiatives and work on highly complex enterprise-wide projects; business architects make the enterprise visible and keep the business and IT architectures in sync. Competencies at this level involve the skills needed to be successful at level 3 of the BA workforce capability model.

Competitive Focus

Competitive-focused BAs are business and technology visionaries who serve as innovation experts, organizational change specialists, and cross-domain experts. These BAs focus outside of the enterprise on what the industry is doing and design innovative new approaches to doing business to ensure the enterprise remains competitive or even leaps ahead of the competition. These BAs forge new strategies, translate strategy into breakthrough process and technology, and convert business opportunities into innovative business solutions. Competencies at this level involve the skills needed to be successful at level 4 of the BA workforce capability model.

Refer to Attachment 1, BA Workforce Capabilities and Techniques, for each level of the model to perform a quick informal assessment to identify capabilities that your BAs currently possess and demonstrate. Refer to the IIBA BABOK® Guide for the detailed tasks performed for each competency area and techniques used to perform the work.

4.2 MATURITY OF OUR BA PRACTICES

Organizational maturity assessment frameworks are used to provide a standard and consistent method to determine the maturity of business practices for specific disciplines (e.g., business analysis, project management, software engineering). The BA practice maturity model is a four-stage model, with each stage representing a higher level of maturity. Foundational business analysis practices reside at level 2, whereas the more sophisticated BA practices that are needed to perform well on highly complex projects are at higher levels. The model also notes the many business management and leadership practices that are needed for successful project outcomes.

©Kathleen Hass and Associates, 2012

The BA practices required for each level are described in detail in Attachment 2, BA Practices at Each Level of Maturity. Perform a quick assessment and shade the practices that currently exist, are documented, and are performed on most projects.

5 APPROACH: BA PRACTICE IMPLEMENTATION AND SUSTAINABILITY

To implement and institutionalize a value-based BA practice, the business value that is promised needs to be fully understood across the organization, and BA benefits need to be continually demonstrated through measurement and communication programs. Leadership and sponsorship of the effort should emanate from the top of the organization and flow down to all levels. A holistic and methodical implementation approach and framework is fundamental to success and sustainability. Mature BA practices have several components: a capable BA team, organizational support, executive leadership, and sponsorship.

Typically, a BA practice is supported by a number of integrated elements that comprise a holistic framework as depicted below. To deal with the significant amount of change required by all project stakeholders, the BA practice implementation will be managed in three phases. See Attachment 3 for a detailed description of the phases of the framework.

BA Practice Implementation Framework

5.1 INITIAL READINESS PHASE, ANSWERS THE QUESTION: “IS OUR ORGANIZATION READY?”

• The business case describing the value and cost of implementing a mature BA practice

• An executive sponsor who is accountable for the business benefits derived from an effective BA practice

• A steering committee to guide the BA practice evolution

• A respected and influential BA practice lead

5.2 SUBSEQUENT IMPLEMENTATION PHASE, ANSWERS THE QUESTION: “HOW DO WE BUILD THE BA PRACTICE?”

• The BA center of excellence

• A capable BA team

• Effective lean BA practice standards.

5.3 ONGOING SUSTAINABILITY PHASE, ANSWERS THE QUESTION: “HOW DO WE INSTITUTIONALIZE AND CONTINUE TO IMPROVE BA PRACTICES?”

• Run your BA practice like a business

• Measure the effectiveness of your BA practice

• Focus on innovation

• Change the way we do projects

• Execute well-planned strategic communications

• Take your BA team from good to great.

6 RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN BUSINESS ANALYSIS CAPABILITIES

6.1 PROJECT PERFORMANCE GOALS

Assuming improvements are in process for other key project delivery disciplines (e.g., project management, testing, QA, SDLC, vendor management), we can expect significant benefits to project performance. We suggest augmenting our current measurement program to collect metrics for the categories listed below.

Project Performance Goals	Current Performance	Performance Goals
1. Cost: on budget
2. Duration: on schedule
3. Scope: full set of functions and features
4. Productivity: Number of projects completed without the need for additional resources
5. Quality of deliverables: Reduced defects and rework
6. Customer satisfaction
7. Team performance
8. Business Benefits: value to customer
9. Business Benefits: wealth to bottom line

6.2 BUSINESS ANALYSIS PERFORMANCE GOALS

We propose establishing goals and tracking the following information for each significant project that has a highly capable business analyst working throughout the project to measure return on BA investment.

BA Performance Goals	Current Performance	Performance Goals
Business Case Development Development of the business case is led by a senior BA who facilitated a group of experts (minimally, a senior PM, architect, business visionary, financial analyst).
Business Case Validation Business case is updated at key milestones: BA validates assumptions and forecasts made in the business case; updates with new information; and presents results to executive sponsor with recommendation to continue investment or implement a course correction to achieve cost and benefit forecasts.
Business Benefits Measured BA measures actual business benefits realized after the new/changed business solution is deployed vs. costs and benefits forecast in the business case.
Root Cause Analysis Performed BA performs root cause analysis if forecast business benefits are not realized and recommends corrective action to process/decision-making to avoid in the future.
Customer Value Actual customer value is measured by BA after the new solution is deployed and compared to the value forecast in the business case. If actual value is not achieved, BA makes recommendations to improve the solution to improve business outcomes. Customer satisfaction is continually improved.
Team performance Team satisfaction is continually improved.

6.3 ESTIMATED BENEFITS

Benefits projected are based on the following projects that will be supported by the BACOE:

• Xxx

• Xxx.

6.4 ESTIMATED COSTS

When fully implemented during year 2, the BA practice organization structure will likely resemble the following. Note that a single individual may fill more than one manager role depending on the number and complexity of projects that are supported.

ATTACHMENT 1: BA WORKFORCE CAPABILITIES AND TECHNIQUES FOR EACH LEVEL OF BA

The capabilities that are included in the individual and workforce capability models consist of technical skills, supporting leadership and soft skill competencies, and techniques used to carry out the BA work. See below for a listing of capabilities required for each level of the model:

6.5 BA TECHNICAL COMPETENCY AREAS

Project-Focused:

• Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring

• Elicitation

• Requirements Management and Communication

• Requirements Analysis.

Enterprise-Focused:

• Enterprise Analysis

• Solution Assessment and Validation.

Competitive-Focused:

• Strategy Formation

• Creativity and Innovation

• Competitive Analysis.

Breakthrough Process and Product Design

6.6 BA TECHNIQUES USED TO PERFORM THE WORK

Operations/Support-Focused Business Analyst

1. Acceptance and Evaluation Criteria Definition

2. Brainstorming

3. Checklists

4. Continuous Process Improvement

5. Defect and Issue Reporting

6. Document Analysis

7. Estimation

8. Functional Decomposition

9. Interface Analysis

10. Interviews

11. Non-Functional Requirements Analysis

12. Observation

13. Problem Tracking

14. Replanning

15. Requirements Change Management

16. Requirements Documentation

17. Requirements Prioritization

18. Sequence Diagramming

19. Stakeholder Analysis/Mapping

20. Time Boxing / Budgeting

21. Voting

Project-Focused Business Analyst

1. Baselining

2. Business Case Validation

3. Business Process Analysis and Management

4. Business Rules Analysis and Management

5. Change Management

6. Conflict and Issue Management

7. Consensus Mapping

8. Communications Requirements Analysis

9. Business Process Design

10. Data Dictionary and Glossary

11. Data Flow Diagrams

12. Data Modelling

13. Decision Analysis

14. Delphi

15. Expert Judgment

16. Focus Groups

17. Force Field Analysis

18. MoSCoW Analysis

19. Process Modelling

20. Prototyping

21. Requirements Attribute Assignment

22. Requirements Briefings and Presentations

23. Requirements for Vendor Selection

24. Requirements Traceability/Coverage Matrix

25. Requirements Decomposition

26. Requirements Workshops

27. Requirements Review, Validation, and Signoff

28. Responsibility Matrix (RACI)

29. Reverse Engineering

30. RFI, RFQ, RFP

31. Risk Analysis

32. Scenarios and Use Cases

33. Scope Modelling

34. Solution Modelling

35. State Diagrams

36. Structured Walkthroughs

37. Survey/Questionnaire

38. User Acceptance Testing

39. User Stories and Storyboards

40. Value Analysis

41. Variance Analysis

42. Vendor Assessment

Enterprise-Focused Business Analyst

1. Balanced Scorecard

2. Benchmarking

3. Business Architecture

4. Business Case Development and Validation

5. Business Opportunity Analysis

6. Business Problem Analysis

7. Business Process Reengineering

8. Competitive Analysis

9. Cost/Benefit Analysis and Economic Modelling

10. Current State Analysis

11. Feasibility Analysis

12. Future State Analysis

13. Goal Decomposition

14. Gap Analysis

15. Last Responsible Moment Decisior-Making

16. Lessons Learned Process

17. Metrics and Key Performance Indicators

18. Organizational Modelling

19. Organizational Change

20. Portfolio Analysis

21. Project and Program Prioritization

22. Root Cause Analysis (Fishbone Diagram)

23. SWOT Analysis

Competitive-Focused Business Analyst

1. Breakthrough Process Design

2. Cultural Change

3. Divergent Thinking

4. Edge-of-Chaos Analysis

5. Emotional Intelligence

6. Experimentation

7. Idea Generation

8. Innovation and Creativity

9. Innovation Teams

10. Intuition

11. Investigation and Experimentation

12. Metaphors and Storytelling

13. Mind Mapping

14. Pattern Discovery

15. Research and Development

16. Strategic Planning

17. Systematic Inventive Thinking

18. Visualization

ATTACHMENT 2: BA PRACTICES AT EACH LEVEL OF MATURITY

ATTACHMENT 3: IMPLEMENTATION FRAMEWORK

6.7 THE INITIAL READINESS PHASE

6.7.1 The Business Case for a Mature BA Practice

Many elements must be in place for you to declare your readiness to begin to implement a BA practice. The most important tool for you to present your argument for a mature BA practice is the business case.

Unless your BA practice can demonstrate results in business benefits in terms of value to the customer and/or wealth to the bottom line, it is a failed venture. Without a business case, you are likely engaged in steering a rudderless vessel. Developing the business case will enable you to think about all important aspects of the venture. Your BA practice business case must be convincing, compelling, and believable.

6.7.2 The Executive Sponsor

Once you have developed the business case to implement a BA practice, enlist an executive sponsor to guide the effort, to own the budget for the BA practice, and to commit to the cost and benefit projections. Usually, the executive sponsor is a very senior-level executive, such as the CIO or CSO (chief strategy officer).

6.7.3 The Executive Steering Committee

It is ideal to secure the approval of the experts who helped build the business case to serve on a BA practice steering committee. The steering committee, facilitated by the BA practice lead and chaired by the executive sponsor, will provide political cover, decision support, budget, and legitimacy to the BA practice initiative.

6.7.4 A Respected and Influential BA Practice Lead

Building a new business process such as business analysis is a challenging endeavor. Your initial trial is to gain executive confidence and organizational alignment up front. Do you have the power and influence skills to take a comprehensive view that is aligned with your environment, your culture, your strategies, and decision-making practices?

6.8 THE IMPLEMENTATION PHASE

6.8.1 A Home for the BA Practice: The BA Center of Excellence

The BA practice needs a home, a department that is accountable and responsible for building and sustaining effective BA practices. This center, which should be small (too large is deadly), is authorized to manage the BA team; the business case process; organizational BA standards and frameworks; methods; training; tools, templates, and techniques; metrics; and communication.

6.8.2 A Capable BA Team

Today, BAs are mostly project-focused, creating and managing requirement artifacts. However, to become a valuable corporate asset, BAs need to become holistic thinkers who are strategically focused, concentrating on innovative solutions to complex business problems.

6.8.3 Effective Lean BA Practice Standards

In days gone by, we always followed the maxim, process first, then tools. The good news is that BA tools have grown up. Good BA standards are now embedded in integrated requirements management tools. So the tool helps educate BAs on the best practices, integrates and manages the requirements knowledge and artifacts, and helps forward engineer information into BA artifacts used to build the solution.

The bad news is most BAs still use desktop tools that are difficult to maintain and are disintegrated. As a result, the BA is burdened with creating, maintaining, integrating, and synchronizing all of the business strategies, goals, models, documents, matrices, use cases, user stories, test cases, etc. Adopt sophisticated tools to maintain reusable requirement artifacts, impose standards, and enable education of your BA team.

6.8.4 Maturity and Capability Assessments

It is often said that we don’t need to do a maturity assessment because we know our capabilities are immature. The problem is, just knowing your capabilities are immature is not actionable. Assessments provide useful information about strengths, as well as gaps that need immediate improvement to grow to the next level of maturity. Assessments shed light on exactly where you are, provide a step-by-step improvement roadmap, and facilitate continuous improvements based on proven maturity models.

6.9 THE SUSTAINABILITY PHASE

6.9.1 Run Your BA Practice like a Business

Measurement is a key component of any new business area. Make no mistake; implementing a mature BA practice is no small endeavor. The effort is fraught with challenges. Targeted measurements and effective communications tailored to the needs of each stakeholder group are essential. The messages need to demonstrate the real business value brought about by improvement BA practices.

6.9.2 Measure the Effectiveness of your BA Practice

Continually increase the capabilities of your BA team and the maturity of your BA practice and boast of your progress throughout your organization. Measure the business benefits of your BA practice and of projects in terms of value to your customers and wealth to the bottom line. Demonstrate value through performance measures that tie to your organization’s corporate scorecard.

6.9.3 Focus on Innovation

In this complex global economy, your organizational change initiatives need to result in innovative solutions; incremental changes to “business as usual” are no longer enough for organizations to remain competitive. Yet, many CEOs do not believe they have the creative leadership needed to capitalize on complexity to bring about innovation.

So what does innovation have to do with business analysis? For BAs to reach their full potential and add the most value to their organizations, they must become creative leaders of innovative change. Traditional BA activities are still important, but a new focus on innovation is the 21st century call to action.

6.9.4 Change the Way we do Projects

An organization’s culture is durable because it is “the way we do things around here.” Changing the way it selects projects, develops and manages requirements, and manages projects, while focusing not only on business value but also on innovation, is likely a significant shift for an organization. Even today, many organizational cultures still promote the practice of piling project requests, accompanied by sparse requirements, onto the IT and new-product development groups and then wondering why they cannot seem to deliver.

6.9.5 Execute Strategic Communications

Use strategic communications as your most effective tool to ensure you realize the full value of your BA practice, and your organization knows it. Since project sponsors seldom measure accurately and then communicate the value derived from project and program solutions, the BA practice lead ensures these data are captured and shouted far and wide. An effective BA practice focuses primarily on business value, the true measure of project management and business analysis effectiveness. For the BA practice lead to be taken seriously and looked upon as a credible leader of change, she must engage in strategic communications. This involves:

• Thinking strategically, holistically, and systematically

• Crafting powerful messages that are impactful and memorable

• Influencing positive decision-making through intentional and targeted strategic communication.

6.9.6 Take your BA Team from Good to Great

Complex projects are challenged today because of people failing to come together with a common vision, an understanding of complexity, and the right expertise. Virtually all work today is accomplished by teams of people. Sometimes teams of teams consisting of groups around the globe. Team leadership is different from traditional management, and teams are different from operational work groups. When leading high-performing, creative teams, it is no longer about command and control; it is rather about collaboration, consensus, empowerment, confidence, and leadership.

Table of Contents for Appendix A: Sample Business Case

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APPENDIX A

Sample Business Case

DOCUMENT CONTROL

APPROVALS