From the course: Business Analysis Foundations

Business analysis industry definitions

From the course: Business Analysis Foundations

Business analysis industry definitions

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- Analysis of business needs have been around for over three decades. It's just been known by different names and done a little differently by different individuals. Recently, we've seen standards developed to support these activities. These activities are referred to as business analysis. But depending on which standards you're using, business analysis might look slightly different. Let's look at some definitions from the two major groups that are setting these current standards. You'll see that these groups have slightly different definitions that highlight different emphasis of business analysis. First, we look at the International Institute of Business Analysis, otherwise known as IIBA. They define business analysis as the practice of enabling change in the context of an enterprise by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders. So here you see, IIBA emphasizes the importance of BA within the business to enable change. You're supporting the strategic direction of the organization by enabling these changes. Now, the Project Management Institute, or PMI, has a different flavor to their definition of BA. PMI focuses mainly on project managers and their activities. So the way they approach BA is more about supporting the project manager or the project effort. You see this in their definition of business analysis. They define business analysis as the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to determine problems and identify business needs, identify and recommend viable solutions for meeting those needs, elicit, document and manage stakeholder requirements in order to meet business and project objectives and facilitate the successful implementation of the product, service, or end result of the programmer project. So notice some key phrases here, stakeholder requirements, and facilitate the successful implementation. PMI places a big emphasis on understanding of the requirements of all stakeholders. Also different from the IIBA definition, we see PMI talks about implementation. They frame the BA role as being responsible for the implementation of the result. When PMI defines a project, they define it as being able to deliver a service, a product, or a result. When you do business analysis, we also say you're delivering a solution. So what do we do with all this information? Well, the takeaway is that business analysis is defined in different ways depending on the point of view of the definer. But here's a stable definition that should work across all contexts. Business analysis seeks to identify and understand business needs and provide solutions to enable change.

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