ba planning and monitoring knowledge area

Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring

Business Analysis Framework

Elicitation and Collaboration

The knowledge area Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring of the business analysis framework focuses on preparing and monitoring the execution of business analysis work. All outputs that are produced within this knowledge area are used by other knowledge areas. Therefore Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring is often seen as a first step in the framework.

What is the Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring about?

Let’s think about how you prepare for a new assignment. Before you start any real business analysis work, you think critically about what you have to do, study available materials, talk to people in the initiative, and try to find answers to the following questions:

The above-mentioned questions are just examples to illustrate preparation efforts that take place if you take up a business analysis assignment. You may have your own list of things to learn about. The important thing here is that the answers you get help you better understand the initiative, its scope, and your role in it. They also help you in planning your work so that it is done efficiently and effectively.

Being prepared contributes to achieving better results and defining business solutions that deliver real value. The quotes “Think before you act” or “Proper preparation prevents poor performance” may be used here to reflect what this phase is for.

Additionally, the Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring knowledge area contains elements of assessment and improvement of its own activities. When performing business analysis activities, you want to know whether the work you and your team do is truly done efficiently and effectively in line with organizational performance objectives. If not, corrective actions may be required that result in improved performance or prevent performance gets worse. This task ensures a focus on continuous improvement.

Structure of the knowledge area

Hopefully, you recognize some of these aspects from your daily practice, don’t you? We can now put all the elements that we discussed above as inputs, tasks, and outputs that have to be performed in the Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring knowledge area.

Detailed task description

Let’s take a quick look at each task and its role in the Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring efforts.

Plan Business Analysis Approach

This task produces a  Business Analysis Approach . The Business Analysis Approach defines how the business analysis for the initiative will be done. The approach depends on many factors. One of which is the selected planning approach: if you work according to the waterfall development life cycle, you will have a high level of formality and clear phasing in activities. If you work with an iterative development life cycle, you will have less formality and continuous analysis activities. Next, you derive the required deliverables and tasks needed to complete them, including their timeline.

Plan Stakeholder Engagement Approach

This task produces a  Stakeholder Engagement Approach . We know that stakeholders can make or break the initiative. Knowing your stakeholders and understanding their needs and expectations is essential to the success of any initiative. In this task, we identify and analyze stakeholders to develop the best possible communication and engagement strategies.

Plan Governance Approach

This task produces a Governance Approach for the initiative. The  Governance Approach defines how decisions are made concerning business analysis work, e.g., prioritization or approvals. You can think here about defining (1) who will approve deliverables, (2) who makes the final decisions in conflict situations, (3) how the change management process looks like, (4) who makes decisions about changes at the different stages of this process. Having these aspects clarified and documented somewhere saves a lot of time later in the initiative.

Plan Business Analysis Information Management

During business analysis work, you receive a lot of input: documents, process descriptions, interview notes, etc. You have to plan how to deal with all this business analysis information, what you will keep, where and when it will be stored, who can access it. You also consider the requirements re-use: you can identify requirements that you can re-use or decide to create requirements that can be re-used by others.

For requirements management purposes, you have to decide what requirements attributes you intend to use. You will also decide how you trace requirements to other business analysis information, e.g., models or code or test cases.

Identify Business Analysis Performance Improvements

This is a special task in the Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring are. It is not about preparation for business analysis work but about ensuring that the work is done effectively and efficiently. It also has an additional input: Performance Objectives. These objectives are used to define the metrics and measures for the business analysis process. If a discrepancy is detected between expected and measured performance, the improvements are defined and executed. Knowing what is expected of us helps us perform at the expected level.

These are the five tasks of Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring in a nutshell. The next session will be about the Elicitation and Collaboration knowledge area. In the previous posts, we explained the Business Analysis framework and introduced readers to the International Institute of Business Analysis .

Further study

If you wish to get more in-depth information about these knowledge areas, competencies, or techniques, please consider buying the BABOK ®  Guide  or become a member of the International Institute of Business Analysis . As an IIBA ® member, you receive your own (electronic) copy of the BABOK ® Guide for further study.

BA Coach also provides  online workshops about BABOK ® .

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How is the Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring (BABOK v2.0) knowledge area defined?

Posted by Chris Adams

Categories: Business Analysis , Business Analysis Planning (BABOK KA)

The Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring knowledge area describes the process of how a business analyst determines which activities will be needed to complete the business analysis effort.  The tasks within this knowledge area govern the business analysis tasks in all of the other knowledge areas . 

These tasks include:

• Plan Business Analysis Approach
• Conduct Stakeholder Analysis
• Plan Business Analysis Activities
• Plan Business Analysis Communication
• Planning Requirements Management Process
• Manage Business Analysis Performance

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Do your homework prior to the business analysis interview!

Having an idea of the type of questions you might be asked during a business analyst interview will not only give you confidence but it will also help you to formulate your thoughts and to be better prepared to answer the interview questions you might get during the interview for a business analyst position.  Of course, just memorizing a list of business analyst interview questions will not make you a great business analyst but it might just help you get that next job.

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Introduction & Guidance To Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring

More often than not, the outcome of the business analysis project is directly dependent on proper planning.

The business analysis planning and monitoring activity lays out the groundwork necessary for the successful completion of the whole project.

Monitoring also plays a key role in evaluating the business analysis work during the project. Detailed planning and close monitoring are essential for delivering the desired outcomes.

Table of Contents

Introduction – business planning and monitoring.

They determine how changes are requested and analysed and determine the right approach that will satisfy the need of the organisation. 

Also, they evaluate how business analysis performance has contributed to the implementation of the solution . As for the stakeholders , the BA’s job is to analyse their needs and characteristics to ensure proper planning and monitoring. 

Furthermore, at this stage, they need to conduct performance analysis so the planned activities will deliver a satisfying value to the business. 

All of this would not be possible without ensuring a complete understanding of the organisational context and developing the right analysis approach.

The BABOK guide includes five tasks that BAs should perform as a part of the business analysis planning and monitoring knowledge area. 

These tasks focus on organising and coordinating analysts and stakeholders, planning the approach to specific parts of a project, and defining the roles. They should produce outputs that can serve as a foundation for tasks in other knowledge areas.  We’ll take a closer look at all five of these tasks.

Plan Business Analysis Approach

The plan business analysis approach task defines and creates methods that will be used while performing business analysis activities.

The outputs produced here are a groundwork for the tasks form all of the other knowledge areas. It determines the timeline of the projects, what and when will be performed, and which deliverables are expected.

Also, planning the business analysis approach identifies suitable techniques and tools which will be used over the course of the project.

Some organisations already have established and formalised procedures and approaches and the analyst will have to work within these standards.  Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that some of these approaches won’t have to be adjusted as the project progresses.

In organisations without set procedures, the BA will work with stakeholders to devise the most suitable approach.

The main inputs of planning a business analysis approach are the needs of a specific organisation – problems or opportunities that the organisation is facing.

The business analyst must have a full understanding of the organisational needs as he starts the planning and be aware that those needs may change during the project. 

The expected output of this task is to define the business analysis activities and approach necessary for achieving the desired goals, determine work timeline and sequencing, decide on techniques to be used, and determine expected deliverables.

Plan Stakeholder Engagement

Planning the stakeholder engagemen t includes establishing and maintaining a fruitful collaboration with stakeholders, understanding their roles and relevance, and identifying their needs. To communicate in the best possible way, the business analyst must perform a thorough analysis of all of the crucial stakeholders and their characteristics.

The more stakeholders are involved, the more complex the task becomes, the inclusion of every new stakeholder may require the use of a different technique or the adjustment to the existing approach.

Similar to the previous task the main input of planning the stakeholder engagement is the organisational need. If the analyst has an understanding of the needs, proper identification of key stakeholders will be much easier. Another significant input is the overall business analysis approach as it ensures better stakeholder analysis and communication.

Planning stakeholder engagement should provide a stakeholder engagement approach as an output, containing information on the number of stakeholders, their characteristics, roles, and assignments.

The main elements of the task of planning stakeholder engagement are:

• Performing stakeholders analysis – identifying roles, attitudes, decision-making authority, level of power or influence;
• Defining stakeholder collaboration;
• Stakeholder communication needs.

Guidelines and tools that a business analyst will lean on while planning stakeholder engagement are business analysis performance assessment, change strategy, and current state description.

The key stakeholders for this task are customers, domains subject matter expert, end-user, project manager, regulator, sponsor, and supplier.

Plan Business Analysis Governance

To plan business analysis governance is to define business analysis components that will serve as a support of governing function in an organisation. It’s defining how decisions are made on all aspects of the business, including designs, requirements, reviews, changes, and prioritisation.

For the organisation to function properly, the process of governance should be clear and unambiguous. All of the decision-makers and their competencies must be clearly identified. Also, the information needed to make the decision should be precisely defined.

The primary inputs in planning business analysis governance are business analysis approach which ensures consistency in planning and stakeholder engagement approach which provides information on stakeholders, their characteristics, needs, and roles.

When performed in the right way the planning of business analysis governance should provide an output of governance approach which contains information on decision making stakeholders and their authority and responsibility.

The business analysis governance planning includes the following key elements:

• Decision making;
• Change control process;
• Plan prioritisation approach;
• Plan for approvals.

Guidelines and tools that will come useful for planning business analysis governance are business analysis performance assessment, business policies, the current state description, and legal/regulatory information.

Stakeholders of significance for business analysis governance planning are domain subject matter expert, project manager, regulator, and sponsor.

Plan Business Analysis Information Management

The role of business analysis information management planning is to define the way information gathered during the business analysis process will be captured, stored, accessed, and integrated with other available information. This includes all information elicited, created, and compiled over the course of the business analysis process.

The amount of information obtained this way can be enormous and proper handling is essential for its future use. All of the information should be optimised and easily accessible for whatever period it is needed.

Business analysis information management planning uses all of the outputs from previous tasks as its input. This includes the business analysis approach, stakeholder engagement approach, and governance approach. The main expected output is the information management approach which defines the state of information upon the completion of the change.

The key elements of planning the business analysis information management task are:

• Organisation of business analysis information;
• Level of abstraction;
• Planning a traceability approach;
• Planning for requirement reuse;
• Storage and access;
• Requirements attributes.

Guidelines and tools used during this task are business analysis performance assessment, business policies, information management tools, and legal/regulatory information.

The main stakeholders with the role to play at this stage are domain subject matter expert, regulator, and sponsor.

Identify Business Analysis Performance Improvements

Identifying business analysis performance improvement s include monitoring and management of business analysis performance in order to ensure the realisation of improvements and securing continuous opportunities.

It’s the assessment of the work that the business analyst has done and serves as a guideline for implementing improvements where needed. This task consists of establishing performance measures, conduction analysis based on those measures, reporting, and identifying potential necessary actions.

The primary inputs are business analysis approach and performance objectives which are the external goals set by an organisation. The output of this task is the business analysis performance assessment. It details puts actual performance against the planned one, identifies potential issues, and proposes solutions.

Identifying business analysis improvements includes a few key elements:

• Performance analysis;
• Assessment measures;
• Analysing the results;
• Recommending actions for improvement,

The main tool used here is the organisation performance standard including performance metrics or organisational expectations.

For this business analysis planning and monitoring task, the main stakeholders are domain subject matter expert, project manager, and sponsor.

Business Analysis Approach Template

Having a set of business analysis planning and monitoring templates will help you provide the groundwork for the successful completion of your whole project.

Conclusion – Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring

In all business analysis projects whether waterfall or agile the business analyst will need to understand and review their business analysis planning and monitoring approach to suite the context of their project (and also when they arrived in the project).

This article has provided an introduction to the business analysis planning and monitoring activities necessary for the successful completion of the whole project.

Learn more about the other IIBA business analysis knowledge areas:

Jerry Nicholas

Jerry continues to maintain the site to help aspiring and junior business analysts and taps into the network of experienced professionals to accelerate the professional development of all business analysts. He is a Principal Business Analyst who has over twenty years experience gained in a range of client sizes and sectors including investment banking, retail banking, retail, telecoms and public sector. Jerry has mentored and coached business analyst throughout his career. He is a member of British Computer Society (MBCS), International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA), Business Agility Institute, Project Management Institute (PMI), Disciplined Agile Consortium and Business Architecture Guild. He has contributed and is acknowledged in the book: Choose Your WoW - A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimising Your Way of Working (WoW).

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The BA Planning and Monitoring Knowledge Area

• 18 videos | 1h 10m 24s
• Includes Assessment
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WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this course.

• Playable 1.  The BA Planning and Monitoring Knowledge Area 36s FREE ACCESS
• Playable 2.  Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring Tasks 6m 57s During this video, you will learn how to recognize tasks that are part of the business analysis planning and monitoring knowledge area. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 3.  Core Concepts and the BA Role 4m 40s Discover how to recognize examples of core concepts being applied in business analyst activities. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 4.  Considerations for Planning a BA Approach 7m 12s In this video, you will learn how to recognize considerations when planning a business analysis approach. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 5.  Guidelines and Techniques for Planning a BA Approach 5m 22s During this video, you will learn how to identify effective guidelines for planning a business analysis approach. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 6.  The Role of Stakeholders in Planning a BA Approach 2m 37s In this video, find out how to recognize the role of stakeholders when planning the business analyst approach. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 7.  Considerations for Planning Stakeholder Engagement 4m 22s Learn how to recognize considerations when planning stakeholder engagement. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 8.  Techniques for Planning Stakeholder Engagement 4m 15s In this video, you will learn how to distinguish between techniques you can use for planning stakeholder engagement. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 9.  Stakeholder Roles in Planning Stakeholder Engagement 3m 48s During this video, you will learn how to identify the roles of different stakeholders when planning stakeholder engagement. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 10.  Considerations for Planning BA Governance 5m 19s Discover how to identify considerations to make when planning business analyst governance. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 11.  Guidelines and Techniques for Planning BA Governance 2m 6s In this video, you will learn how to recognize guidelines and techniques you use when planning business analyst governance. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 12.  Stakeholder Roles in Planning BA Governance 1m 41s During this video, you will learn how to recognize the roles of stakeholders in developing the business analysis governance approach. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 13.  Considerations for Planning Information Management 5m 57s In this video, find out how to recognize considerations when planning how to manage business analysis information. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 14.  Techniques for Planning Information Management 2m 30s Learn how to recognize the guidelines and techniques used in planning business analysis information management. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 15.  Stakeholder Roles in Planning Information Management 1m 39s In this video, you will learn how to recognize the roles of stakeholders in business analysis information management planning. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 16.  Considerations for Identifying Improvements 6m 6s During this video, you will discover how to recognize considerations to make when identifying business analysis performance improvements. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 17.  Techniques for Identifying Performance Improvements 3m 25s Discover how to identify techniques you can use for improving business analysis performance. FREE ACCESS
• Locked 18.  Stakeholder Roles in Identifying Improvements 1m 52s In this video, you will learn how to recognize the roles of stakeholders in identifying business analysis performance improvements. FREE ACCESS

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All About Business Analysis Planning And Monitoring

A business analyst contributes to a project’s life cycle by performing a prior business evaluation that serves as a guide. The planning and completion of business analysis are based on a procedure called Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring. It is also the foremost of the knowledge areas in BA. 

The planning and monitoring part employs the fundamental principles of BACCM (BA Core Concept Model). These concepts help in approaching the satisfaction of organizational needs in the right way. The responsibility of assessing stakeholders’ requirements lies with a business analyst. It is a prerequisite of appropriate monitoring and planning. Performance analysis is also included in this phase since it is the means of adding value to an enterprise’s business. 

Steps To BA Planning And Monitoring

The tasks listed here emphasize role defining, approaches to different project areas, and coordination between stakeholders and analysts. 

Approach to business analysis

The planning of how to address business analysis is a task in itself. It is the stage of deciding on methods of business analysis execution. This task involves the basic preparation of activities related to every other BA knowledge area. Project deliverables and timelines are the outputs of this stage. Business analysts create a structured framework of approaches and procedures to standardize their performance. This calls for their cooperation with project stakeholders. An organization’s opportunities, problems, and needs are considered inputs for drafting the mode of business analysis. Keeping in mind that business needs may change with the project’s course, a business analyst would frame the plan accordingly. 

Stakeholder engagement

As mentioned earlier, the collaboration of stakeholders and business analysts plays a pivotal role. The stakeholder engagement phase is crucial to make this joint effort successful and maintain it, as well. Business analysts must be adept at identifying stakeholders’ requirements alongside understanding the latter’s relevance. This is possible only through effective communication with stakeholders. Before that, a business analyst must thoroughly study the traits of every prominent stakeholder of the project. 

The complexity of this task increases with the number of stakeholders involved in the project. An existing approach undergoes adjustment each time the project includes a new stakeholder. The organizational need is the input for this planning phase, as well. Proper knowledge of what an enterprise requires helps in properly identifying the chief stakeholders. Besides, the selection of appropriate business analysis methods is also responsible for ensuring better communication between stakeholders and business analysts. Information on the characteristics and assignments of every stakeholder, along with their total count, is derived at this stage. A business analyst considers the following factors while arranging for stakeholder management:

• Description of the current state
• Strategy for bringing changes
• Evaluation of the performed business analysis task

Project sponsors, managers, suppliers, regulators, end-users, and domain experts come within the list of a project’s prime stakeholders. To sum up, the responsibilities of a business analyst in organizing stakeholder management are as follows:

• Meet the requirements of interacting with stakeholders
• Establish collaboration with stakeholders
• Identify the potential, decision-making authority, role, and attitude of different stakeholders in a project. 

Business analysis governance

This stage is about identifying the components that will assist in an organization’s governance. Proper planning for making business decisions is essential. This covers all business aspects, including prioritization, reviews, requirements, changes, and designs. The smooth sailing of an enterprise depends on a straightforward governance process. This calls for spotting decision-makers with the right competencies. The availability of precisely defined information is also necessary for decision-making. Both the stakeholder engagement and business analysis approaches appear significant during this phase. The results of those two tasks serve as primary inputs for planning the governance of business analysis. This governance approach selects and mentions the details of stakeholders who will possess the authority of decision-making. The core components of the governance plan are:

• Approval planning
• Prioritization approach
• Control process change
• Decision-making

Regulatory information, business policies, information on the current state of business operations, and the assessment of business analysis execution. These are the tools used in governance planning. The list of stakeholders for this phase remains the same as that of the previous one. 

Information management

The task of planning information management involves the sorting out of methods for collecting information. It includes the ways of accessing, storing, and integrating the information generated from business analysis with the available information. This results in the acquisition of an enormous amount of data that demands proper handling for future usage. The planning phase is significant for the optimization of the gathered information so that it can be accessed whenever required. Apart from tools related to information management, the other guidelines of execution remain the same as in the previous stages. Project sponsors, regulators, and domain experts are counted as leading stakeholders for this purpose. The core areas of concentration are:

• Information storage and accessibility
• Organization of the collected information
• Plan the traceability approach
• Requirement reuse planning
• Determine the abstraction level and requirements attributes

Identify performance improvements

The ultimate task in the planning and monitoring of business analysis is to identify its benefits. To find out whether the business analysis performance is fructifying is essential for tapping every possible opportunity for improvement. This stage is centered around the implementation of corrections wherever required. It involves the evaluation of a business analyst’s performance. An organization’s extreme goals and the determined business analysis method are the main inputs of the performance management stage. The output of this phase is a comparison between the details of both the planned and performed business analysis activities. Identification of serious issues and finding effective solutions to them form the core of business analysis performance improvement. 

Courses regarding PMI-PBA Training encourage individuals to become knowledgeable in the varying aspects of business analysis. This knowledge area of BA is crucial for mastering the skills to become an ace in this domain.

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