PMI PBA Business Analysis Practice Guide: Need Assessment

[seema.sonkiya]

Under this thread, I would like to share the flow of Need Assessment domain and that is based on Business Analysis Practice Guide released by PMI

[seema.sonkiya]

Key areas of Need Assessment:

1. Assess internal and external environment
2. Understand goals and objectives of organisation
3. Identify right problem to solve and right opportunity to grab
4. Assess Current Capability Gaps
5. Define Future Desired State
6. Identify Capability Gaps
7. Develop Business Case

[seema.sonkiya]

Steps to investigate problem to solve or opportunity to grab

Output of this investigation is approved situation statement

Flow of investigating problem or opportunity is attached:

[seema.sonkiya]

Now approved situation statement guides subsequent work for assessing Business Need and situation is analysed in detail

Approval process needs good facilitation, negotiation and decision making skills in Business Analyst.

Situation statement is analysed in greater detail to assess current state of organisation.
It includes:
1. Understand/Assess organisation Goals and Objectives
2. SWOT Analysis to translate organisation strategy into Business Need pertaining to specific situation
3. Relevant criterias from the goals and objectives are identified
4. Root cause analysis of situation is performed that prevent achievement of goals
5. Required capabilities needed to address situation are analysed
6. Assess current capabilities of the organisation
7. Now gaps in organisation capabilities are identified

Gap Analysis in current and actual capabilities is the key output

[seema.sonkiya]

To assess current state of the organisation:

The first step:

Assess organisational goals and objectives:

1. Business Analyst review business strategy documents to understand Industry, Markets, Competition, Products and Services available and potential products and services for the organisation

2. Goals and objectives within these documents serves input to business requirements (Higher level requirements in business case or project charter are aligned with these goals and objectives) for the project (once Business Case get approved)

3. Goals and objectives relevant to situation provides context & direction for change or solution

Note: if strategy documents are not available to Business Analyst in that case Business Analyst may interview key stakeholders to determine this information

[seema.sonkiya]

To assess current state of the organisation:

The Second step:

Review strategy documents to have relevant criteria’s
Situation statement translated in Business Need which is aligned with organisational goals and objectives and hence relevant.

[seema.sonkiya]

What next after getting relevant criteria?

Root Cause Analysis

It is needed to have insight for the right problem to solve or right opportunity to grab and that is relevant to the organisational goals and objectives

[seema.sonkiya]

Root Cause Analysis break down problem to be solved in its root causes or opportunity contributors so as to adequately recommend a viable and appropriate solution.

See attached picture

[seema.sonkiya]

Performing root cause analysis or Opportunity Analysis

Next step is to determine Required Capabilities Needed to Address the Situation

Tip: For Simple process improvement situations, it may only be necessary to recommend process changes without adding new capabilities or other resources.

[seema.sonkiya]

Now we need to understand required capabilities that are discovered by examining problems and associated root causes:

By the use of tools:
1. Capability Table
2. Affinity Diagrams &
3. Benchmarking

[seema.sonkiya]

At the same time, we also need to assess current available capabilities related to the situation:
By the use of tools:
1. Process Flows
2. Enterprise and Business Architecture
3. Capability Framework

[seema.sonkiya]

Now Gap analysis is performed to examine the two views of the system:
1. Desired view of capabilities
2. Current or actual view of capabilities

Project deliverable are identified to fill the gap as a result.

Now next step is to recommend options to address the Business Need using following steps:
1. Include a high level approach for adding capabilities
2. Provide alternative options for satisfying business need
3. Identifying constraints, assumptions and risks for each option
4. Assess feasibility & organisational impacts for each option
6. Recommend the most viable options
7. Cost Benefit Analysis for each recommended option

[seema.sonkiya]

1. Include a high level approach for adding capabilities

[seema.sonkiya]

2. Provide alternative options for satisfying business need

[seema.sonkiya]

3. Identifying constraints, assumptions and risks for each option

[seema.sonkiya]

4. Assess feasibility & organisational impacts for each option

[seema.sonkiya]

5. Recommend the most viable options

[seema.sonkiya]

6. Cost Benefit Analysis for each recommended option

[seema.sonkiya]

Finally Assemble the Business Case

[akanksha.ashar5]

Seema, I must say this is excellently summarized for quick review!

[seema.sonkiya]

Thanks Akanksha