Non-Functional Requirement A requirement that defines a constraint or performance measure with which the system or the functional requirements must comply. Object An object is something within a business system for which a set of attributes and functions can be specified.
An object is an instance of a class. Pestle A technique used to analyse the external business environment of an organisation.
The technique involves the analysis of the political, economic, sociocultural, technological, legal and environmental forces that may impact upon an organisation. Project Initiation Document PID A document that defines the business context for a project and clarifies the objectives, scope, deliverables, timescale, budget, authority and available resources.
Protocol Analysis A technique used to elicit, analyse and validate requirements. Protocol analysis involves requesting the users to perform a task and to describe each step as they perform it.
Prototyping A technique used to elicit, analyse and validate requirements. Prototyping involves building simulations of a system in order to review them with the users. This technique helps the business users to visualise the solution and hence increases understanding about the system requirements.
Questionnaires A technique used to obtain quantitative information during an investigation of a business situation. Questionnaires are useful to obtain a limited amount of information from a large group of people. Raci or Rasci Linear responsibility matrix charts that identify stakeholder roles and responsibilities during an organisational change process. Requirement A feature that the business users need the new system to provide. Requirements Catalogue An organised set of requirements where each individual requirement is documented using a standard template.
Requirements Elicitation Requirements elicitation is an approach to understanding requirements that requires the analyst to be proactive in drawing out the requirements from the business users and helping them to visualise the possibilities and articulate their requirements.
Requirements Management Requirements management aims to ensure that each requirement is tracked from inception to implementation or withdrawal through all of the changes that have been applied to it. The resource audit considers five areas of organisational resource: tangible resources — physical, financial and human — and intangible resources — know-how and reputation.
Rich Picture A pictorial technique offering a free-format approach that allows analysts to document whatever is of interest or significance in the business situation.
This technique originated from the soft systems methodology. Risk A problem situation that may arise with regard to a project or a business situation. Potential risks are identified for each option in a business case. The probability of the risk occurring and the likely impact of the risk are assessed, and suitable countermeasures are identified. Risk Management The identification, assessment, monitoring and control of significant risks during the development, design and implementation of IT systems.
Root Definition A perspective of a business situation based upon an individual world view that gives rise to a valid business system. Scenarios A technique used to elicit, analyse and validate requirements. A scenario will trace the course of a transaction from an initial business trigger through each of the steps needed to achieve a successful outcome. Standard frameworks for the definition of skills and competencies in the information systems industry. Six Sigma A business management approach developed by Motorola in the early s that aims to improve business processes by identifying and removing the causes of errors.
Shadowing A technique used to find out what a particular job entails. Shadowing involves following users as they carry out their jobs for a period such as one or two days. Six Thinking Hats A thinking tool developed by Edward de Bono for individuals and for groups, to improve the thinking process. Smart A mnemonic used to ensure that objectives are clearly defined, in that they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-framed. Soft Systems Methodology A methodology that provides an approach to analysing business situations, devised by Peter Checkland and his team at Lancaster University.
Special-Purpose Records A technique that involves the business users in keeping a record about a specific issue or task. Typically the record is based on a simple structure, for example a five-bar gate record.
Categories of stakeholder include customers, employees, managers, partners, regulators, owners, suppliers and contractors. Stakeholder Analysis The analysis of the levels of power and interest of stakeholders in order to assess the weight that should be attached to their issues.
This technique provides a means of categorising stakeholders in order to identify the most appropriate stakeholder management approach. Stakeholder Management The definition of the most appropriate means to be adopted in order to engage with different categories of stakeholder. The approach to stakeholders will vary depending on their level of interest in the project and the amount of power or influence they wield to further or obstruct it.
Strategy The direction and scope of an organisation over the longer term. The strategy is defined in order to achieve competitive advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a changing business environment.
Strobe A technique that represents a formal checklist approach to observation, where the analyst is investigating specific issues rather than observing generally. Swimlane A row on a business process diagram or model that indicates who is responsible for a given process or task. Typical swimlanes represent departments, teams, individuals or IT systems. Swimlane Diagram A technique used to model business processes. A swim- lane diagram models the business system response to a business event.
The model shows the triggering event, the business actors, the tasks they carry out, the flow between the tasks and the business outcome. SWOT Analysis A technique used to summarise the external pressures facing an organisation and the internal capability the organisation has available to respond to those pressures.
The mnemonic stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. SWOT analysis is used during strategy analysis. Tacit Knowledge Those aspects of business work that a user omits to articulate or explain. This may be due to a failure to recognise that the information is required or to the assumption that the information is already known to the analyst. Tangible Benefit A benefit to be realised by a business change project for which a credible, usually monetary, value can be predicted.
Task On a business process model or swimlane diagram, a piece of work carried out by a single actor at a specific moment in time. Task Modelling The technique for developing a model that describes the human activities and task sequences required by a business system.
The task model elaborates the tasks identified by mapping business processes on to specific individuals or workgroups. Technical Option A technical option describes how the business solution may be implemented using information technology.
Use Case Description A use case description defines the interaction between an actor and a use case. A use case model consists of a diagram showing the actors, the boundary of the system, the use cases and the associations between them, plus a set of use case descriptions.
Value Chain A concept developed by Michael Porter to identify the primary and support activities deployed within organisations to deliver value to customers. Workshop An investigation technique whereby a meeting is held with business actors from a range of business areas in order to elicit, analyse or validate information.
An agenda is prepared prior to the workshop and distributed to participants. The workshop is run by a facilitator; actions and decisions are recorded by a scribe.
This new edition reflects this progress and incorporates much new material. The main audience for this book is still practising Business Analysts at all levels. It offers them a wide-ranging source of practical guidance on how to approach business analysis and how to use key techniques. It will therefore appeal to people wanting to improve their understanding of business analysis. The book also supports everyone wanting to achieve industry qualifications in business analysis especially those studying for ISEB qualifications in Business Analysis.
In addition, the book will be useful for business analysis and information systems students at university, and for managers in other Information Systems disciplines who need to understand business analysis. The book includes material drawn from research discussions and conversations with practitioners in business analysis in the UK, Australia, the USA and Canada. Some important additions since the first edition include: The introduction of new analysis techniques now more widely used such as Ishikawa diagrams and spaghetti maps.
An expanded explanation of requirements engineering — now taking up four chapters. More on the process and techniques of investigating business needs. A more detailed treatment of benefits realisation including the use of benefits realisation maps.
Throughout the business world public, private and not for profit organisations face immense challenges. Business Analysts must respond by developing practi- cal, creative and financially sound solutions. Also thanks must go to Alan Paul — husband of Debbie — for reviewing much of the book and improving it.
BCS publications team members Matthew Flynn, Karen Greening and Sarah Woodall made it all come together in the end and their detailed examination of what had been written has, we hope, saved us from embarrassing ourselves too much.
Also, we thank the BCS legal team for their work in protecting copyright. Many of those solutions will involve new or enhanced information systems, but others may have a broader scope incorporating changes to areas such as business processes and job roles.
The reason for producing this book is to provide guidance about business analysis that reflects the breadth of the role and the range of techniques used. What do business analysts do? What skills do they require? How do they add value to organisations? Also, in the absence of a standard definition of business analysis and a standard business analysis process model, problems have arisen: Organisations have introduced business analysis so as to make sure that business needs are paramount when new information technology IT systems are introduced.
However, recognising the importance of this in principle is easier than considering how it might be achieved. Some business analysts were experienced IT systems analysts and have been less comfortable considering the business requirements and the range of potential solutions that would meet those requirements.
Many business analysts come from a business background and have a limited understanding of IT and how computer systems are developed. While knowl- edge of the business is invaluable for business analysts, problems can occur where IT forms part of the solution and the analyst has insufficient under- standing of IT.
This can cause communication difficulties with the developers, and may result in failure to ensure that there is an integrated view of the business and the computer system. Some business analysts, as they have gained in experience and knowledge, have felt that they could offer beneficial advice to their organisations — but a lack of understanding of their role has caused organisations to reject or ignore this advice.
This chapter examines the business analysis discipline and considers how we might define the business analyst role. Much of this book provides guidance on how the various stages in this process model may be carried out. Business analysis work is well defined where there are standard techniques that have been used in projects for many years. In fact, many of these techniques have been in use for far longer than the business analyst role has been in existence. Our aim is to help business analysts carry out their work, to improve the quality of business analysis within organisations and, as a result, to help organisations to adopt business improvements that will ensure their success.
In the past this has been the focus of IT departments. However, as business operations have changed, the emphasis has moved on to the development of new services and products. The use of IT has also created opportunities for organisations to focus on their core processes and competencies without the distraction of the peripheral areas of business. These days, the absence of good information systems would prevent an organisation from developing significant competitive advantage.
Yet for many years there has been a growing dissatisfaction in businesses with the support provided by IT. This has been accompanied by recognition by senior management that IT investment often fails to deliver the required business benefit.
In short, the technology enables the development of information systems, but these often fail to meet the requirements of the business and deliver the service that will bring competitive advantage to the organisation. This situation applies to all sectors, including the public sector. The perception that, all too frequently, information systems do not deliver the predicted benefits continues to be well founded.
They have transferred much of their IT work to specialist service providers. So, in organisations that have outsourced their IT functions, the IT systems are designed and constructed using staff employed by an external supplier. This undoubtedly has advantages both for the organisation purchasing the services and for the specialist supplier.
The latter gains an additional customer and the opportunity to increase turnover and make profit from the contractual arrangement; the customer organisa- tion is no longer concerned with all staffing, infrastructure and support issues and instead pays a specialist provider for delivery of the required service. In theory this approach has much to recommend it, but, as is usually the case, the flaws begin to emerge once the arrangement has been implemented, particularly in the areas of supplier management and communication of requirements.
The issues relating to supplier management are not the subject of this book, and would require a book in their own right. However, we are concerned with the issue of communication between the business and the outsourced development team. The communication and clarification of requirements is key to ensuring the success of any IT system development, but an outsourcing arrangement often complicates the communication process, particularly where there is geographical distance between the developers and the business.
Investigation of the outsourcing business model has identified that, in order to make such arrangements work, new roles are required within the organisation. A study by Feeny and Willcocks listed a number of key skills required within organisations that have outsourced IT. This report specifically identified business systems thinking, a core element of the business analyst role, as a key skill that needs to be retained within organisations operating an outsourcing arrangement. The outsourcing business model has undoubtedly been a catalyst for the development of the business analysis function as more and more organisations recognise the importance of business representation during the development and implementation of IT systems.
Competitive advantage of using IT A parallel development that has helped to increase the profile of business analysis and define the business analyst role has been the growing recognition that three factors need to be present in order for IT systems to deliver competitive advantage. First, the needs of the business must drive the development of the IT systems; second, the implementation of an IT system must be accompanied by the necessary business changes; and third, the requirements for IT systems must be defined with rigour and accuracy.
Successful business change During the last few years organisations have broadened their view from IT projects to business change programmes. Within these programmes, there has been recognition of the need for roles and skill sets that will enable the successful delivery of business change initiatives.
The roles of the programme manager and change manager have been well defined, with a clear statement of their scope and focus within the business change lifecycle.
Figure 1. Later business change activities are concerned with change design and development, business acceptance testing and, after implementation, benefits review and realisation. Clearly, extensive analysis is required here and the nature of this work falls within the remit of business analysis. However, in many organisations a coherent approach to business change, which includes business analysts in the business change lifecycle, is still awaited.
The importance of the business analyst The delivery of predicted business benefits, promised from the implementation of IT, has proved to be extremely difficult, with the outsourcing of IT services serving to add complication to already complex situations.
The potential exists for organisations to implement information systems that yield competitive advantage, and yet this often appears to be just out of reach. Organisations also want help in finding potential solutions to business issues and opportunities, sometimes where IT may not prove to be the answer, but it has become apparent that this requires a new set of skills to support business managers in achieving it. These factors have led directly to the development of the business analyst role.
The importance of delivering the business benefits predicted for business change initiatives has becoming increasingly necessary to the survival of organisations. The use of consultants Many organisations use external consultants to provide expert advice throughout the business change lifecycle. On the other hand, the use of external consultants is often criticised, particularly in public-sector organisations, because of the lack of accountability and the absence of any transfer of skills from the external consultants to internal staff.
Cost is also a key issue. Consultancy firms often charge daily fee rates that are considerably higher than the employment cost for an internal analyst and, whilst the firms may provide consultants who have a broad range of expertise, this is not always guaranteed.
The experiences gained from using external consultants have also played a part in the development of the internal business analysis role. Many business analysts have argued that they can provide the same services as external consultants and can, in effect, operate as internal consultants.
Business Analytics, 2nd Edition. Evans, University of Cincinnati. Description For undergraduate or graduate business students. Content is organized into five parts to guide students through the information: Part 1: Foundations of Business Analytics. The first two chapters provide the basic foundations needed to understand business analytics and Microsoft Excel, and show students how to manipulate data and develop simple spreadsheet models. Part 2: Descriptive Analytics.
Chapters 3 through 7 focus on the fundamental tools and methods of data analysis and statistics, focusing on visual representations of data, descriptive statistical measures, probability distributions and data modeling, sampling and estimation, and statistical inference.
Part 3: Predictive Analytics. Chapters 8 through 12 develop approaches for building and analyzing predictive models, applying regression and forecasting techniques, simulation and risk analysis, and an introduction to data mining. Part 4: Prescriptive Analytics. Chapters 13 through 17 explore linear, integer, and nonlinear optimization models and applications including optimization with uncertainty.
Part 5: Making Decisions. Chapter 18 focuses on philosophies, tools, and techniques of decision analysis. In-text features aid in student understanding: Numbered Examples —these numerous, short examples appear throughout all chapters, illustrating key concepts and techniques. Analytics in Practice —this feature describes real applications in business.
Learning Objectives —this feature lists the goals students should be able to achieve after studying the chapter. Key Terms — these words are bolded within the text and listed at the end of each chapter to assist students as they review the chapter and study for exams.
Key terms and their definitions are contained in the Glossary at the end of the book. End-of-Chapter Problems and Exercises —these problems and exercises help to reinforce the material covered through the chapter. Integrated Case —this case encourages students to think independently and apply the tools at a higher level of learning. Data Sets and Excel Models —these files are used in examples and problems and are available to students at pearsonhighered.
It includes: Risk Solver Pro—This program is a tool for risk analysis, simulation, and optimization in Excel. XLMiner—This program is a data mining add-in for Excel. Premium Solver Platform, a large superset of Premium Solver and by far the most powerful spreadsheet optimizer, with its PSI interpreter for model analysis and five built-in Solver Engines for linear, quadratic, SOCP, mixed-integer, nonlinear, non-smooth and global optimization.
Ability to solve optimization models with uncertainty and recourse decisions, using simulation optimization, stochastic programming, robust optimization, and stochastic decomposition. New integrated sensitivity analysis and decision tree capabilities, developed in cooperation with Prof.
Chris Albright SolverTable , Profs. Mike Middleton TreePlan. A special version of the Gurobi Solver—the ultra-high-performance linear mixed-integer optimizer created by the respected computational scientists at Gurobi Optimization. New to This Edition. So the mean annual growth rate is 0. While the Stivers mutual fund has generated a nice annual return of 7.
To calculate the median, we first sort all 48 commute times in ascending order. Because there are an even number of values 48 , the median is between the 24th and 25th largest values. The 24th largest value is The values MULT function. In Excel, we can find this value using the function VAR. The third quartile is the 75th percentile of the data.
However, in our date the values in both the 36th and 37th positions are Therefore, the 75th percentile is The mean waiting time for patients with the wait-tracking system is The mean waiting time for patients without the wait-tracking system is The standard deviation of waiting time for patients with the wait-tracking system is 9. The standard deviation of waiting time for patients without the wait-tracking system is Wait times for patients with the wait-tracking system are substantiallyshorter than those for patients without the wait-tracking system.
However, some patients with the wait-tracking system still experience long waits. The median number of hours worked for science teachers is The median number of hours worked for English teachers is The box plots show that science teachers spend more hours working per week than English teachers.
The box plot for science teachers also shows that most science teachers work about the same amount of hours; in other words, there is less variability in the number of hours worked for science teachers. Recall that the mean patient wait time without wait-time tracking is Recall that the mean patient wait time with wait-time tracking is Even though the patients had the same wait time, the z—score for the sixth patient in the sample who visited an office with a wait tracking system is much larger because that patient is part of a sample with a smaller mean and a smaller standard deviation.
The z—scores for all patients follow. In other words, we expect that 0. There appears to be a negative linear relationship between the x and y variables.
S function.
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