100+ Key Business Analysis Concept
Explained
1 Active listening- A competency enabling both listening and interpreting
what other people are communicating beyond just words.
2 Activity -A unit of work performed to complete a step, effect a change,
or respond to an event.
3 Agile - The division of work into small iterative tasks with the ability to
rapidly adapt to changing circumstances.
4 Analytical Thinking- A rapid assimilation of information to identify
relevance.
5 Assumption -An unconfirmed theory or belief that can influence a
requirement or solution.
6 Attribute - Information about a written requirement, such as the source
or importance of the requirement.
7 BABOK® Guide - Business Analysis Body of Knowledge®.
8 BACCM™-Business Analysis Core Concept Model™.
9 Backlog Management — A technique used to record, track, and
prioritize outstanding work items.
10 Balanced Scorecard — A technique used to manage performance of
various business models, business processes, and organizational
structures.
11 Baseline — A reference point for requirements comparison in the
future, based on the state of reviewed requirements at a particular point
in time.
12 Benchmark — A set of best practices found in competitor
organizations, government, or industry associations that can be used to
verify compliance and assess relative performance.
13 Brainstorming — An elicitation technique in which members of a team
spontaneously share ideas and solve problems.
14 Business acumen — A competency enabling the understanding of
business needs through past experience and knowledge gained.
15 Business analysis — The set of tasks and techniques used to identify
and analyze the needs of an organization and, through communication
among stakeholders, recommend solutions that enable the organization
to achieve its goals.
16 Business analysis approach — The activities, processes, and templates
that will be used to perform business analysis work on a particular
initiative.
17 Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® — Abbreviated as BABOK, The
most credible and authoritative source of knowledge and source of best
practices for the business analysis profession.
18 Business analysis communications plan — A documented description
of how, when, and why the business analyst will communicate with
stakeholders, including the form those communications will take. See also
business analysis.
19 Business Analysis Core Concept Model™ — Abbreviated as BACCM™, a
business analysis model comprised of six core concepts that provide a
common meaning when discussing business analysis and its relationships.
20 Business analysis plan — A document identifying and scheduling the
activities and resources required to produce an accurate and complete set
of requirements related to a solution. See also business analysis.
21 Business analyst — An expert who studies requirements and
recommends appropriate business actions.
22 Business architecture — An enterprise model that illustrates how
stakeholders’ strategic concerns are met and supports the ongoing
business transformation.
23 Business case — The justification for undertaking or continuing a
project in terms of associated costs and benefits.
24 Business goal — A state or condition an organization must satisfy to
achieve its vision.
25 Business intelligence — Data transformed into valuable information
that supports business decision making.
26 Business model canvas — A technique used to describe the rationale
for requirements.
27 Business process management — Focuses on the optimization of crossfunctional processes to maximize value across the whole organization.
28 Business requirement — A condition that will enable an organization
to improve service, increase revenue, meet regulatory requirements, or
avoid costs.
29 Business rule — A specific, actionable, and testable directive that is
under the control of the organization and supports an organizational
policy.
30 Business rules — Policies and rules that guide day-to-day business
operations.
31 Business rules analysis — Involves the capture, expression and
validation of business rules and refining them to align with business goals
that can be managed and reused.
32 Capability — A function of an organization that enables it to achieve a
business goal or objective; the ability of a process to achieve an objective;
or the ability of a system to achieve a goal.
33 CBAP® — see Certified Business Analysis Professional™.
34 Certified Business Analysis Professional™ — the professional
certification for individuals with extensive business analysis experience.
35 Checklist — A standard set of quality elements used to verify and
validate requirements.
36 Collaborative games — A group technique that encourages
participants to collaborate via an elicitation activity.
37 Competency — An individual’s ability to perform a task or action and
successfully generate the desired outcome.
38 Concept modelling — A technique that organizes business vocabulary
for consistent communication.
39 Conceptual thinking — A competency that enables the understanding
of links between contexts, solutions, needs, changes, stakeholders, and
value in the bigger picture.
40 Constraint — A limitation imposed on a solution which may restrict the
implementation of requirements.
41 Context — A core concept that defines circumstances that influence, or
are influenced by, and provide an understanding of the change.
42 Core concept — Any of the business analysis fundamental ideas:
change, need, solution, context, stakeholder, and value.
43 Creative thinking — A competency that enables the generation of new
ideas, concepts, and connections using existing information.
44 Current state — The present set of circumstances.
45 Customer — A stakeholder who uses the products or services of an
organization.
46 Data dictionary — A collection of standardized definitions of data
elements for common interpretation.
47 Data flow diagram — A representation of the flow of data into a
process, the activities that process the data, and how the output is used.
48 Data mining — A technique that searches for useful patterns and
insights in data to improve decision making.
49 Data model — A representation of data objects and their relationships
that provides a common set of semantics for analysis and implementation.
50 Decision analysis — An approach used to make effective decisions
when conditions are uncertain; involves studying the potential
consequences of various decisions.
51 Define Design Options — The exercise of defining the solution
approach, opportunities for improvements, and requirements allocation to
achieve the future state.
52 Document analysis — A means of eliciting requirements by extracting
relevant information from the documentation of an existing system.
53 Domain SME — Abbreviation for domain subject matter expert.
54 Domain subject matter expert — Abbreviated as domain SME, a
person with specific expertise in or in-depth knowledge of a field related to
the business need or solution scope.
55 Elicitation — The activity of identifying sources of requirements and
then gathering requirements from those sources.
56 Estimation — A technique used to forecast future costs and benefits.
57 Evaluation (of solutions) — An assessment of a solution to determine
its status and efficacy in meeting objectives.
58 Evaluation (of requirements) — A means of ensuring that
requirements are stated clearly enough to devise a set of tests that can
prove that the requirements have been met.
59 Facilitation — A competency enabling the skillful moderation of
discussions and meetings.
60 Financial analysis — A technique used to measure the financial return
of possible options.
61 Focus group — An interactive group facilitated by a moderator to elicit
ideas, attitudes, and preferences about a specific product, service, or
opportunity.
62 Functional decomposition — A technique used to facilitate
understanding of a problem by dividing it into its component parts.
63 Functional requirements — The outcomes of a solution, product, or
service that are expected by its users.
64 Future state — A description of the future set of circumstances
expected after transitioning from the current state.
65 Gap analysis — An exercise that identifies the differences between the
current state and the desired future state.
66 Glossary — A depository of business term definitions.
67 IIBA® — International Institute of Business Analysis™.
68 Impact analysis — An assessment of the effects that a proposed
change will have on a project, system, or stakeholders.
69 Implementation SME — Abbreviation for implementation subject
matter expert.
70 Implementation subject matter expert — Abbreviated to
implementation SME, a stakeholder whose expertise enables him or her to
design, develop, and implement changes to a solution, as well as
determine the difficulty of implementing requirements or changes.
71 Initiative — Any work undertaken with a defined goal or objective.
72 International Institute of Business Analysis™ — International
nonprofit business analyst association responsible for developing and
maintaining standards for business analysis and administering the BA’s
certification.
73 Interview — A technique used to elicit information about requirements
from stakeholders by asking relevant questions.
74 Item tracking — A technique used to ensure that outstanding issues
are tracked and resolved.
75 Key performance indicator — Abbreviated as KPI, a metric used to
evaluate the quality of requirements.
76 Knowledge area — Any of the six groups of related tasks that support
a key function of business analysis: Business Analysis Planning and
Monitoring, Elicitation and Collaboration, Requirements Life Cycle
Management, Strategy Analysis, Requirements Analysis and Design
Definition, and Solution Evaluation.
77 KPI — Abbreviation for key performance indicator.
78 Learning — Understanding new information and modifying existing
knowledge to effectively adapt to changing environments.
79 Lessons learned — The process of documenting successes,
opportunities, failures, and recommendations for improving future
projects.
80 Market analysis — A technique used to understand what customers
want and the competitive position of the organization in the market.
81 Metric — A measurable level of an indicator that an organization
wants to achieve at a particular time.
82 Mind mapping — A note-taking technique that captures ideas and
thoughts in a diagram.
83 Model — A physical representation of a subject, such as a process or
requirement, used to illustrate information.
84 Need — A problem or opportunity faced by an organization, or the
impact a solution should have on its environment.
85 Negotiation and conflict resolution — A competency enabling
mediation between groups to assist them in recognizing differences and
reaching agreements.
86 Nonfunctional requirement — Quality attributes or quality of service
requirements that are associated with systems, processes, and people
aspects of solutions. They are used to identify constraints on
requirements, describe quality attributes of a solution and augment a
solution’s functional requirements.
87 Observation — A means of determining requirements by assessing a
stakeholder’s work environment.
88 Operational support — A team of stakeholders who support end users
and help to maintain an implemented solution on an ongoing basis.
89 Organization — A clearly defined autonomous unit within an
enterprise that works toward a particular goal or set of goals.
90 Organizational modelling — A technique used to align roles,
responsibilities, and the reporting structure to the organizational goals.
91 Prioritization — The process of ranking items or activities according to
their importance to determine the order in which to address them.
92 Process analysis — A technique used to assess the efficiency and
effectiveness of a process and to help identify possible areas for
improvement.
93 Project — The work done to implement a solution, which results in a
unique product, service, or outcome.
94 Project charter — A document that formally approves a project and
authorizes the application of organizational resources to the project.
95 Project manager — The stakeholder who manages the work required
to implement a solution.
96 Project scope — The extent of the work that needs to be done to
implement a solution in line with specified features and functions.
97 Prototyping — The creation of a partial or preliminary working model
of a system.
98 Quality — The degree to which an outcome, product, or service
satisfies specified requirements.
99 Regulator — A stakeholder responsible for the definition and
enforcement of standards, including legal and governance regulations.
100 Relationship — The connection between entities or concepts.
101 Requirement — A condition or capability that is desired in a product
or system; the formal, documented version of such a condition or
capability.
102 Requirements allocation — The process of assigning requirements to
systems and components.
103 Requirements architecture — The interrelationship between the
various requirements of an initiative.
104 Requirements management — The process of controlling
requirements development, including attribute definition, traceability, and
change control.
105 Requirements management tool — A software application used to
capture requirements, attributes, and associations, store requirements
information, and generate requirements reports.
106 Requirements sign-off — Formal approval of a set of requirements by
a stakeholder who has the authority to do so, such as a sponsor.
107 Requirements traceability — The ability to track a requirement’s
derivation, allocation, and relationship to other requirements.
108 Requirements validation — The process of confirming that the stated
requirements are aligned with the goals and objectives of the
organization.
109 Requirements verification — The process of evaluating requirements
to ensure correct definition and quality so they can be used as reliable
points of reference during the design, development, and implementation
of the solution.
110 Risk — The chance that either a positive or a negative event or
condition would influence the objectives of a proposed change.
111 Risk analysis and management — A technique to identify risk and find
ways of limiting or eliminating any negative impact.
112 Risk tolerance — The amount of risk that a stakeholder is willing to
accept for a potential return of value.
113 Roles and permissions matrix — A tool used to identify stakeholders
and assess their interests and probable participation.
114 Root cause analysis — A technique used to identify and address
underlying problems rather than treating the symptoms alone.
115 Scope — The extent of an activity or process. See also project scope
and solution scope.
116 Sequence diagram — A model of how processes operate and interact
with one another.
117 SME — Abbreviation for subject matter expert.
118 Solution requirement — An aspect of a solution that meets both the
business and stakeholder requirements.
119 Solution scope — The work done to resolve a problem or take
advantage of an opportunity in order to meet a business need.
120 Sponsor — A stakeholder with the authority to approve a project by
contracting or paying for the project.
121 Stakeholder — An identified person who has an interest in or
influence over a solution.
122 Stakeholder analysis — The process of identifying stakeholders and
assessing their interests and probable participation.
123 Stakeholder list, roles, and responsibilities — A list of stakeholders
affected by a solution that also documents the stakeholders’ respective
roles and responsibilities. This list is an outcome of the stakeholder
analysis process.
124 Stakeholder requirement — A statement of a need of a stakeholder,
including the stakeholder’s involvement with the proposed solution.
125 State modelling — A technique that describes different possible
states of an entity within a system.
126 Subject matter expert — Abbreviated as SME, a stakeholder with
specific expertise related to a need or the requirements and potential
solutions to meet that need.
127 Supplier — A stakeholder who provides products or services to an
organization.
128 Survey — An elicitation technique that uses questionnaires to gather
information from large groups of stakeholders in a short period of time.
129 SWOT analysis — A model used to understand factors that might
influence a solution. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats.
130 Systems thinking — A competency that enables the holistic
consideration of a system rather than just its components.
131 Technique — A method that defines how a business analysis task is to
be performed or describes the form that the output of a task is to take.
132 Tester — A stakeholder who studies and uses a software application
to assess its quality and identify errors.
133 Transition requirement — A requirement related to the capabilities
that a solution must have to successfully transition the enterprise from its
current state to its intended future state.
134 Use case — A model that describes a system in terms of the tasks it
will perform and what those tasks will achieve for the stakeholders.
135 User — A stakeholder, system, or system component that interacts
with a solution.
136 User story — An informal description of functionality needed to
deliver value to a specific stakeholder.
137 Validated requirement — A requirement that delivers value to the
organization and supports its goals and objectives.
138 Variance — The difference between expected outcomes and actual
outcomes.
139 Vendor assessment — A technique used to determine if a vendor can
meet its commitments.
140 Verified requirement — A requirement that is cohesive, complete,
consistent, correct, feasible, modifiable, unambiguous, and testable.
141 Viewpoint — A set of conventions that define how requirements are
represented, organized and related.
142 Visual thinking — A competency enabling the graphical
representation of concepts or systems.
143 WBS — Abbreviation for work breakdown structure.
144 Work breakdown structure — Abbreviated as WBS, a method of
defining the total scope of a project by organizing the work hierarchically
according to objectives and required deliverables.
145 Workshop — A structured meeting, guided by a neutral facilitator, to
define and refine requirements.