CPIT BA cheat sheet

Stakeholder analysis dimensions: authority, influence, impact, attitude, and interest; the stakeholder matrix plots influence against interest to select engagement approach.

Plan Business Analysis Approach inputs include business need, expert judgment, and organizational process assets; the approach may be predictive, adaptive, or a hybrid.

Stakeholder engagement plan defines roles, responsibilities, communication frequency, and escalation paths; RACI is a common responsibility-assignment model.

Business analysis governance covers decision-making authority, change control, requirement prioritization, and approval levels.

Business analysis information management plan specifies how requirements are stored, traced, reused, and accessed; the traceability repository structure is defined here.

Performance metrics for BA work include requirement rework rate, stakeholder satisfaction, defect leakage from requirements, and time to approval.

Risk of inadequate BA planning: missed stakeholders, rework, scope creep, and late discovery of conflicting requirements.

Plan Business Analysis Information Management includes level of abstraction, formats, and traceability granularity.

Identify Business Analysis Performance Improvements uses measures, assessments, and corrective actions; root-cause analysis distinguishes process from people causes.

Elicitation is not gathering requirements; it is drawing out information through preparation, conduct, confirmation, communication, and collaboration activities.

Prepare for Elicitation: define scope, select techniques, schedule logistics, and secure stakeholder availability before the session.

Conduct Elicitation techniques include interviews, workshops, observation (job shadowing), document analysis, prototyping, surveys, and focus groups.

Confirm Elicitation Results checks that captured information matches stakeholder intent; validated results become formal requirements or design inputs.

Communicate Business Analysis Information requires choosing format and level of detail appropriate to audience; formal vs. informal and written vs. verbal are key decisions.

Manage Stakeholder Collaboration uses ongoing engagement, not one-time elicitation; track participation and address concerns early.

Workshop facilitation rules: define purpose and agenda, use a neutral facilitator, capture decisions and actions, and confirm outcomes with participants.

Observation is preferred when stakeholders cannot articulate workflow; document analysis is preferred for existing system rules and legacy constraints.

Elicitation risks: stakeholder availability, hidden agendas, confirmation bias, and incomplete domain knowledge.

Traceability types: backward (requirement to source), forward (requirement to design and test), and requirement-to-requirement (derive, depend, satisfy).

Requirements attributes typically include ID, description, source, priority, status, owner, complexity, and acceptance criteria.

Prioritization techniques include MoSCoW, time-boxing, weighted ranking, and business value scoring; priority must reflect stakeholder agreement.

Change management process: log request, assess impact (scope, schedule, cost, risk), approve or reject, update baselines, and communicate.

Requirements baseline is approved and placed under change control; changes after baseline require formal impact analysis.

Maintain Requirements ensures requirements and attributes stay current; Reuse Requirements applies existing requirements to new contexts after gap analysis.

Approve Requirements requires authority and consensus; approval criteria must be defined in the BA approach.

Requirement states commonly include proposed, approved, implemented, verified, deferred, and rejected.

Impact analysis examines dependencies, affected stakeholders, test coverage, and downstream design elements.

Analyze Current State uses techniques such as SWOT, root-cause analysis, capability assessment, and process modeling to establish the baseline.

Define Future State aligns goals, objectives, and constraints with the enterprise vision; gap analysis compares current and future states.

Business objectives should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Assess Risks identifies uncertainties that could affect value delivery; risk response options are avoid, mitigate, transfer, accept, and exploit.

Define Change Strategy compares solution options against cost, benefit, risk, and feasibility; it selects the recommended transition approach.

SWOT analysis pairs internal strengths and weaknesses with external opportunities and threats; it informs strategy but does not by itself select a solution.

Gap analysis output includes missing capabilities, process changes, and organizational impacts needed to reach the future state.

Strategy Analysis outputs feed Requirements Analysis and Design Definition; they do not replace solution design.

Enterprise constraints include budget, regulation, technology standards, and organizational policy.

Requirements classification schemes include business, stakeholder, solution, and transition requirements; functional vs. nonfunctional is a separate axis.

Model types: process models (BPMN), data models (ERD), use cases, user stories, state diagrams, and decision tables; each serves a specific analysis purpose.

Verify Requirements checks quality (complete, consistent, unambiguous, testable); Validate Requirements checks alignment with business goals.

Requirements prioritization must consider dependencies, risk, and value; not all high-value items are high-priority if prerequisites are missing.

Design options are evaluated using trade-off criteria such as cost, time, risk, and alignment with architecture standards.

Solution design components include solution scope, business rules, data, interfaces, and user interaction.

Acceptance criteria define conditions a solution must satisfy; they are distinct from design specifications.

Use case includes actors, preconditions, main flow, alternate flows, and postconditions; it captures functional behavior.

Nonfunctional requirements categories include performance, security, usability, reliability, and maintainability.

Solution Evaluation measures whether a delivered solution meets business need and delivers expected value; it can occur before or after full deployment.

Measure Solution Performance uses metrics defined in the business case; baselines are required to interpret results.

Solution limitations are internal to the solution (defects, design gaps); enterprise limitations are external (policy, process, capability).

Assess Proposed Solution options by comparing performance against acceptance criteria and business objectives.

Recommend Actions to Increase Solution Value may include adjusting the solution, changing the enterprise, or retiring the solution.

Root-cause analysis distinguishes symptom from cause; the five-whys and fishbone diagram are common tools.

Performance metrics must be traceable to business objectives; otherwise results cannot support value judgments.

Evaluation results feed back into Requirements Analysis and Strategy Analysis when gaps are found.

Operational assessment includes usability, maintainability, and total cost of ownership.

Core concept model: Change, Need, Solution, Stakeholder, Value, and Context; each concept relates to the others and must be considered together.

Business analysis is the practice of enabling change by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.

Stakeholder is any individual or group with a relationship to the change, need, or solution; stakeholders may be internal or external.

Value is the worth, importance, or usefulness of something to a stakeholder within a context; value is subjective and context-dependent.

Context is the circumstances that influence and are influenced by the change; it includes organizational, technical, and environmental factors.

BA competencies include analytical thinking, communication, facilitation, negotiation, leadership, and business knowledge.

Underlying competencies include behavioral characteristics, business knowledge, and communication skills; they support the execution of BA tasks.

Requirement is a usable representation of a need; design is a usable representation of a solution.

The BA role may be performed by many titles; the core concept model is independent of job title.