PMI-PBA flashcards
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32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Business Need
- A documented problem or opportunity expressed as a gap between current and desired business performance, which justifies initiating a change and must be validated before requirements work begins.
- Current State Assessment
- Analysis of the organization's existing processes, systems, culture, and capabilities to establish a baseline against which the future state and the resulting gap are measured.
- Gap Analysis
- A comparison of current state and future state that identifies what is missing or must change; the gap is the measured difference between present performance and desired performance.
- Root Cause Analysis
- A technique such as 5 Whys or a fishbone diagram used to identify the underlying cause of a problem rather than its symptoms, so the recommended option addresses the real issue.
- Future State Definition
- A description of the desired business outcomes, processes, and capabilities stated as measurable goals the organization intends to reach; it anchors solution scope and success metrics.
- Options Analysis
- Evaluation of alternative solutions against criteria such as cost, benefit, risk, feasibility, and time to value, producing a ranked recommendation with documented rationale for the sponsor.
- SWOT Analysis
- A situational assessment listing internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats, used during needs assessment to frame organizational context and constraints.
- Business Analysis Plan
- The document describing how BA work will be performed: scope, deliverables, techniques, schedule, stakeholders, communication approach, prioritization approach, traceability approach, and change control.
- Stakeholder Power/Interest Grid
- A classification of stakeholders by authority and level of interest; high power with high interest is managed closely, while high power with low interest is kept satisfied.
- Requirements Management Plan
- A plan defining how requirements will be elicited, documented, prioritized, traced, approved, baselined, and changed, including the tools, roles, and decision authority involved.
- Governance Structure
- The defined decision rights, approval thresholds, and escalation paths for requirements and changes, clarifying who may approve, reject, or defer a decision.
- Three-Point Estimation
- A estimating formula where expected value equals (optimistic + 4 times most likely + pessimistic) divided by 6; used when effort or duration is uncertain.
- Stakeholder Engagement Levels
- A scale describing stakeholder commitment - typically unaware, resistant, neutral, supportive, and leading - used to plan targeted communication and engagement activities.
- Business Requirement
- A high-level statement of organizational need or objective explaining why a solution is being pursued, and which is satisfied by one or more stakeholder requirements.
- Nonfunctional Requirement
- A solution quality or constraint such as performance, security, usability, or availability that describes how well the system must behave rather than what it must do.
- MoSCoW Prioritization
- A ranking method that sorts requirements into Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have this time, used to fix scope within a fixed timebox.
- Requirements Verification
- Confirmation that a requirement is well written, complete, consistent, unambiguous, and testable - that it was documented correctly, not that it reflects the real need.
- Requirements Validation
- Confirmation that documented requirements and models accurately represent stakeholder needs and will deliver the intended business value, often confirmed through reviews, prototypes, or walkthroughs.
- Decision Table
- A modeling technique that maps combinations of conditions to resulting actions, useful for specifying complex rule-driven business logic with many interacting conditions.
- Acceptance Criteria
- Testable conditions a solution must satisfy to be accepted by stakeholders, often written as Given/When/Then scenarios and traceable to specific requirements.
- Requirements Traceability Matrix
- A table linking each requirement to its source, rationale, priority, design component, test case, and status, enabling impact analysis and verification of completeness.
- Backward Traceability
- Links from a requirement back to the business need or stakeholder request that justified it, used to confirm that every requirement has a valid source.
- Forward Traceability
- Links from a requirement to solution components, test cases, and deliverables, used to confirm that each requirement is designed, built, and tested.
- Change Control Board
- The group with authority to approve, reject, or defer requested requirement changes after baseline, acting on documented impact analysis of scope, cost, schedule, and risk.
- Requirements Baseline
- The approved, agreed-upon set of requirements and models at a point in time, against which subsequent changes are compared and controlled through formal change management.
- Impact Analysis
- Assessment of a proposed change against affected requirements, designs, test cases, scope, schedule, cost, quality, and risk, performed before a change decision is made.
- Solution Evaluation
- Assessment of a deployed or piloted solution against expected business outcomes and acceptance criteria to determine whether it delivers the intended value.
- Formative Evaluation
- Evaluation performed while the solution is still being developed or piloted, intended to surface issues early and guide corrective adjustments before full deployment.
- Summative Evaluation
- Evaluation performed after the solution is fully deployed, measuring actual results against expected benefits, acceptance criteria, and the original business objectives.
- Return on Investment
- ROI equals (total benefits minus total costs) divided by total costs, usually expressed as a percentage; used to compare alternatives or justify an investment.
- Benefits Realization
- The process of tracking whether planned business benefits actually occur after deployment; a named benefit owner is accountable and results may trigger corrective action.
- Post-Implementation Review
- A structured review after deployment that compares actual performance with the business case, records lessons learned, and recommends sustainment, adjustment, or retirement of the solution.