61FIT3REQ – Software Requirements Analysis
Lecture 3
Business Analysis Process Model
Investigation Techniques
Process Flow Diagram, Feature Tree
Faculty of Information Technology
Hanoi University
AN APPROACH TO PROBLEM SOLVING
Why need a problem solving model?
• BAs are supposed to provide thoughtful solution
ideas to managers
– Often under pressure
– Many BAs find it difficult to do so
Need a framework for understanding problems and
developing creative solutions
– Emphasize the need to investigate and analyze
– Avoid quick, premature, solutions
Understanding the problem
• Mess finding: finding out the complexity of the
problem situation
– Poorly defined problem, ambiguous, many issues
• Data finding: collect information (opinions, concerns,
knowledge, ideas…) and obtain supporting data
– Interview, surveys, activity sampling…
• Problem finding: uncover the heart of the problem
Developing solutions
• Idea finding: generate a wide range of ideas
– Brainstorming, creative thinking techniques…
• Solution finding: evaluate the identified ideas to
select the solution to the problem
– It is important to resist doing this stage early
• Acceptance finding: gaining business acceptance of
the solution
– Ensure that changes are aligned with the business
– Evaluate the feasibility of proposed solution and obtain
approval from the business
The Business Analysis Process Model
An overview framework which is useful for:
- Placing tools and techniques in context
- Determine the most appropriate technique for each situation
Investigate Situation
• Overall understanding
– Interviewing
– Observation
– Workshops
• Detailed (data requirements, process flow…)
– Document analysis
– Scenario analysis
– Prototyping
• Quantifying information
– Record searching
– Surveys
Documenting business situations
• Rich picture / Mind map
– Visualizing the initial investigation of a business
system
• Fishbone diagrams
– Uncover the root causes of problems
• Process modelling
– Useful to find issues with the business processes
Consider Perspectives
• Analyzing stakeholders and their perspectives
on the business situation
• Stakeholders can provide:
– Their views about why problems exist
– What needs to be done to improve the situation
– Where the focus of the business system should lie
• Stakeholder opinions can be very different
Analyze Needs
• Goal: Identify where improvements can be
made.
• Approach: Gap Analysis
– The current system is compared with a desired,
future system
• Analyzing activities
– Input: business activity models
(Business Analysis, 2014, Chapter 6)
• Analyzing business processes
– Input: business process models
(Business Analysis, 2014, Chapter 7)
Evaluate Options
• Goal: Assessment of the potential improvements
identified so far.
– Consider acceptability and feasibility
• Develop ideas for improvements from gap
analysis into detailed business options
– Areas: business processes, job roles, management
structure, IT systems
• Key activities:
– Identify potential options
– Assess feasibility
Define Requirements
• Goal: Gathering and documenting the detailed
requirements.
• Areas of change:
– Business processes
– IT systems
– People & Roles
– Organization structure
• Use models to describe new system/processes
• Requirements engineering approach
• IT system modelling techniques (UML)
Business Analysis
INVESTIGATION TECHNIQUES
Prior Research
• Study website: the quickest and simplest way.
– What the organization does, its products and services
– Its values, branding
– Customer feedbacks & reviews (if available)
• Study company reports:
– Problems can be found
– The target market and strategy intentions
• Study the organization chart
• Study procedure manuals and documentation:
– Can give the current view of the system
– Should not replace proper investigation and analysis
Technique: INTERVIEWS
Objectives
• Meeting stakeholders & establishing a basis
for the business analysis work.
• Finding out the current business situation,
issues and problems
• Discovering different stakeholder perspectives
and priorities
Technique: INTERVIEWS
Advantages
• One-to-one: invaluable for obtaining personal concerns
• Build a relationship with the clients
• Discovering different stakeholder perspectives,
priorities and attitudes
• Can yield important information
• Investigate new areas previously not mentioned
• Collect examples of documents, forms and reports
• Study the client’s working environment
How to prepare for interview
• Who?
• S – Strategic Manager
• Focus:
– Management information
needs
– Agree the approach to the
investigation
– Ensure that the project is
aligned with the business
objectives and strategy
How to prepare for interview
• Who?
• T – Tactical, middle manager
• Focus:
– Issues in performance, targets and management control
– Current processes and functions
– Key people
How to prepare for interview
• Who?
• OP – Operational level, the workers
• Focus:
– Accurate business situation
– Source documents, workflow, bottlenecks
How to prepare for interview
• Why?
• What?
– The items to be discussed during the interview
– The areas you might explore during the interview
• When?
• Where?
Conducting interview
• Personal introduction, explaining purpose.
• Begin by obtaining a context for the information this
interviewee can provide.
• Then, examine each relevant area separately and in
details. Taking notes is essential.
• Summarize the points covered and the actions agreed.
• Explain what happens next & establish further contact.
Business Operation Modeling
PROCESS FLOW DIAGRAM
Process Flow Model
• Describes a business process that will be executed
by people.
• Not to be confused with System Flow Model,
which describes activities that systems execute.
Why Process Flow Model?
• Help software engineers understand
business operations.
– To create solutions that are most beneficial to the
business/organization.
• To model the business’ current work model.
– To analyze and possibly propose changes.
• A basic process step that a user takes,
named with a verb phrase.
• The arrow connects process steps or
other elements to one another,
showing the direction. It might be
labeled with the decision choice.
• The decision splits Process Flows into
different paths.
• The outgoing reference shows that the
flow is moving to another flow.
• The incoming reference indicates that
the flow is resuming from another flow.
• Another process is executed and
bounces back to this flow after that
process ends.
• Swim lanes divide the Process
Flow to show which roles/users
are executing the steps.
• The fork and join symbols
• Fork: the process flow is split into
different paths (without decision)
• Join: different flows meet up at one
point.
• Something external to the process
happens during the process
Example process flow with Swim Lanes
Process flow example 1
Process flow example 2 with external event
Objectives Modeling
FEATURE TREE
Organization of Features
• Example features of a car:
– Number of doors, exterior color, interior color, engine size,
engine type, lights, seat covering material, fuel type, sound
system, video system, cameras...
• You can group these features into:
– Exterior features, engine features, internal features, safety
features, entertainment features...
• Looking more closely
– What is the specific sound system (CD/MP3)?
– What are the types of lights (signals, headlight, fog light)?
Feature Tree
• A feature tree captures the scope of the entire
project in a single model.
• Benefits:
– Help organize features of a software product (e.g. divide
features into groups & levels)
– Identify missing features, remove redundant ones
– Specify more details about a certain feature
• Feature tree is a type of brainstorming technique
(similar to the mind map).
Feature Tree Template
Feature Tree Template
• Feature Tree is usually based on fishbone
diagram.
• Feature Tree can be created using any mind-
mapping tool.
• Feature Tree creation process:
– Identify features
– Organize features
– Draw the feature tree
– Look for missing features to complete it
Further Reading
• Debra Paul, James Cadle, Donald Yeates
(2014). Business Analysis, 3rd Edition. BCS, The
Chartered Institute for IT.
– Chapter 5 – Investigation Techniques
• Joy Beatty and Anthony Chen (2012). Visual Models
for Software Requirements. Microsoft Press.
– Chapter 6 – Feature Tree
– Chapter 9 – Process Flow
