Introduction

• Aligning potential project initiatives with strategic goals
• Adding an enterprise edge to intrinsic business analysis skills
• Applying Business Analysis Body of Knowledge^® (BABOK^®) principles to organizational initiatives
• Moving an initiative from inception to project charter

Constructing an Effective Framework

Increasing the value of the business analyst

• Positioning the role of the business analyst in an organization
• Guiding enterprise-wide analysis of business initiatives

Maintaining strategic focus

• Deriving themes from goals and priorities
• Linking goals with balanced scorecard measurements

Creating essential context for analysis

• The five enterprise architectures: Business, Application, Information, Technology and Security
• Constructing a comprehensive analysis platform

Applying the Zachman framework

• Planner
• Owner
• Designer
• Builder
• Subcontractor
• Functioning enterprise

Capitalizing on New Ideas

Identifying the business need

• Advancing business goals through new project concepts
• Choosing a project aligned with organizational demands

Characterizing strategic risks

• Defining the problem and the organizational impacts
• Revealing underlying architecture issues
• Diagramming flowcharts and cause/effect analyses

Analyzing opportunities

• Growing the opportunity tree
• Framing possibilities from a business perspective
• Mapping opportunities to risk and reward

Gauging Feasibility

Viability for the go/no-go decision

• Strategic Fit Assessment
• Sizing business analysis efforts using project features

Processing the six steps in feasibility

• Requirements
• Scope
• Current State
• Options
• Viability
• Results
• Creating a strategic gap matrix

Prioritizing and ranking high-impact initiatives

• The High Five of Viability
• Establishing and applying critical ranking criteria

Defining Initial Scope

Putting boundaries in place

• Asking who, what, when, why, where and how
• Predicting initiative costs and schedule with estimating techniques

Communicating visually

• Documenting the boundaries
• Getting that critical sign-off

Making the Business Case

Providing the foundation for decision making

• Summarizing captured knowledge
• Clarifying initiative importance and impact
• Justifying the planned direction

Quantitative: Working the numbers

• Channeling your inner accountant
• Working with financial models to evaluate a solution
• Showing ROI and projected payback

Qualitative: Going beyond the numbers

• Evaluating external macro analysis factors
• Aligning internal activities with external realities using SWOT
• Making better decisions with Six Hat Thinking

Strategic factors and scenarios

• Distinguishing between enterprise risk and project risk
• Six areas of risk present in every organization
• Exploring initiatives based on modern portfolio theory

Transitioning from Business Case to Approved Project

Proceeding to the next level

• Maintaining the enterprise perspective throughout the project phases
• Recruiting an effective business analysis team
• Prioritizing the must-do tasks

Initiating the project

• Synthesizing the efforts of project management and business analysis
• Laying the foundation through the project charter