Responsibilities of the BA
The BA has many responsibilities throughout a project. These include –
- Managing overall solution requirements
- Seeking approval of requirements from the business sponsor
- Producing and/or contributing to key project deliverables
- Documenting the BRD
- Implementing process improvement
Managing overall solution requirements
In managing the overall requirements for the solution, the BA performs several duties, including –
- Determining root causes
- Defining scope
- Defining and modeling requirements
- Validating requirements
- Managing change
- Planning testing
- Producing test scenarios and test cases
Seeking approval of requirements from the business sponsor
The business sponsor is responsible for final approval of all requirements on behalf of the business. The BA ensures the business sponsor reviews and approves all solution requirements.
Producing and/or contributing to key project deliverables
During the business analysis process, the BA often reports directly to the project manager. The project manager is responsible for approval of all plans produced by the BA. The BA contributes to the development of the vision and scope report and the master test plan. The BA contributes to the development of the vision and scope report and the master test plan. The BA is responsible for producing the requirements work plan (RWP) and the BRD.
Documenting the BRD
The BA must have the knowledge necessary to develop to BRD. This requires that the BA be knowledgeable in defining requirements, distinguishing functional from nonfunctional requirements, documenting requirements with business models, and applying techniques to help organize and communicate requirements.
Implementing process improvement
On a process improvement project, the BA is a key member of the process improvement team and often manages the individual phases of the process. This requires that the BA have knowledge and skills in –
- Preparing the business case
- Identifying process management goals in line with business strategy
- Evaluating and documenting existing processes (modeling the AS-IS process)
- Designing and documenting new, improved processes (modeling the TO-BE process)
- Assisting with the planning of the process implementation
- Establishing internal and external process benchmarks
- Re-engineering processes when necessary
The BA as project ambassador
Overall, as a representative of the business, the BA is a project ambassador, bridging the world of the customer and technical team responsible for developing the solution.
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