Chapter 5- Investigating the work- By Hassan Kamara
Formality guide
Rabbit: Within rabbit projects, teams are most likely to view the work to be done in smaller slices. Teams will have to understand the work that is in front of them and understand the work that must be done thoroughly. Rabbit projects require minimal stakeholders and documentation. the process in rabbit projects is based on a cycle that repeats itself.
Horse: Horse projects will definitely have more stakeholders and will require much more documentation. These projects usually dive into the critical infrastructure systems so understanding the work and the knowledge of the work is very important. Horse projects make good use of Apprenticing, interviewing and use case workshops.
Elephant: Elephant projects have a very large number of stakeholders and because of this it is important to have a good knowledge and understanding of the goals and the work of the project. Elephant projects require trawling due to the high number of stakeholders and documentation during this is very important. If a project uses outsourcing it will be an elephant project and if any artifacts that are produced during the investigation of the work should be kept for future maintenance.
Trawl for Knowledge: When trawling for knowledge as a BA, one of your first tasks is investigating the work and understanding it as well. After you have come to an understanding then you can start to get the essential view by stripping away current tech to get a clean look at the business. The trawling activity makes use of the outputs from the project blastoff, the project goals, the scope of the work and the constraints to come up with a solution.
Brown Cow: The brown cow model is a specific model that shows 4 view points of the work to be done. The four views are; What, how, now and future.
The How-Now section is often the place to start because it shows how the work is currently being implemented including the people, physical artifacts and process used to do the work. the how now is used when you need to get a good grounding to begin asking other questions. the What-Now section is above the How Now and it shows the business policy otherwise known as the essence of the work. The What now is used to clean out our ideas on what the business is currently doing without interrupting it by referring to physical artifacts and processers that could end up not being implemented. The Future-What section shows the view of the business as the owner would want it to be minus the technology that would be used to implement the business. The future what is used because it shows what the owner would want to do without the worry of how the technology would do it. Finally the Future-How section simply shows your ideal view of the future business policy and implement it with the technology and people needed to bring it to life.
Apprenticing: Apprenticing is a lot like job shadowing for a BA. The BA will sit in the position of the client/ user and in some cases do the work of said client/user. during this time the BA will ask lots of questions to gain a better understanding and those questions will lead to more questions which might not be answered by just one person, in that case the BA should get more input on the subject.
BUC Workshops: The BUC workshops are one of the most common requirements gathering tools. This tool is best suited for changes that are fundamental and that look at outcomes. to prepare for BUC workshop a BA needs to Identify the topic, Identify the stakeholders that will participate, share the agenda/ interview questions that will be asked as well as the room, collect sample reports and spreadsheets and/or dashboards, establish an online data sharing location and confirm who will be a part of the workshop facilitation team.
Rabbit: Within rabbit projects, teams are most likely to view the work to be done in smaller slices. Teams will have to understand the work that is in front of them and understand the work that must be done thoroughly. Rabbit projects require minimal stakeholders and documentation. the process in rabbit projects is based on a cycle that repeats itself.
Horse: Horse projects will definitely have more stakeholders and will require much more documentation. These projects usually dive into the critical infrastructure systems so understanding the work and the knowledge of the work is very important. Horse projects make good use of Apprenticing, interviewing and use case workshops.
Elephant: Elephant projects have a very large number of stakeholders and because of this it is important to have a good knowledge and understanding of the goals and the work of the project. Elephant projects require trawling due to the high number of stakeholders and documentation during this is very important. If a project uses outsourcing it will be an elephant project and if any artifacts that are produced during the investigation of the work should be kept for future maintenance.
Trawl for Knowledge: When trawling for knowledge as a BA, one of your first tasks is investigating the work and understanding it as well. After you have come to an understanding then you can start to get the essential view by stripping away current tech to get a clean look at the business. The trawling activity makes use of the outputs from the project blastoff, the project goals, the scope of the work and the constraints to come up with a solution.
Brown Cow: The brown cow model is a specific model that shows 4 view points of the work to be done. The four views are; What, how, now and future.
The How-Now section is often the place to start because it shows how the work is currently being implemented including the people, physical artifacts and process used to do the work. the how now is used when you need to get a good grounding to begin asking other questions. the What-Now section is above the How Now and it shows the business policy otherwise known as the essence of the work. The What now is used to clean out our ideas on what the business is currently doing without interrupting it by referring to physical artifacts and processers that could end up not being implemented. The Future-What section shows the view of the business as the owner would want it to be minus the technology that would be used to implement the business. The future what is used because it shows what the owner would want to do without the worry of how the technology would do it. Finally the Future-How section simply shows your ideal view of the future business policy and implement it with the technology and people needed to bring it to life.
Apprenticing: Apprenticing is a lot like job shadowing for a BA. The BA will sit in the position of the client/ user and in some cases do the work of said client/user. during this time the BA will ask lots of questions to gain a better understanding and those questions will lead to more questions which might not be answered by just one person, in that case the BA should get more input on the subject.
BUC Workshops: The BUC workshops are one of the most common requirements gathering tools. This tool is best suited for changes that are fundamental and that look at outcomes. to prepare for BUC workshop a BA needs to Identify the topic, Identify the stakeholders that will participate, share the agenda/ interview questions that will be asked as well as the room, collect sample reports and spreadsheets and/or dashboards, establish an online data sharing location and confirm who will be a part of the workshop facilitation team.
Thanks for providing this information. In addition, i would like to add some more information regarding our project Scotia pay app. Our project lies in Horse formality guide. Horse projects are probably the most common corporate projects—they are the “halfway house” of formality. Horse projects need some formality—it is likely that there is a need for written requirements so that they can be handed from one department to another. Horse projects have medium longevity and involve more than a dozen stakeholders, often in several locations, factors that necessitate consistently written documentation.
ReplyDeleteSome important techniques to help with the task of studying the business were mention in this post. I would add Interviewing the Stakeholders that is also an important technique and will certainly be used a lot to gather requirements in Scotia Pay application project. This tool is commonly employed and relies on the interviewee to know the necessary knowledge about the work. The Business use case is the ideal unit of work to interview someone about and it is recommended to use the Brown Cow view-points as triggers for asking the right questions.
ReplyDeleteThis is good information. I would like to add that business analyst perform many tasks in trawling as they observe and learn the work, interpret the work and record the results in the form of stakeholder-understandable analysis models. So, for the scotia pay project, Business analyst can use this model analysis to provide understanding to other stakeholders as this is a common technique to communicate with stakeholders.
ReplyDeleteThanks to have this information, with addition to the mind map I thought which is also a very important thing, A mind map is a blend of drawing and content that endeavors to speak to data similarly as your cerebrum does. The mind map emulates your cerebrum stockpiling component by utilizing joins between the words and pictures that speak to the data. Mind maps are valuable gadgets for sorting out your musings. You can see the aftereffect of your speculation in one outline—you get a diagram and subtleties simultaneously—with each of your subtopics coaxed out to show uniqueness and associations. The mind map gives enough data—appeared as catchphrases and connections between those watchwords—for you to get the general picture
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