Hi All,
I've been in the BA world for about 6 months now. I find myself struggling with asking the right question(s). My approach to any subject matter is to ask questions that'll assist me in my quest to understand what the underlying requirement(s) may be, but going back to the drawing board I find myself not having grasped the concept like I thought I did.
What I'm trying to ask here is, how does one shape his/her questioning to fully understand what the client needs?
TshegoP,
Funnily enough I was thinking about this earlier this year and started the following list which is in rough sequence order and shows the questions to be asked and the way the answers could be analysed.
I am sure there are more combinations of questions/analysis to add but it is a start...
high level functional requirements
there are also this article I have written called the Fundamentals of Business Analysis which shows all the components you need in order to do analysis...
Guy
It all depends on how much you get to talk to the client.
First things first - Ask them to describe their situation at the completion of the successful project with a focus on the systems you are going to tool around with. That is a great place to start because its gives you a feel for their expectations. And it helps you start to define criteria for success.
The second point is that at the beginning of the discovery process you need to ask a lot of open ended questions to get them talking. Later on in the late part of the discovery process your questions will be closed (with simple yes or no type answers.) This is where they are veryifying that you have correctly understood their problem and articulated the right sort of requirements for them.
Don't forget the ubiquitous 5 Ws (What, Where, When, Who, Why) and the H (How).
There is also a technique called the 5 Whys which is good for digging depper into issues.
There is a lot more in this topic, but there are some braod tips for you.
Hi:
Great question! Functional analysis drives data analysis (i.e., it is primarily functional analysis that leads discovery - data is inert). And a function is typically defined by its inputs and outputs. So - focus on modeling (modeling adds rigor) functions and their inputs and outputs. A function input / output diagram is called a data flow diagram.
Draw data flow diagrams (very rough cut at first) and let that guide you questioning. As Tom DeMarco (DFD quru) used to say: Interviewing the data flows is the most produtive form of analysis.
Tony
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