Hello All.

My name is Jim and I have been a  BA for exactly 9 days now.  I work for a state government agency in the realm of public health. My area of emphasis is software.  I am brand new to this BA thing with zero experience with the exception of a system analysis and design class in college.  I feel like a fish out of water.  Everything I've read about business analysis makes the assumption that you will be starting on a brand new system.  That is not my case.  I have been assigned to a software application that has been around for many years.  My first assignment is to perform a requirements analysis on a certain process so that it can be improved upon.   I have to figure out the system as a whole before I can tackle the process.  Little documentation, hard to get answers from anyone. Wish me luck!

 Jim,

I would suggest you to understand what the system is capable of doing first - the outputs.

Once you know what the application can deliver, try to understand all the inputs fed into the application.

Once you fairly get an idea of the inputs and the outputs, connect the dots by understanding how  or whats happening in between.

This will lead to understanding the data flow and sequence.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Vijay

www.mindsmapped.com