To give you a bit of background: I have been working in Dev, QA & SDLC over the past 15 years and now have an opportunity to work in the realm of the BA. I'm hoping this forum can give me some ideas on approaching this brave new world!
The PM for the project I'm on has a listing of all the IT items necessary to move towards production. There are roughly 12 modules we will be tailoring from a 3rd party web app. The trick is understanding what we have (DB & integration) and how it will integrate with the new system. The vendor will be doing most of the module customization, so that side is taken care of. The IT item list is really a brain dump from the PM which contains the module, overall need, status & stakeholder/SME listing. Fortunately, everything is in this listing is up to date.
I've been on the project less than a week and everything is moving very quickly. The dev environment, SDLC appears to be ad hoc. But there is new management who will not tolerate the risk of little to no requirements and no processes...So I'm encouraged that the department at least sees the problem and wants the project documented.
Can someone provide an approach for my situation? As I mentioend above, I've never specifically done BA work. However, I'm capable of creating process diagrams, technical writing, etc. The biggest thing is trying to pick up all the pieces and put humpty dumpty together so we can have a successful product.
You have an "overall need" statement for each module. First, confirm it is correct and identify how it relates to the organization's higher level strategic objectives. Then start breaking it down into details by talking with the stakeholders. Keep in mind who you need to produce deliverables for and what their deliverables should be. Developers need to know what to build. Testers need to know what to test. I have found developers to be less sure of what they'd like to get from the BA, so have some suggestions ready for them. Do they want fully dressed use cases? User stories? Requirements specs? Although, if you're working with an application vendor, they may have a defined set of deliverables they want from you already. Alternatively, I have found testers to be more self-aware when it comes to what they need in order to complete testing and acceptance. With your background, you can probably answer that yourself, though. Finally, since you know that your new management has expectations, you should find out what deliverables they want as well.
scttech said: " The trick is understanding what we have (DB & integration) and how it will integrate with the new system."
Congradulations on a successful high-level definition on what the issue is!
Now your need is to drill down and define the task at hand to a greater level of detail. Key to your success is understanding what integration is. Integration is a term thrown around alot, but few, very few BA's have anywheres near a sufficiently concrete understanding of what it is.
So, what is your definition of integration?
brought to you by enabling practitioners & organizations to achieve their goals using: