The Information Technology perspective focuses on the attributes of business analysis when influenced by changes in information technology (IT) systems but it also focuses on non agile approaches to IT initiatives.
These initiatives may be as little as applications enhancements, or as big as the implementation of an entire information technology infrastructure for an entire enterprise.
Business analysts have to work with both the business stakeholders and development team members to make sure that the needs are understood and aligned with the organizational strategy.
Requirements include notions such as the description and design of business processes, user interfaces, reports or other components of the solution that are important to the stakeholders.
The business analyst who is working in an information technology environment should consider these three key factors:
- Solution impact: this is the value and risk of the solution to the business.
- Organizational maturity: this is the correctness and pliability of the organizational change processes.
- Change scope: this is the span, extent, complexity, and context for the proposed change.
IT initiatives are started for numerous reasons such as:
• To create a new organizational capability: the change can be triggered by a need to transform the organization. It may also be a part of a larger transformative enterprise initiative which would be used to drive modifications to the business environment.
• Enhancing an existing capability: this initiative can be used to fulfill a defined need. It may also be triggered by regulatory requirements or to fulfill a specific business goal. The initiative might alter an existing system but it may also be a need to implement and integrate new systems.
• Facilitate an operational improvement: the initiative may be started to improve organizational efficiency or to reduce organizational risk.
A decision would be made on how the initiative should be managed based on the change scope, organizational maturity, and the solution’s impact. Should it be managed as a project, part of a continuous improvement effort, or as an enhancement ?.
• Maintain an existing information technology system: this initiative is started to ensure the smooth operation of an existing IT system. The scope of the change would decide if the initiative should be managed as a project or a regularly scheduled activity.
Examples of these types of initiatives include: Technology driven changes such as a vendor discontinuing support of a technology, scheduled releases or upgrades to a purchased software package, or technical modifications needed to support architecture strategy.
• Repair a broken information technology system: this initiative may be triggered by the need to fix an IT system that is not performing as expected.
The severity of the system disruption would decide the urgency of the required repair. If the scope of the repair effort is very large, then the repair should be managed as a project.
Information technology systems scope differ based on some factors such as:
1. Breadth of Change: Information technology initiatives may be focused on a single system or on multiple systems which interact with each other.
Some systems are developed and maintained in-house while others are commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) systems developed by an external vendor.
The scope of a commercial off the shelf (COTS) initiative may start off as small but it may grow after the analysis is completed.
Sometimes, the initiatives are limited to initial installation and implementation, or enhancements to an existing application.
Business analysts should also consider the organizational change management and its impact on the training, communications, and adoption of the change.
The type of business analysis activities in an IT context depends on a range of solution impact factors, such as :
- What happens to the business if this application shuts down?
- What happens if the application’s performance degrades?
- What business capabilities and processes rely on the IT system?
- Who lends to those capabilities and processes?
- Who uses those capabilities and processes?
2 Depth of Change: The business analysts has to elicit and analyze the entire organization and how the IT system will support those operations.
This provides the necessary circumstance for the business analyst to understand if the details being identified and documented are vital to delivering value.
Changes in an IT environment regularly need the business analyst to describe clear details, such as the definition of individual data components being affected by the change.
This can be especially difficult when an IT system change is started for technology driven reasons but without adequate clarity or alignment to business purpose.
3 Value and Solutions Delivered: Business analysts need to align the IT functionalities to these processes and capabilities, and to estimate the impact that the system has on them.
Information technology systems are implemented to increase organizational value, which includes any support capabilities and processes that use the system.
There are numerous ways in which the IT systems can increase value and they include:
- Reducing operating costs.
- Decreasing wasted effort.
- Increasing strategic alignment.
- Increasing reliability and stability.
- Automating manual processes.
- Repairing problems.
- Implementing new functionality and new capabilities.
4 Delivery Approach: The delivery of business analysis activities within an IT organization differs greatly.
Initiatives may vary from small enhancement efforts which are completed in a single, short time frame to multi-release, phased implementations.
Short time frame initiatives may involve a single business analyst for a short period of time while larger efforts usually involve several business analysts who may divide the work based on business group involved or by specific activity.
5 Major Assumptions: There are numerous assumptions that are are made about the IT discipline and they include the following:
- Business capabilities and processes that use an IT system are delivering value to the organization.
- Business analysts working from other perspectives can merge their work with the work of the IT business analysts.
- IT systems changes are usually driven by a business need, although some initiatives may start from within technology developments.