Business Analysis Documentation

Business analysts prepare documents carefully as it is one of the most critical tasks they are responsible for. In addition to documenting the requirements of clients, business analysts also document the process progress of the project and any changes made during its lifecycle. To maintain and reference these things in the future, it is important to write down the process flow.

The following guide on the critical and detailed documents prepared by business analysts may prove useful if you are new to the field or want to become a successful business analyst.

Here is what all business analysts must prepare in order to become a successful BA. Without further ado, let’s check it out.

Business analysts need to prepare the following documents:

  • The project vision document
  • Plans for Business Analysis
  • Creating the Business Requirement Document
  • Functional requirement specification (FRS)/ Functional Specification Document (FSD)
  • System Requirement Specification (SRS)/System Requirement Document (SRD)
  • Requirement traceability matrix (RTM)
  • Use Case Diagrams
  • Wireframes and Mockups
  • Documentation for Change Requests

Let’s examine each of these documents in detail.

Documentation for the Project Vision

Creating the Project Vision Document is primarily the responsibility of the client or project manager, but the role of the business analyst is also crucial. A vision document for a project describes the goals and vision of the product to be developed and provides insight into how that product will achieve the intended objectives.

It also consists of the following factors: benefits, risks involved, and options available before the project is initiated. These documents act as a formal agreement between the company and the business stakeholders.

A project vision document includes:

  • Objectives & Vision
  • The users involved in a certain project should be described
  • Project stakeholders
  • A brief overview of the product to be developed
  • The product should have the following features when it is developed
  • The product requirements
  • Risks or constraints involve
  • Quality/documentation requirements

A Business Analysis Plan

During the lifecycle of a project, a business analyst’s main responsibility is to prepare a Business Analysis Plan describing the major activities to be carried out by the Business Analyst. In the scope planning phase of a project, a business analyst creates this document. The project managers, product owners and business managers are the key players in this phase, which requires their support in order to make this plan a reality.

The Business Analysis Plan consists of the following steps:

  • Purpose of the plan
  • Roles & Responsibility Distribution
  • The Tools Required to Execute the Project Plan
  • Processes and techniques are implemented to define the project.
  • Workflow and Process Mapping
  • Adaptability & Measures to Implement Changes if Required.

The Business Requirement Plan

A business requirement document, or BRD, is created to define the requirements of the particular product or software that the client needs the company to work on and finally achieve the results as discussed in the meetings with the client. A BRD is one such document that everyone refers to throughout the project life cycle. This document helps them make the right choices for every phase without making a rookie mistake during the process.

A BRD focuses on what would be the intended business solution based on the problem statement as presented by the client. Hence, it is safe to say that the BRD mentions and gathers all the essential requirements as explained by the business stakeholders.

The BRD is created by the Business Analyst, the project manager, the scrum master, the client, the domain experts, and the senior managers to ensure that the business requirements are correctly understood and jotted down for reference purposes.

The Business Requirement Document normally contains:

  • A little background of the project
  • Goals and objectives of the Business
  • Stakeholders involved in the project
  • Requirement scope.
  • Gathering the relevant data for the project
  • Interface requirements for the projects to function well
  • Business glossary/jargon (if required)

Functional Requirement Specifications (FRS)

Using BRDs is extremely easy because the documents are formatted so that they can be used by anyone. To avoid confusion, technical jargon and business requirements are not used. Nevertheless, a BRD isn’t the best document to help the technical team fully understand the system. It is therefore necessary to prepare a functional specification document to meet the requirements of the development team.

When discussing a particular project, BRDs focus on what must be done and achieved, while FRSs focus on how the project should be completed & how the system should be To complete the project within the prescribed time, the system should be structured in a way that achieves the goal. Functional Specifications define how a system is intended to behave, including the data, operations, inputs, outputs, and properties that the system has. Development and testing teams need FRD to perform their duties within a project. It is more insightful and targeted at their needs.

System Requirement Document (SRD) /SRS

SRSs and SRDs are used to describe exactly how a system should behave and how it should act after it has been developed. Both functional and non-functional requirements are included in this document. This document contains the following information:

  • The Use Cases
  • Type of software required to build the project
  • A seamless function of the product requires a database and storage requirements.
  • Understanding the UI/UX of the product
  • The intended software should consider the following user characteristics in order to properly understand the intended user.

Mockup, wireframe, and prototype

To illustrate the upcoming product created by the company. By constructing a prototype, otherwise called a wireframe, managers help clients understand the architecture of the future system, as well as BAs, decide whether the client agrees with our proposal.
To illustrate this blueprint graphically, a business analyst uses wireframe technology such as JIRA. Because these diagrams are aligned with the client’s needs, they may save a lot of time during the Analysis phase. The development team uses the wireframe design as a starting point for creating a working design.

Mockup, wireframe, and prototype

To illustrate the upcoming product created by the company. By constructing a prototype, otherwise called a wireframe, managers help clients understand the architecture of the future system, as well as BAs, decide whether the client agrees with our proposal.
To illustrate this blueprint graphically, a business analyst uses wireframe technology such as JIRA. Because these diagrams are aligned with the client’s needs, they may save a lot of time during the Analysis phase. The development team uses the wireframe design as a starting point for creating a working design.

Use Case Diagram:

Business analysts must also use case diagrams to help the team identify, organise, and define system requirements. A typical user’s interaction with the team’s system is depicted in use cases. It also aids in the documentation of user interactions with the system. It’s about user stories and the various ways to interact with them.
Throughout the project lifecycle, the development team refers to the use case diagrams. When the team or key stakeholders request changes, the BA updates the use case diagrams.
A normal Use Case diagram and a descriptive requirement document contain:

  1. Actors
  2. Description
  3. Trigger
  4. Preconditions
  5. Notes and Issues

These are some of the details that you will find in the use case diagram.

Requirement Traceability Matrix- RTM

Business analysts prepare and manage RTMs, or Requirement Traceability Matrixes. RTM is used by Business Analysts to map and track specific test cases and defects within a project. As part of the RTM lifecycle, all application functionality is detailed and tested.
In an RTM, test scenarios and requirements are presented in a tabular format in tools like Excel. If changes are implemented in the project, RTM is also used to track them.

Change Request Management

When a project is carried out, you might encounter many customer and development requests. Depending on the market speculations, business owners might request certain features to be added or removed later on. A change request is anything that could delay or affect the project’s course. The business analyst analyzes the timeline and the impact of the change before adding it to the plan.
Documenting a change request is a great way to deal with scope creep, which occurs when the proposed new course of action differs from the original purpose due to additions or deletions of features. It is then decided how the changes will be implemented in regular meetings with the technical team and client and how that will impact the project plan overall.

Conclusion

Business analysts should document and share all critical information with the relevant team to complete the project within the given timeframe. In addition, a business analyst conducts constant meetings with the development team and the business stakeholder to track the project’s progress, accept change requests, and coordinate with the technical team to complete the project.y business analysts come in handy. Whether the BAs are using the waterfall model or prefer to work in an agile development environment, these detailed documents are essential to track the project scope addition, a business analyst conducts constant meetings with the development team and the business stakeholder to track the project’s progress, accept change requests, and coordinate. Furthermore, a business analyst monitors the project’s progress, accepts change requests, and coordinates with the technical team to complete the project according to the business objective. In the next article, I will be describing all the important business analysis documents in a detailed version.

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