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Business Process Analysis

ITEC 630/455 Fall 2016

Course Introduction
Prof. Ruth Buys

Last updated August 2016

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My Background
Career in industry, non-profit/not-for-profit and academia
Independent consultant since November 2015
B.A., M.B.A., and PhD
Systems Engineer (INCOSE ESEP)
ISO Lead Auditor, Certified Process Design Engineer (CPDE), ITIL,
CMMI, Federal Risk and Authorization Management (FedRAMP) 3 rd
Party Assessment Organization
Requirements Analysis, Design, Development, Test, Quality
Assurance, Configuration Management, Project Management, Cost
Estimating, Budget Creation, Monitoring and Control
Past Instructor at Drexel, Marymount, GMU; guest lecture for ODU
and Catholic University
Courses include Requirements analysis, Design of IS, Software
Engineering, Database Management, Decision Support Systems

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Course Objectives
Acquire the knowledge, skills, methods and vocabulary to:

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1.Identify and understand a clients business problem

2.Elicit, discover, gather and document client requirements
3.Analyze and understand current business processes and
conceptualize related process improvements and solutions
4.Develop and articulate system requirements (i.e., applications)
to support the clients business process requirements and
solutions
5.Identify and specify the basic data and information
requirements to support these solutions
6.Model the solution to illustrate the solution to your client
7.Document your analysis and solutions in a requirements
specification document for your client
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What is business analysis?

The set of tasks, knowledge, and
techniques required to identify business
needs and determine solutions to
business problems. Solutions often
include a systems development
component, but may also consist of
process improvement or organizational
change.
Source: International Institute of Business Analysis (iiBA)

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What is business process analysis?

A business process is a set of logically related
tasks performed to achieve a defined business
outcome." (Tom Davenport)
Business process analysis is the study
of the process steps, decisions and workflows
involved in a current (i.e., baseline or as is)
business process to understand it well, with the
goal of conceptualizing and recommending an
improved (i.e., target or to-be) process.

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Baseline

Analysis

Target

What is requirements analysis?

Requirements are conditions that a product,
system or component must meet and/or
capabilities it must have to solve a business
problem, satisfy a contract, or meet a standard,
specification or other formally imposed
documents (IEEE)

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Requirements analysis is a key aspect of

business analysis practices, concerned with
identifying requirements for the implementation of
a system application that will support the
recommended business process solutions.
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What is data requirements analysis?

It is the analysis of the data entities, the
relationships among these entities, and the
information structure needed to record,
manage and access the necessary data to
support the business process solution and
system functionality required.

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Course Roadmap

Understand the
business: current
processes,
improvements, etc.

Figure out what the

application will to
do to support these
processes (and the
system qualities)

Figure out the

information and
data needs

Visual
modeling of
the application
behavior

Business Process
Analysis

System
Requirements Analysis

Information
Requirements Analysis

Interface
Analysis

Ex1-3, H1, D1

Ex4,5,8, H2-3, D2-3

Ex9, H4, D4

Ex6,7, D5

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Next

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ITEC 455/630: Business Process

Analysis
Course Roadmap
Business process analysis overview
System requirements analysis and use cases
Data/information requirements analysis
Interface analysis and visual modeling
Project analysis (if time permits)

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