Defining the role of the business analyst: the business analysis service framework

This thesis reports on an empirical study into business analysis (BA), a professional IS discipline. This subject is deemed relevant for investigation for three reasons: the volume of BA practitioners employed worldwide; the continuing problems reported regarding IS project outcomes; and the lack of empirical research that has been conducted into BA. A key area of concern for IS projects is the definition of requirements, an area that falls within the BA remit. However, there is limited extant literature concerning BA and there is ambiguity with regard to the business analyst role. Role theory (Solomon et al. 1985) suggests that a lack of role clarity can diminish performance and cause uncertainty on the part of practitioners and customers. Therefore, the aim of this research is to clarify the role of the IS business analyst and offer a service definition that will support the effective conduct of BA work. A conceptual framework for this study, adapted from the work of Pettigrew et al (2001), is used to examine the business analyst role from four dimensions: the organisational and personal context for BA; the content of IS projects; the process standards, skills and techniques for performing BA; and the outcomes from BA. Case study research has been carried out to explore perspectives on BA. The case is the Business Analysis Manager Forum (BAMF), a professional organisation for managerial-level business analysts. Selected BAMF representatives, all designated BA specialists, shared their experiences and observations regarding the business analyst role, activities and work practices. The data provided by the BA specialists was analysed using template analysis in order to identify themes within the data. Service science provided a theoretical basis for examining the activities performed by business analysts, the skills and techniques used, and the potential for value co-creation with business stakeholders. This enabled the identification and definition of the core services offered by business analysts. The study resulted in the development of two artefacts that are intended to support understanding and recognition of BA: the Business Analysis Service Framework, which defines six services and their corresponding activities, techniques and value proposition; and the business analyst T-shape, which has applied the T-shaped professional concept (Spohrer and Maglio, 2010) to define the skills and techniques required of professional business analysts. These artefacts are proposed as a means of clarifying the business analyst role for practitioners, their business stakeholders and future researchers and, as such, offer a positive contribution to BA theory and practice

A review of GIS-based information sharing systems

GIS-based information sharing systems have been implemented in many of England and Wales' Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs). The information sharing role of these systems is seen as being vital to help in the review of crime, disorder and misuse of drugs; to sustain strategic objectives, to monitor interventions and initiatives; and support action plans for service delivery. This evaluation into these systems aimed to identify the lessons learned from existing systems, identify how these systems can be best used to support the business functions of CDRPs, identify common weaknesses across the systems, and produce guidelines on how these systems should be further developed. At present there are in excess of 20 major systems distributed across England and Wales. This evaluation considered a representative sample of ten systems. To date, little documented evidence has been collected by the systems that demonstrate the direct impact they are having in reducing crime and disorder, and the misuse of drugs. All point to how they are contributing to more effective partnership working, but all systems must be encouraged to record how they are contributing to improving community safety. Demonstrating this impact will help them to assure their future role in their CDRPs. By reviewing the systems wholly, several key ingredients were identified that were evident in contributing to the effectiveness of these systems. These included the need for an effective partnership business model within which the system operates, and the generation of good quality multi-agency intelligence products from the system. In helping to determine the future development of GIS-based information sharing systems, four key community safety partnership business service functions have been identified that these systems can most effectively support. These functions support the performance review requirements of CDRPs, operate a problem solving scanning and analysis role, and offer an interface with the public. By following these business service functions as a template will provide for a more effective application of these systems nationally

Embedding Requirements within the Model Driven Architecture

The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) brings benefits to software development, among them the potential for connecting software models with the business domain. This paper focuses on the upstream or Computation Independent Model (CIM) phase of the MDA. Our contention is that, whilst there are many models and notations available within the CIM Phase, those that are currently popular and supported by the Object Management Group (OMG), may not be the most useful notations for business analysts nor sufficient to fully support software requirements and specification. Therefore, with specific emphasis on the value of the Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) for business analysts, this paper provides an example of a typical CIM approach before describing an approach which incorporates specific requirements techniques. A framework extension to the MDA is then introduced; which embeds requirements and specification within the CIM, thus further enhancing the utility of MDA by providing a more complete method for business analysis

Flexible Global Software Development (GSD): Antecedents of Success in Requirements Analysis

Globalization of software development has resulted in a rapid shift away from the traditional collocated, on-site development model, to the offshoring model. Emerging trends indicate an increasing interest in offshoring even in early phases like requirements analysis. Additionally, the flexibility offered by the agile development approach makes it attractive for adaptation in globally distributed software work. A question of significance then is what impacts the success of offshoring earlier phases, like requirements analysis, in a flexible and globally distributed environment? This article incorporates the stance of control theory to posit a research model that examines antecedent factors such as requirements change, facilitation by vendor and client site-coordinators, control, and computer-mediated communication. The impact of these factors on success of requirements analysis projects in a “flexible” global setting is tested using two quasi-experiments involving students from Management Development Institute, India and Marquette University, USA. Results indicate that formal modes of control significantly influence project success during requirements analysis. Further, facilitation by both client and vendor site coordinators positively impacts requirements analysis success

Model-driven design of context-aware applications

In many cases, in order to be effective, software applications need to allow sensitivity to context changes. This implies however additional complexity associated with the need for applications’ adaptability (being capable of capturing context, interpreting it and reacting on it). Hence, we envision 3 ‘musts’ that, in combination, are especially relevant to the design of context-aware applications. Firstly, at the business modeling level, it is considered crucial that the different possible context states can be properly captured and modeled, states that correspond to certain desirable behaviors. Secondly, it must be known what are the dependencies between the two, namely between states and behaviors. And finally, what is valid for application design in general, business needs are to be aligned to application solutions. In this work, we address the mentioned challenges, by approaching the notion of context and extending from this perspective a previously proposed business-software alignment approach. We illustrate our achieved results by means of a small example. It is expected that this research contribution will be useful as an additional result concerning the alignment between business modeling and software design

Governance of Offshore IT Outsourcing at Shell Global Functions IT-BAM Development and Application of a Governance Framework to Improve Outsourcing Relationships

The lack of effective IT governance is widely recognized as a key inhibitor to successful global IT outsourcing relationships. In this study we present the development and application of a governance framework to improve outsourcing relationships. The approach used to developing an IT governance framework includes a meta model and a customization process to fit the framework to the target organization. The IT governance framework consists of four different elements (1) organisational structures, (2) joint processes between in- and outsourcer, (3) responsibilities that link roles to processes and (4) a diverse set of control indicators to measure the success of the relationship. The IT governance framework is put in practice in Shell GFIT BAM, a part of Shell that concluded to have a lack of management control over at least one of their outsourcing relationships. In a workshop the governance framework was used to perform a gap analysis between the current and desired governance. Several gaps were identified in the way roles and responsibilities are assigned and joint processes are set-up. Moreover, this workshop also showed the usefulness and usability of the IT governance framework in structuring, providing input and managing stakeholders in the discussions around IT governance

User adoption of a CRM-based information system within a financial services organisation: An empirical analysis

Financial Services firms require processes and systems which can support and maintain customer-related information for the purposes of core business-focussed activity. Specifically within the investment banking sector, the importance and criticality of such customer information underpins the firm’s ability to transact sales, trading and other advisory-based services in an efficient and relevant manner. The design and development of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to address the given external vs. internal customer information touchpoints, therefore provides a vital link between financial services professionals, client data and business processes. In doing so, the input of CRM user requirements is a key step in deriving benefit from such a technology solution. This paper henceforth identifies and details user requirements and experiences of such an information system within a case study company and highlights pertinent issues for the adoption of such systems within the given secto

Control, Process Facilitation, and Requirements Change in Offshore Requirements Analysis: The Provider Perspective

Process, technology, and project factors have been increasingly driving organizations to offshore early software development phases, such as requirements analysis. This emerging trend necessitates greater control and process facilitation between client and vendor sites. The effectiveness of control and facilitation has, however, not been examined within the context of requirements analysis and change. In this study, we examine the role of control and facilitation in managing changing requirements and on success of requirements gathering in the Indian offshore software development environment. Firms found that control by client-site coordinators had a positive impact on requirements analysis success while vender site-coordinators did not have similar influence. Process facilitation by client site-coordinators affected requirements phase success indirectly through control. The study concludes with recommendations for research and practice

Creating Responsive Information Systems with the Help of SSADM

In this paper, a program for a research is outlined. Firstly, the concept of responsive information systems is defined and then the notion of the capacity planning and software performance engineering is clarified. Secondly, the purpose of the proposed methodology of capacity planning, the interface to information systems analysis and development methodologies (SSADM), the advantage of knowledge-based approach is discussed. The interfaces to CASE tools more precisely to data dictionaries or repositories (IRDS) are examined in the context of a certain systems analysis and design methodology (e.g. SSADM)