Mastering Business Analysis and Documentation For Mobile and Web App Development
29 Sep 2024
ContentRenji Yonjan
Table of Contents
If you work in software development, you’ve heard of business analysis. Whether you’ve encountered it in your daily work or you’ve simply come across a mastering business analysis podcast, the concept must sound familiar.
A business analyst’s job is to analyse a company’s data to conclude its needs, then provide recommendations for improvements and new solutions that will benefit all parties involved.
In this article, we will delve deeper into how business analysis can benefit the app development process and what deliverables it provides. Read on to uncover why BAs are such valuable members of a software development company.
The Role of Business Analysis in App Development
When creating a new product, the business analysis process in app development determines, verifies, and satisfies business needs.
The business analyst role includes gathering stakeholder requirements, investigating the market, and working with the development team to guarantee that the finished product will live up to expectations and satisfy user needs.
How Business Analysis Assists Each Stage of Development
To better understand why business analysts are such an essential part of a software development process, let’s take a look at how they assist each stage of development.
- Pre-Project Assessment
During the pre-project phase, an experienced business analyst is crucial in determining the project’s trajectory.
They aid stakeholders in comprehending market prospects and recognising possible obstacles by performing market research and assessing competitive landscapes. To do this, one must consider the project’s potential return on investment (ROI), current market conditions, and technical feasibility.
In addition to bringing stakeholders together around shared goals, BAs help define the project’s scope. Essential for establishing a solid project foundation, early risk identification involves offering mitigation methods to minimise future issues.
- Requirements Analysis and Strategy
When gathering requirements, business analysis activities play a vital role. They take the needs of stakeholders and turn them into documentation that the whole development team can follow. BAs balance practicality and business requirements by outlining the project’s objectives, features, and limitations.
They set priorities and create a plan to achieve the client’s goals, ensuring the strategy aligns with their vision.
- Interface Design and Prototype Creation
Business analysts mediate communication between clients and design teams throughout the user interface and user experience design process. Before starting the formal design phase, they capture the client’s idea through preliminary input and the creation of rough sketches or mind maps.
To make sure that the interface is in line with business goals and offers a smooth user experience, BAs help design user flow diagrams. They also arrange for clients and designers to meet for feedback sessions, which helps with design modifications that are more in line with company needs and user journey optimisation.
- Development
While the project is in development, BAs oversee any modifications to the scope and make sure requirements are clear. To keep everyone on the same page on the project’s goals, they act as go-betweens for the stakeholders and the technical team.
Continuous improvement of the development process and the final product is supported by their careful monitoring of the project’s progress, which identifies possible areas for improvement.
- Quality Assurance and Validation
Before delivering a product to a client, business analysts check to see whether all needs have been fulfilled. This helps with quality assurance.
They lend a hand during user acceptance testing (UAT) by collaborating closely with customers to ensure the product performs as expected.
A high-quality product release is possible because BAs help to streamline the testing process by prioritising issues and assisting in their resolution. They make sure the product satisfies technical requirements and fits in with the company’s objectives as part of the validation process.
- Release and Rollout
During the last phase of a release, BAs help with planning the distribution and making sure it fits in with the overall business strategy.
To make sure that everyone has a smooth transition to the new system, they frequently assist in coordinating user training sessions. BAs collect stakeholder feedback after a release to find areas that may be improved or that need iterations. This feedback loop allows for ongoing enhancement.
Business Analyst Deliverables
Project management relies on the deliverables provided by business analysts, who guarantee that project execution is in line with business goals. From requirements documentation to risk assessments, these deliverables help project managers plan, prioritise, and manage projects efficiently.
- Business Requirements Document (BRD)
Project scope, objectives, and high-level business needs are described in the Business Requirements Document (BRD), an essential foundational deliverable.
It is like a compass that points the way for the project and makes sure it stays on track with the organisation’s objectives.
- Functional Requirements Document (FRD)
The Functional Requirements Document contains an in-depth analysis of the system’s features. Outlining the system’s expected behaviour in response to different inputs and under different conditions, it serves as a thorough development plan.
- User Stories
The purpose of a user story is to provide a high-level, customer-centric description of a software feature in an informal, narrative style. The goal of writing a user story is to describe the process by which a project will benefit the client.
- Acceptance Criteria
All products, user stories, or work increments must meet acceptance criteria before they are considered finished. They are a collection of statements that aim to provide good results for customers and are clear, brief, and testable.
- Process Flow Diagrams
A Process Flow Diagram is a graphical representation of the project-related workflows and business processes. They show how the system’s operations, decision points, and data flow are structured.
- Data Models
A data model is a description of the system’s data structure and organisation. To guarantee effective data management, they specify entities, properties, relationships, and data flow.
A good example of a data model is the Entity-Relationship diagram, which is a graphical depiction of the relationships between data objects in a database.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Are The 4 Types of Business Analysis?
The four main types of business analysis are strategic, tactical, operational, and project-based. Strategic analysis focuses on long-term business goals and overall direction, while tactical analysis deals with shorter-term plans and aligning resources to achieve these goals.
Operational analysis looks at improving day-to-day business processes, and project-based analysis concentrates on specific initiatives, helping align project deliverables with business needs.
What Tools Do Business Analysts Use?
Business analysts use a range of tools, including Microsoft Excel, JIRA, and Confluence for project management and collaboration, as well as Balsamiq or Axure for wireframing and prototyping.
They also use Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) tools for process mapping, and Power BI for data analysis. These tools help BAs gather data, manage requirements, and visualise processes
What is the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge?
In the business analysis community, the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) is a comprehensive guide published by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). It outlines industry-standard practices, techniques, and competencies that business analysts should follow.
BABOK provides frameworks for areas like requirements elicitation, stakeholder analysis, and solution assessment, making it an essential resource for BA professionals to ensure consistency and quality in their work.
Conclusion
Projects can’t succeed unless they undergo thorough business analysis to guarantee they’ll satisfy all parties involved. The success of a project hinges on the business analyst’s communication skills with stakeholders and development teams.
By using helpful techniques such as requirements elicitation, risk management, and process modelling, business analysts help organisations optimise their processes and achieve their goals.
Partnering with EB Pearls ensures that your project benefits from expert business analysis at every stage of development. Our team is dedicated to delivering solutions that align with your business goals while optimising processes for success.
Ready to take your project to the next level? Contact EB Pearls today to learn how our business analysis and development services can drive your digital transformation.
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