Business analysis thinking methodology

Business Analysis Thinking Methodology A quick guideline for business process analysis and system functionality design By Albert Pratama J. Oscar

Use the following points as a starting point in conducting business and requirement analysis

Who is the client and what is its business ?

What are the varieties of product your client sell ?

Who is the customer of your client ?

How do their run the business and get in touch with their customer ?

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First Thing First – Understand Your Client

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Who is the client and what is its business ?

What are the varieties of product your client sell

?

Who is the customer of your client ?

The Easiest way to do it, is by researching your client through its Company Website

Find out its core business, its product / service varieties, major customers, even financial statements

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How do their run the business and get in touch

with their customer ?

Use 5W1H to understand clients business process, and to design the system

5w1H as tools for BA

5W 1H Can help as tools to understand the client business process, and to design system functionality

What

Why

Who

When

Where

How

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What – Understand the Entities

Entity = is something that exists in itself, actually or potentially, concretely or abstractly, physically or not

Common type of entities in a business process:

Main Entity

Transaction

Validation

User

System

Attributes

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Keyword in understanding entities:

Created / Modified / Terminated in

Main Entity

Transaction

For which a set of

Validation

must be applied

Which executed by

User (s)

And its all happen inside one or several

System (s)

As a result, the output of a process might become the predecessor for another

Transaction

Attributes

Information needed by a Main Entity / Transaction

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Use Case Example: A Telco Company would like to develop CRM system for its corporate customer. One of the objective is to help integrating Sales process, and service provisioning process, and after sales service into one integrated system. The Telco company itself provide several main services: 1. Mobile telecommunication (Postpaid and Prepaid) 2. Fix Phone (PSTN) Services 3. Connectivity Services Customer of the Telco Company : 1. Corporate Customer (Can have all services) 2. Retail Customer (Can have mobile services only)

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Use Case Example: Generally, The way they run its business (to sell mobile services) is by conducting the following activities: 1. Sales executive Create an Opportunity to Track its sales activities 2. After a deal is closed with prospective customer, Sales handover the provisioning

activities to Sales Operation 3. Sales Admin Create a Sales Order to complete the provisioning . Mobile Phone

number (MSISDN) and GSM Card number (ICCID) is a mandatory information in a sales order

4. Once a Sales order is submitted, the mobile services must be registered to Several systems:

1. Billing System 2. Charging System 3. Network Related System

5. Once the mobile service information is registered to these system, the sales order will be completed, and customer will have the subscription, and can use the service.

6. Customer with active subscription can submit a complain, update its information, or submit a request to enhance its services. These kind of request will be handled by customer care through a service request.

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Use Case Example: Important Information to be extracted from the case:

1. Sales executive Create an Opportunity to Track its sales activities

2. After a deal is closed with prospective customer, Sales handover the provisioning activities to Sales admin

3. Sales Admin Create a Sales Order to complete the provisioning . Mobile Phone number (MSISDN) and GSM Card number (ICCID) is a mandatory information in a sales order

4. Once a Sales order is submitted, the mobile services must be registered to Several systems:

1. Billing System

2. Charging System

3. Network Related System

5. Once the mobile service information is registered to these system, the sales order will be completed, and customer will have the subscription, and can use the service.

6. Customer with active subscription can submit a complain, update its information, or submit a request to enhance its services. These kind of request will be handled by customer care through a service request.

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Based on the use case, there are entities that can be identified, as follows:

Main Entity

Customer Represent a person or a corporate using the service

Subscription Represent the services subscribed by the customer

Transaction

Opportunity Transaction to track and record sales activities

Sales Order Transaction to activate the service for the customer

Service Request Transaction to handle complaint / request from the customer

User

Sales executive User responsible to initiate sales activities

Sales Admin User responsible to conduct service provisioning

Customer Care User responsible to do customer care activities

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Based on the use case, there are entities that can be identified, as follows:

Related system

CRM System System to handle the sales, provisioning and customer care

Billing System System to handle billing and invoicing

Charging system System to handle the charging management

Network related system System to handle the network operation

Attributes

MSISDN Number Mobile Phone number is required in Sales Order transaction

ICCID number GSM Card Number is required in Sales Order transaction

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Why – Understand the Reason

There is always a reason for why the entities are exist.

Understand the reason as a basis to design the following action

What information required to build the main entities.

Main Entities

Transaction

How and when a transaction should be executed

What are the lifecycle of the main entity

When and Where to build and to terminate the main entities

Validation What are the validation need to be applied in an entity

When to applied the validation to an entity

What information required to execute a transaction.

What are the lifecycle of the main entity

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There is always a reason for why the entities are exist.

Understand the reason as a basis to design the following action

Which user is (are) allowed to execute a transaction

User (s)

Systems

What are the systems exist to support the transaction execution

When the user is allowed to execute the transaction

Which user is (are) allowed to access a specific information

In which system a transaction should be executed

How a system communicate to its surrounding environment

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Use Case Example (cont.):

From the previous example, let’s understand why entities / transaction

is exist. Take an example of why “Opportunity” transaction is exist:

1. To track the Sales activity progress for each prospective client

2. As early information keeper of who is the prospective customer

3. As early information keeper of what are the prospective product to

be offered to customer

4. For the sales manager to monitor the sales progress of his / her

team member


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Use Case Example (cont.): Based on that information, design of the system must consider the

following:

1. Opportunity is a transaction act as starting point of sales activity

(No predecessor activity)

2. Opportunity must keep the information of prospective customer.

It means that Entity “Customer” act as attribute of Opportunity. In

this case, “customer” may have status “prospect”, because it is not

yet become a real customer

3. Opportunity will have several stages / lifecycle to accommodate

the need of tracking the progress of winning probability. The

higher the stages, the higher the probability of a sales executive

can close the deal


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4. Opportunity will have set of activities (can be predefined activities)

to help sales executive record its sales activities. Predefined

activities should be considered where it is necessary, to set the

standard on what sales must do.

5. Opportunity should contain the information of prospective

product to be offered to prospective customer. Changing in offer

history should be captured for analytical / reporting purpose.

6. Manager should be able to access / view the opportunities of his

team, in order to track the sales activities of his team

Who – Understand the user / system behind the transaction

A Transaction is always started and executed by the following entities:

User

System

or

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A Transaction is started and /or executed by the user under the one of the following condition:

• When there is no predecessor input

• When a decision must be given by human

A Transaction is started and /or executed by the system under the following condition:

• When there is a clear rule of when and how the system should start and run the transaction

• When the input for the transaction is available prior the transaction

• When there is a clear rule of when and how the system should stop the execution

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Continuing from the previous example, the designed will follow the

following things:

1. Transaction “Opportunity” is created and executed by Sales

executive

2. Transaction “Sales Order” is created and executed by Sales Admin

3. Transaction “Service Request” is created and executed by

Customer Care.

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Another example (transaction executed by system).

For postpaid customer, if they do not pay their bill (invoice) for 3

consecutive months (90 days), their mobile services should be blocked.

After analysis, it is found out that

Billing system is the in charge system to authorize the blocking

process. Hence, billing system act as the initiator of the blocking

process, and the blocking process will be executed via an order in CRM

system

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Generate Invoice

Check Invoice Age Age >

90 days?

Inform CRM to create Block Order

Create Block Order

END START

yes

no

Bill

ing

syst

em

CR

M s

yste

m

Notes: The process in this flowchart is simplified. The purpose of this flowchart is only to show that a transaction (in this case, block order) can be initiated and executed by system(s). In reality, a block process follow more complex procedures.

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When – Understand the timing

To Understand when a main entity or a transaction must exist, BA should pay attention to the following point :

Main Entity Or

Transaction

What are the predecessor main entity should exist

What are the predecessor transaction should be executed

Is there any transaction need to be executed after it?

Is there any entity resulted (exist) as a result of the transaction ?

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When – Understand the timing

Use Case Example:

Taking Example from Telco company use case, a BA should understand

that “Sales Order” transaction will follow the following condition:

Sales Order Transaction

Predecessor Entity: Customer (with status prospect}

Predecessor transaction: Opportunity

Possible transaction to be executed after order complete : Service Request

Entity resulted (exist) from a sales order transaction: Subscription

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Where – Understand the venue

To Understand where a main entity or a transaction should be executed, BA should pay attention to the following point :

• Core capabilities of each system

• In which system an entity / transaction information should be stored

• What are the system that accessible by the user

• What are the system accessible by the IT operation / admin only

• Capability of each system to communicate to the other system

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Where – Understand the venue

Use Case Example (cont.): Taking from previous example, the following diagram describe which system generate invoice, and execute the blocking order

Notes: The process in this flowchart is simplified. The purpose of this flowchart is only to show that a transaction (in this case, block order) can be initiated and executed by system(s). In reality, a block process follow more complex procedures.

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Generate Invoice

Check Invoice Age Age >

90 days?

Inform CRM to create Block Order

Create Block Order

END START

yes

no

Bill

ing

syst

em

CR

M S

yste

m

How – Understand the process

In order to design a process, please keep in mind the following things:

• Main Entity always have lifecycle

New

Active

Inactive

Main Entity

Lifecycle Example

Initial lifecycle

Main lifecycle

End lifecycle

Note : There is always possibility of having another lifecycle in the middle

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• Because main entity has lifecycle, main entity can be created. Under certain circumstance, it might be able to be modified, and terminated

• System should always provide a way to track a creation / modification / termination of a main entity

Created Modified Terminated

Main Entity

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Use case example (cont.)

• Entity such as “Customer” may have the following lifecyle: – Prospect : When a prospective is not yet subscribe any service

– Active: If a customer already subscribe and currently use the service

– Inactive: If a customer is no longer using a service

• Depend on the rule of the client, an inactive customer may become an active customer again once is subscribe another service

Prospect Active Inactive

Customer

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• A transaction always have status

Created

In progress

Completed

Transaction status

example

Initial status

Work in progress

Transaction is finish

Note : There is always possibility of having another status

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Use case example (cont.)

• A Sales order transaction have the following status:

Created

In progress

Completed

Sales Order status

When Sales admin create the transaction

When Sales admin submit the transaction

When System complete the transaction

Note : There is always possibility of having another status

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• Transaction information can only be modified / cancelled when it is created and when it is in progress, depending on the condition

• Once a transaction is completed, it cannot be modified

• Main entity status is changed by using transaction

New

Active

Inactive

Main Entity Lifecycle

Transaction 1

Transaction 2

Transaction 3

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Use case example (cont.):

• A customer lifecycle changed as a result of transactions

Prospect

Active

Inactive

Customer Lifecycle

Opportunity

Sales Order

Termination order

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Now, Apply it in SDLC

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DEFINE DISCOVER DESIGN CONFIGURE VALIDATE DEPLOY

Understand the Client

What Why

When Where

Who How

Validate ALL

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“ Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” -- Steve Job

Thank You

Business analysis thinking methodology

Technology

Transcript of Business analysis thinking methodology