Project Management Institute - Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide

Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide is a complementary document to PMI's foundational standards. This practice guide provides guidance on how to apply effective business analysis practices on programs and projects and to drive successful business outcomes. This practice guide provides those with an interest in and commitment to the business analysis discipline the following:

• Diverse collection of both long-established and recent business analysis techniques and practices, defined and explained by experienced business analysis professionals and practitioners; and
• Description of how these techniques and practices can be used including many specific examples.

The information in this practice guide will help readers to:

• Consider which practices and techniques are appropriate for use in their own organizations, and
• Consider how to adapt and adjust techniques and practices to meet organizational and cultural needs without diluting the quality of business analysis which they support.

This practice guide is intended to encourage discussion related to areas of practice where there may not yet be consensus. The discipline of business analysis and its associated roles continue to evolve. Some of the most significant drivers of this evolution are:

• Increased business focus on the ability to accommodate rapid change,
• Increased project focus on delivering value as efficiently as possible, and
• New and evolving approaches for stakeholders and project team members to collaborate with each other to deliver successful projects, which drive business value.

Additionally, the choice of business analysis practicesand how organizations tailor what they choose to implementis highly dependent on organizational, cultural, and methodological norms. These choices are also impacted by how much change an organization is willing and able to embrace. There is no expectation that every practitioner of business analysis will use every technique noted in the practice guide, for example:

• Some practitioners may consider some of the techniques to be traditional and therefore too confining. PMI recognizes that agile practitioners may desire more adaptive techniques.
• Other practitioners may find that some of the techniques are too new and would potentially introduce risk or complexity.

With all of these considerations in mind, Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide offers these practices as a starting point to identify thought processes and approaches that may improve how organizations and practitioners approach and achieve effective business analysis.