CBAP Exam Course – BABOK Strategy Analysis

1. The Strategy Analysis knowledge area describes the business analysis work that must be performed to collaborate with stakeholders in order to identify a need of strategic or tactical importance called the business need.
2. Enable the enterprise to address that need, and align the resulting strategy for the change with higher- and lower-level strategies.
3. Strategy analysis focuses on defining the future and transition states needed to address the business need,
The Strategy Analysis knowledge area describes the following 4 tasks:
• Analyze Current State: understands the business need and how it relates to the way the enterprise functions today. Sets a baseline and context for change.
• Define Future State: defines goals and objectives that will demonstrate that the business need has been satisfied and defines what parts of the enterprise need to change in order to meet those goals and objectives.
• Assess Risks: understands the uncertainties around the change, considers the effect those uncertainties may have on the ability to deliver value through a change, and recommends actions to address risks where appropriate.
• Define Change Strategy: performs a gap analysis between current and future state, assesses options for achieving the future state, and recommends the highest value approach for reaching the future state including any transition states that may be required.

Analyze Current State
Purpose
The purpose of Analyze Current State is to understand the reasons why an enterprise needs to change some aspect of how it operates and what would be directly or indirectly affected by the change.

Description
The starting point for any change is an understanding of why the change is needed. Potential change is triggered by problems or opportunities that cannot be addressed without altering the current state.
Business analysts work to help stakeholders enable change by exploring and articulating the business needs that drive the desire to change.
Without clearly understood business needs, it is impossible to develop a coherent strategy, and the resulting change initiative is almost certain to be driven by a mix of conflicting stakeholder demands.
Change always occurs in a context of existing stakeholders, processes, technology, and policies which constitute the current state of the enterprise.

Outputs
• Current State Description: the context of the enterprise’s scope, capabilities, resources, performance, culture, dependencies, infrastructure, external influences, and significant relationships between these elements.
• Business Requirements: the problem, opportunity, or constraint which is defined based on an understanding of the current state.

Define Future State
Purpose
The purpose of Define Future State is to determine the set of necessary conditions to meet the business need.

Description
All purposeful change must include a definition of success. Business analysts work to ensure that the future state of the enterprise is well defined.

consensus vision of the outcome. As with current state analysis, the purpose of future state analysis is not to create a comprehensive description of the outcome at a level of detail that will directly support implementation.

Inputs
• Business Requirements: the problems, opportunities, or constraints that the future state will address.

Outputs
• Business Objectives: the desired direction that the business wishes to pursue in order to achieve the future state.
• Future State Description: the future state description includes boundaries of the proposed new, removed, and modified components of the enterprise and the potential value expected from the future state. The description might include the desired future capabilities, policies, resources, dependencies, infrastructure, external influences, and relationships between each element.
Potential Value: the value that may be realized by implementing the proposed future state

Assess Risks
Purpose
The purpose of Assess Risks is to understand the undesirable consequences of internal and external forces on the enterprise during a transition to, or once in, the future state. An understanding of the potential impact of those forces can be used to make a recommendation about a course of action.

Description
Assessing risks includes analyzing and managing them. Risks might be related to the current state, a desired future state, a change itself, a change strategy, or any tasks being performed by the enterprise.
The risks are analyzed for the:
• possible consequences if the risk occurs,
• impact of those consequences,
• likelihood of the risk, and
• potential time frame when the risk might occur.

Inputs
• Business Objectives: describing the desired direction needed to achieve the future state can be used to identify and discuss potential risks.
• Elicitation Results (confirmed): an understanding of what the various stakeholders perceive as risks to the realization of the desired future state.
• Influences: factors inside of the enterprise (internal) and factors outside of the enterprise (external) which will impact the realization of the desired future state.
• Potential Value: describing the value to be realized by implementing the proposed future state provides a benchmark against which risks can be assessed.
• Requirements (prioritized): depending on their priority, requirements will influence the risks to be defined and understood as part of solution realization.

Outputs
Risk Analysis Results: an understanding of the risks associated with achieving the future state, and the mitigation strategies which will be used to prevent those risks, reduce the impact of the risk, or reduce the likelihood of the risk occurring.

Define Change Strategy
Purpose
The purpose of Define Change Strategy is to develop and assess alternative approaches to the change, and then select the recommended approach.

Description
Developing a change strategy is simpler when the current state and the future state are already defined because they provide some context for the change.
The change strategy clearly describes the nature of the change in terms of:
• context of the change,
• identified alternative change strategies,
• justification for why a particular change strategy is the best approach,
• investment and resources required to work toward the future state,
• how the enterprise will realize value after the solution is delivered,
• key stakeholders in the change, and
• transition states along the way.

Inputs

• Current State Description: provides context about the current state, and includes assessments of internal and external influences to the enterprise under consideration.
• Future State Description: provides context about the desired future state.
• Risk Analysis Results: describe identified risks and exposure of each risk.

Outputs

• Change Strategy: the approach that the organization will follow to guide change.
• Solution Scope: the solution scope that will be achieved through execution of the change strategy.