Handbook
Business analysis (BA)
Reusable, **project-agnostic** blueprint for **business analysis** — the discipline of understanding organizational needs, defining solutions, and managing requirements across their lifecycle. Grounde
Business analysis (BA)
Reusable, project-agnostic blueprint for business analysis — the discipline of understanding organizational needs, defining solutions, and managing requirements across their lifecycle. Grounded in the BABOK Guide v3 (IIBA), adapted for teams already using SDLC blueprint and Product development lifecycle (PDLC).
BA answers "what do stakeholders need, and does the solution satisfy those needs?" — a question that spans both PDLC (right product) and SDLC (product right).
| Document | Purpose |
|---|---|
| BABOK.md | Six knowledge areas, underlying competencies, BABOK v3 alignment |
| BA ↔ SDLC ↔ PDLC bridge | How BA maps across PDLC P1–P6 and SDLC A–F — role mapping, technique selection, anti-patterns |
| knowledge-areas/ | Deep guides per knowledge area |
| techniques/ | Master catalog of BA techniques mapped to knowledge areas and lifecycle phases |
| perspectives/ | How BA adapts to context: agile, BI, business architecture, BPM |
| templates/ | Copy-paste starters: stakeholder register, business case, requirements package, decision analysis |
Relationship to other packages
| Package | How BA relates |
|---|---|
| SDLC blueprint | BA techniques feed SDLC phases A–B (discover, specify). Requirements traceability, acceptance criteria, and specification practices in SDLC are outputs of BA work. The BA role in phased delivery is one methodology-specific expression of this package. |
| Product development lifecycle (PDLC) | BA Strategy Analysis maps to PDLC P1–P3; Solution Evaluation maps to P5–P6. BA provides the techniques (interviews, workshops, modeling) that PDLC phases rely on for evidence generation. See BA ↔ SDLC ↔ PDLC bridge. |
| Product functional documentation blueprint | Product-functional docs (docs/product/) hold the living artifacts that BA activities produce — personas, capabilities, journeys, glossaries. BA templates in this package complement the doc IA templates. |
| Agents blueprint (automation) | Automation recipes may support BA activities (e.g. requirements validation scripts, traceability matrix generation). |
Scope
This package covers business analysis as a discipline — not just requirements engineering. It includes:
- Strategy Analysis — understanding the enterprise context, defining change strategy
- Elicitation & Collaboration — gathering and confirming information from stakeholders
- Requirements Life Cycle Management — tracing, maintaining, prioritizing, approving requirements
- Requirements Analysis & Design Definition — modeling, specifying, verifying, validating
- Solution Evaluation — assessing solution performance against business needs
- BA Planning & Monitoring — planning the BA approach itself
The package is descriptive, not prescriptive: use the knowledge areas and techniques that fit your team's context. See perspectives/ for context-specific guidance.
Canonical source
Edit https://github.com/autowww/blueprints/blob/main/disciplines/product/ba/README.md first; regenerate with docs/build-handbook.py.