Business Analysis Course: Lesson Six

1
Business Analysis Course Lesson Six

• Writing

2
BA WritingLesson Five Review BA Documents

• Charter
• Decomp (As-Is, To-Be)
• FRD
• Use Case
• Business Rules
• Test Case/Test Scenario
• Data-Control Map

3
BA WritingTop Five Reasons People HATE to Write

• 1. Im bad at it.
• 2. When Im done and somebody reads it I feel
  stupid.
• 3. Its hard to do.
• 4. Ill never learn how to do this, so why
  bother?
• 5. Isnt that why there are Technical Writers?

4
BA WritingWe Cant Teach You to Write

• Thats why there are English Teachers but
• We can point you in the right direction.
• We can show you the types of writing BAs do and
  provide you with templates, guidelines, best
  practices and resources you can adjust for your
  own use.

5
BA WritingBase Process

• Research
• Write
• Edit
• Check with SME
• Approvable?
• Yes Send to Business Technical Teams for
  approval.
• No Return to Step 1

6
BA WritingRelax- Writing is Really

• Just like talking, except a bit more formal and
  organized.
• A lot easier if you have some guidelines, a
  format, an example and a spell checker.
• Which is what were going to provide you now.
• And remember Its a whole lot easier to edit
  than it is to write.

7
BA WritingWriting Guide Posts

• Templates and document discussions in Lesson 5.
• The Geneca Writers Guide
• Based on system used to quickly create documents
  for multiple audiences.
• Includes much of the nitty-gritty BAs and
  Technical Writers need to produce good documents.
• Since its in Word format (8.5 x 17 page size),
  you can modify it for your own use and reference.
• The Ten Commandments of Writing- A humorous but
  dead on writing overview.

8
The First CommandmentThou Shall Always Address
the Audience's Needs

• A 1992 study showed that nearly one half of the
  American population does not read well enough to
  find a single piece of information in a short
  publication.
• A lower level of reading ability is not
  necessarily a sign of a lower level of
  intelligence.
• Information you are selling can be conveyed
  clearly at any grade level for any audience.

-WordsWork Consulting, IncWatertown, MA 02472
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The Second CommandmentKnow of Which Yea Speak,
Lest Your Reader Will Know Yea for a Fool.

• With this technique, the System would
  automatically save every validated Scope, Product
  List and/or Simulations in a temporary storage
  area of the database under username_date_time_stam
  p. The System would purge these records
  automatically at predefined intervals.
• End users will be able to save permanent Scopes,
  Product Lists and Simulations under unique names
  associated to the end user and Project.
• When the end user wants to compare Simulation
  Results of invalid Scopes or Product Lists,
  System may then drop the invalid file of the
  older Simulation and substitute the valid file
  instead for the invalid Simulation. The System
  must prompt the end user to allow the swap or
  modify the invalid file. System must then allow
  the end user to save and associate the modified
  Simulation Results (with the modified Scope or
  Product List) as required
• -Scot Witt, Use Case Description, April, 2006

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The Second CommandmentAfter Questions and Answers

• The end user can Create/Run a Plan or View a
  Diagnostic in the application. A Plan uses
  historical data, which changes over time as sales
  information is added to the database. The end
  user creates a Plan to generate a sales forecast
  to assist in ordering and displaying retail
  products in a store or a chain. A Plan is
  composed of an end user selected Product List and
  end user selected Geography or Market/Region.
  This is a four step process, each step
  represented by one of the applications pages
• Create a Scope end user selects desired Product
  Categories and Geographies or uses a Saved
  Scope.
• Create a Product List end user adds New Products
  not included in the Project, drops Products from
  the Plan or selects a Plan-O-Gram (saved Product
  List which an Administrator installs on the
  System).
• Manage Plan end user selects Facts (Results
  metrics pre-defined by the Project) which the
  System will display in the Results, changes
  Product Statuses and Target Distributions
• View Results end user can compare Plans,
  display/hide Facts and export the results.

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The Third CommandmentCare for Use Cases and Make
Them Fruitful to Multiply

• Scope ATM
• Level User Goal
• 1. The card gets inserted.
• 2. The card information gets validated.
• 3. The transaction information gets collected and
  validated.
• 4. The cash is issued, card returned, cash
  removed, account debited, screen reset.
• -Alastair Cockburn

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The Third CommandmentAnother Bad Use Case

• (Withdraw Cash) (WEUC)
• 1. Customer runs ATM card through the card
  reader.
• 2. ATM reads the bank id and account number.
• 3. ATM asks customer whether to proceed in
  Spanish or English.
• 4. Customer selects language.
• 5. ATM asks for PIN number and to press Enter.
• 6. Customer enters PIN number, presses Enter.
• 7. ATM presents list of activities for the
  Customer to perform.
• 8. Customer selects "withdraw cash".
• 9. ATM asks customer to say how much to withdraw,
  in multiples of 5, and to press Enter.
• 10. Customer enters an amount, a multiple of 5,
  presses Enter.
• 11. ATM notifies main banking system of customer
  account, amount being withdrawn.
• 12. Main banking system accepts the withdrawal,
  tells ATM new balance.
• 13. ATM delivers the cash.
• 14. ATM asks whether customer would like a
  receipt.
• 15. Customer replies, yes.
• 16. ATM issues receipt showing new balance.
• 17. ATM logs the transaction.
• Alastair Cockburn

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The Third CommandmentA Good Use Case

• It contains all the basics.
• Business and technical audiences can read it,
  discuss it and approve it.
• The Activity Diagram helps explain the process.
• The error handling explanation is clear cut.
• The Test Case Scenarios are typically vague since
  the BA anticipates more information later or a
  hand-off to QA later in the requirements
  gathering process.
• What might be missing?
• Good use case example

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The Fourth CommandmentKeep Business Rules Simple
unto All the Rules of Your Life

• Must be written and explicit.
• Must be written in plain language.
• Must be independent of procedures and workflows
  (e.g. multiple models).
• Must be built on facts, and facts should build on
  concepts as represented by terms (e.g.
  glossaries).
• Must guide and influence behavior in desired
  ways.
• Must be motivated by identifiable and important
  business factors.
• Must be accessible to authorized parties (e.g.
  collective ownership).
• Must be single sourced (no links, no
  dependencies, no references, etc) .
• Must be specified directly by those people who
  have relevant knowledge (e.g. active stakeholder
  participation).
• Must be managed.
• -Agile Modeling, Scott W. Ambler

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The Fifth CommandmentMaintain Active Voice and
Keep it Wholly

• Passive voice is pompous.
• Passive voice gets in the way.
• Passive voice requires your reader to spend too
  much decoding to figure out what you tried to
  say.
• Its only good to use ten minutes before class
  when you have a 10 page paper due and only 9 ½
  pages done.

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The Sixth CommandmentSanta Is Not the Only
Clause

• "One sometimes wonders if the influence of books
  is inverse proportion to their clarity. Write
  simply and you may soon be forgotten. But combine
  just the right mixture of ambiguity, obtuse
  allusion, complex theory and authoritarian tone
  and you create a work which successive
  generations of scholars can debate and
  reinterpret forever, thus ensuring the potential
  of influence if not influence itself. "
• -David Godfrey writing about Harold Innis
  communications theory

17
The Seventh CommandmentPresentation Art The
Art of Gladness

• Only Romanitic would show on a spell check with
  capitals disabled
• And Honestly, what Is on the Rise that is taking
  the Reading world by storm, are these Romanitic
  thug Books about the Boyfriend that lives a life
  of Crime and the girlfriend that is trying to
  deal with It. Or the Cheating man etc."
• - Brand new college instructors first writing
  assignment results from a 19 year old
  http//mimsies.blogspot.com/2005/09/my-first-day-a
  nd-some-really-bad.html

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The Eighth CommandmentSuffer Not Tables,
Bullets and Numbered Lists, They Are As Lilies

• Numbered Lists 2 or more, shows a sequence or
  order.
• Bulleted Lists 2 or more- shows association.
• Table 3 or more, displays data

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The Ninth CommandmentWriteth As Thou Speaketh
Else Pomposity Resulteth

• Why initiate anything? Begin or Start
• As shown below? These.
• Implement? Unless its a phase, use install,
  build or start- depending on context.
• KISS Keep It Simple, Silly.

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The Tenth CommandmentConsider Information
Mapping

• Multi-Audience
• Summaries
• Chunking
• Labeling
• Headers
• Formatting
• http//www.infomap.com/

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BA WritingResources

• Dictionary, thesaurus, Almanac, Grammar Guide
  http//dictionary.reference.com/
• Grammar help http//www.webgrammar.com/
• Microsoft Word help http//word.mvps.org/
• Business Rules http//www.businessrulesgroup.org/
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