Can Business Analysis reflect Manufacturing and Construction industries?

Ismail,

There is a lot to that post. Let's break it down.

Firstly, what methodologies are you referring to in the construction industry? I would be very interested to review.

I'm also most interested in what hedging and funding you think a BA Should be part of selecting? This seems like more rthe role of a traditional financial analyst but I might not be understanding your point fully.

Ismail,

Firstly, examples in PMI's BA Practitioner's guide are more geared towards software industry, yes, I agree. I am not sure which other materials you used, so you can mention those for our understanding on the background to your question.

Secondly, BA is not an investment vehicle in my opinion. For the examples you mentioned, there might be subject matter experts like investment analysts. The job of BA is to liaise with subject matter experts and get the requirements that can be executed as part of the project, track the requirements, define test cases to make sure the product output conform to the business objectives, etc and to translate the requirements into what the project team understands (in my field, IT, it means translating the business requirements into something the software development team understands) and in these situations, BA needs to know the language the project team understands (in every industry it might be different and here also SME's help is needed). BA is not a specialization for each field, its tools are techniques are all geared towards gathering, defining, refining, tracking business requirements.

I second this. The practice guide actually explicitly states for the BA to consult with (a) the project manager for his estimating experience (b) A financial analyst to complete the cost benefit analyst.

Working with the financial department based on their own particular hurdle rates will lead to the best outcomes.

Steven, Just to clarify, I am not referring to specific methodology for construction.

On the Other hand, most if not all construction projects that are done in my area are based on traditional project management. "PMBOK" has been proven to lead the project management practice and its it simply not geared towered agile approach. I think the main reason is that Organizations are not ready yet to accept this transformation from waterfall to agile.

The second part of your reply about Hedging & Funding; It is understood that financial institutions will only fund projects based on solid business case which is a BA deliverable during needs assessment. .
Despite of the fact that the sponsor is responsible to provide the fund but the BA has to convince the sponsor and maybe support him to make finance decision. Accordingly a BA has to play a part of this activity.

Let me put it in the following sequence:
1. Business Objective of any company is to make money
2. Money is an output of investment
3. Investment is to fulfill a business need
4. business need if documented in a business case
5. Then all the deliverable of Needs assessment
6. Hedging, Funding, Financial feasibility, Concept, etc.
7. BA domains [ BA Planning, Requirement elicitation & Analysis]
8. Value Engineering , Value Preposition, FEED, etc.
9. Solution evaluation
10. Project Initiation.

Please correct me if i missed something.

Hello Friends,

Thank you all for your constructive contribution and sharing of experience, I really appreciate all your inputs and interest in the post. To make things simpler, I will only reply on the part of having BA for different industry.

If we agree on the objective of applying it outside the currently dominating industry (software) we will start discussing the scope and function of business analysis in this particular industry.

My apology for late reply due to time difference. Please find the individual replies below.

Steven, Just to clarify, I am not referring to specific methodology for construction.

On the Other hand, most if not all construction projects that are done in my area are based on traditional project management. "PMBOK" has been proven to lead the project management practice and its it simply not geared towered agile approach. I think the main reason is that Organizations are not ready yet to accept this transformation from waterfall to agile.

The second part of your reply about Hedging & Funding; It is understood that financial institutions will only fund projects based on solid business case which is a BA deliverable during needs assessment. .
Despite of the fact that the sponsor is responsible to provide the fund but the BA has to convince the sponsor and maybe support him to make finance decision. Accordingly a BA has to play a part of this activity.

Let me put it in the following sequence:
1. Business Objective of any company is to make money
2. Money is an output of investment
3. Investment is to fulfill a business need
4. business need if documented in a business case
5. Then all the deliverable of Needs assessment
6. Hedging, Funding, Financial feasibility, Concept, etc.
7. BA domains [ BA Planning, Requirement elicitation & Analysis]
8. Value Engineering , Value Preposition, FEED, etc.
9. Solution evaluation
10. Project Initiation.

Please correct me if i missed something.

Thank you for raising this subject up Ismail, it is very interesting.

Steven, In my opinion, If a BA understand the financial analysis will be more efficient in developing a solution rather than a financial analyst to understand the business.

So yes, Sometime a BA has to do the financial analyst job or at least understand how it is done.