nerdexam
IIBA

CBAP · Question #435

A national branch of a global company is struggling to improve business processes of its Public and Government Affairs (PGA) department. To work with external stakeholders effectively, PGA employees n

The correct answer is B. Explore and apply best practices for specifying this type of requirements. When encountering an unfamiliar or complex requirements domain, a business analyst should research and apply established best practices rather than improvising or defaulting to potentially mismatched templates.

Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring

Question

A national branch of a global company is struggling to improve business processes of its Public and Government Affairs (PGA) department. To work with external stakeholders effectively, PGA employees need to collect, manage, and exchange a vast amount of information. Complex cases involve collaboration of many employees from different departments. The ability to share information and to coordinate corresponding activities is crucial for the company's growth plans. Their current tools and practices do not serve the purpose well. The existing system, which was deployed a couple of years ago, has only a few active users. The majority of PGA employees avoid using it because the system is hard to use and lacks needed functionality. Consequently, available information is mostly unstructured and stored either locally or on a shared network drive. Some of the information exists only in a paper form. The branch's PGA head, who sponsors the project, wants to implement a configurable solution that two other branches successfully deployed several months ago. Both deployments were done by three solution consultants, who will be available to assist in the project. They will be responsible for tailoring the solution to PGA needs, as well as for training the PGA staff. With their help, the sponsor plans to complete the project in approximately three months. The solution consultants reside in another country 7 hours ahead of the rest of the project team. They will be available part-time, but are planning two one-week long trips to the PGA central office to conduct initial training and to participate in the final deployment of the system into production. The consultants, in turn, expect a business analyst (BA) to assist in collecting necessary data and defining customization requirements. The solution consultants have composed a spreadsheet with all requirements that are already implemented in the solution. The requirements in the catalog are organized partially by user tasks and partially by system features. The branch has distinct definitions of PGA user roles and uses a different approach to structuring requirements specifications. How should the BA organize the customization requirements?

Options

  • ADevise a structure that best fits the branch's definition of user roles
  • BExplore and apply best practices for specifying this type of requirements
  • CReuse the structure of the solution consultants' requirements catalog
  • DUse the structure of requirements suggested by the corporate standard

How the community answered

(39 responses)
  • A
    8% (3)
  • B
    74% (29)
  • C
    15% (6)
  • D
    3% (1)

Why each option

When encountering an unfamiliar or complex requirements domain, a business analyst should research and apply established best practices rather than improvising or defaulting to potentially mismatched templates.

ADevise a structure that best fits the branch's definition of user roles

Devising a custom structure based solely on user roles risks creating an incomplete or biased requirements framework that may miss cross-cutting concerns not tied to specific roles.

BExplore and apply best practices for specifying this type of requirementsCorrect

Exploring and applying best practices is the correct approach because requirements for stakeholder information management and collaboration have well-documented patterns in business analysis literature. Applying recognized best practices ensures completeness, consistency, and alignment with proven frameworks, avoiding the gaps that led to the current system's failure.

CReuse the structure of the solution consultants' requirements catalog

Reusing a consultants' catalog is a shortcut that may reflect a different solution context, introducing irrelevant requirements or omitting domain-specific needs of the PGA department.

DUse the structure of requirements suggested by the corporate standard

Applying a corporate standard without evaluating its fit can impose an ill-suited structure, especially if the standard was not designed for this type of collaborative, stakeholder-facing solution.

Concept tested: Selecting appropriate requirements specification techniques

Source: https://www.iiba.org/standards-and-resources/babok/

Topics

#requirements planning#requirements specification#best practices#business analysis approach

Community Discussion

No community discussion yet for this question.

Full CBAP Practice