Knowledge Audits of Business Analysis: Core Competencies, Critical Skills, and Strategies

This article discusses the core competencies and critical skills required for business analysts, as well as the strategies involved in knowledge audits of business analysis. It explores the relationship between organizational strategy and knowledge audit plan, and the key processes involved in understanding the business context. Additionally, it compares various requirements elicitation techniques for effective business analysis.

Running head: KNOWLEDGE AUDITS OF BUSSINESS ANALYSIS
Knowledge audits of bussiness analysis
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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1. Core competencies of business analyst:
Synopsis:
The BABOK guide recognizes the dynamic nature of today’s business requirements and
provides guidance to the organizations for the skills they must seek in a business analyst role to
select the appropriate one for the position (Hathaway 2014). It is a framework that describes the
process that must be followed for doing a business analyst task for delivering solution as per the
organization needs (Prahalad 2008).
Critique:
These skills are very important to realize and do justification to the role and serve the
organizational requirements effectively. However, these skills are not the only requirement for
the role (Hailes 2014). Some additional skills that help the professional to survive in the
competition are (Park and Jeong 2016):
Relationship-making Skills:
The ability to connect to the stakeholders and the team members and build trust.
Self-management:
Ability to work independently in a project and analyse the requirements
Identification of ambiguity:
Ability to identify ambiguity at the beginning of a project to avoid faults in the later part.

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Facilitation skills:
Ability to facilitate project specific meetings to extract necessary information for the
execution of projects. It is also referred to as ‘JAD sessions’ or “requirements workshops.”
Reflection:
BABOK guide categorize and organize the task of business analysis into six knowledge
category (Paul, Yeates and Cadle 2014). Knowledge areas specific to the BABOK guide are:
Business analysis and planning:
It requires analyst to do a thorough analysis of a business problem to have a deeper
understanding of the requirements and make the correct judgement of the topic. This helps to
make effective planning for completing the task correctly.
Elicitation and collaboration:
The analyst should have the ability to elicit proper information from the team members so
that the team members get much more engaged in the project so that effective collaboration can
be arranged for any project.
Requirements Life Cycle Management:
It is not only enough to understand the requirements for any project but also the analyst
must have the ability to manage those requirements effectively for the entire life cycle of the
project.

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Strategy analysis:
This requires the ability to analysis various strategy to suggest the appropriate one for
completing a project.
Requirement analysis:
It describes the ability of a business analyst to analysis various requirements and based on
that design effective solution to meet the requirements perfectly.
Solution evaluation:
It is not sufficient to design a solution to problem, it must be properly evaluated to assess
the quality of the solution and this quality is must for the role for the business analyst.

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2. Critical skills of business analyst:
Synopsis:
Traditionally the role of business analyst was often limited to the SME or the subject
matter expert (Hass 2011). However, in these years the organizations all over the world has
realized that it is not enough to have persons that are expert in only one domain as business have
more dynamic and complex in nature and so is the role of a business analyst (Yeoh and Popovic
2016). Still, it is very much important to analyze the methods and various qualities that are
relevant to the role of a SME.
This section has clearly mentioned the core skills that the organizations should look in a
business analyst for enhancing their business practises beyond just requiting SMEs.
Critique:
The core skills are very important for the role for the business analyst. Apart from the
core skills some important skills specific to the business analyst role are (Lang et al. 2015):
Documentation skill:
It can be thought of a part of the written communication skill which is very important for
creating effective documentation which is very much essential considering the agile nature of the
business world. The documentation must be unique to avoid any legal issues due to plagiarism.

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Knowledge of Analysis Tools:
It is essential for business analyst to have knowledge of various business analyst tools
like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Knowledge of some visual modeling tools like Microsoft
Visio is an advantage.
Reflection:
The core skills that are must for the role of business analyst are listed below:
Excellent communication skill:
Business analyst should have a good communication skill as they often need to handle the
clients, lead various teams and attend important meeting for the organization. In order to
effectively listen to the team, clients and then forward opinions on that needs good
communication skill (Muler et al.2016).
Problem solving skill:
Business analyst should have excellent problem solving skills as various projects the
organizations deal with often face various problems in terms of planning, designing and
execution.
Critical thinking skills:
The ability to think critically is another important skill for the role business analyst. This
very skill helps to choose particular option from various available options as proposed by clients
and stakeholders to suggest the most effective solution for the need of a project (Yeoh and
Popovic 2016).

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3. Models for strategy formulation analyzing the external and internal environment:
Synopsis:
Environment analysis constitutes the strategic toll that helps organizations in identifying
the internal and external factors that has the potential in influencing the business process and
thus the performance of the organization as well (Hass 2011). The analysis helps to identify
various opportunities and threats specific to the business. The assessment of various
opportunities and threats helps in effective strategy formulation with proper decision making.
Reflection:
There are various models that are used for environment analysis. However, not all the
tools are of same quality. Following are some well recognised tools for environment analysis.
PESTLE analysis:
Often the organization needs to analyze the political, economic, social and technological
factors to gain knowledge about the internal and external environment to better understand the
opportunities and threats for the business (Fozer et al. 2017). PESTLE analysis helps to do that.
SWOT model:
The model by analysing the strength , weakness , opportunities and threats of a specific
strategy or decision making process , helps in understanding the internal and external
environment in more intuitive way (Bull et al. 2016).
Porter five forces:
The model helps in understanding the external competitive environment and thus helps
in formulating the effective strategy for maximizing the profit for the organization (E.Doobs
2014).
Critique:
The model mentioned above are very standard in the field of business strategy making
process. However, out of those models PESTEL methods are often preferred as it conduct more
detailed analysis on the factors that influence the business environment both internal and
external. It helps the business analysts to understand the current market scenario as well as the
future performance of the organization in the market (Johnson 2016).

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4. Relationship between organizational strategy and knowledge audit plan:
Synopsis:
Knowledge audit helps the organizations to understand the knowledge management plan
that has already been identified and implemented by the organizations to develop the knowledge
resources for the organization as well for the employees (Rodgers, Mubako and Hall 2017). It
also helps to understand the effectiveness of the existing knowledge management plan and helps
to identify the flaws in the strategy and propose effective solutions to address those needs
(Mutch 2008).
Critique:
Based on the discussion it can be said that the knowledge audit plan plays an important
role in formulating correct strategy for the organization by managing two interconnected concept
of knowledge system and knowledge management (Costan and Popoa 2017). The knowledge
audit plan must be in perfect alignment to make full use of the systems to serve the business
requirements effectively.
Reflection:
It is not only important to have a knowledge management plan , in order to fully take the
benefits of the system there should be proper strategy to use the knowledge management system

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in effective way to actually get benefited from the system. There should be perfect integration
and synchronizations between the knowledge system and knowledge management resources. The
knowledge audit plan helps in perfectly synchronizing the knowledge management and the
knowledge system (Tay 2017). The knowledge audit, with the knowledge management system
provides strategy to use the knowledge resources as per the need of the organization and scope of
various project the organization deals with.
Knowledge system is important to realize the business strategy , but it cannot reflect that
whether the knowledge resources is appropriate for the requirement or whether it needs any
modification or improvement to suit the actual needs. The knowledge audit plan with careful
analysis of the business requirements can suggest necessary improvements in the knowledge
system and in the knowledge management system as well (Gourova and Toteva 2014). This
kind of insights helps the organization to formulate the right strategy for the business as per the
needs and requirements.

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5. Leadership and Team building skills required by a Business Analyst:
Due to the evolving nature of the business and dynamic needs, today the role of an
business leaders is not only limited to the analyzing business needs and propose the solution
based on that. The responsibilities have become much more diverse. Leadership and team
building quality has become an essential for the role of business analyst. Companies these days
expect business analyst to be good leader as well in addition to necessary expertise in the
business domain.
Critique:
The skills that are mentioned are is essential for leadership skills. However there are
other requirements that the analyst should be aware to be perfect leaders (Ekpe , Mat and
Adeliye 2017)
Motivation to team members:
The analyst should motivate the teams for effective team work
Emotional support:
The leaders should look beyond the business scope and provides necessary support to
team members and should be available if they need mental or emotional support (Lussier and
Achua 2015):
Positive outlooks towards work:

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The business analyst as a leader should have positive attitude towards the work, no matter
what is the demand of the situation. This helps the team members to remain focused and inspired
in tough situations while completing any project or task.

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Knowledge audits of bussiness analysis
Reflection:
The essential leadership qualities that the business analyst should have are :
Empowerment:
It is one of the prime qualities of leadership. Business analysts should be able to provide
information across various departments as per the job needs and should have the capabilities of
empowering the team responsible for the product development.
Focus:
The development teams often face problems to find balance between the actual needs and
vision of the project. However it is the quality of the business analyst to talk to the clients and
stake holders to find the needs of the project and also keep the vision of the project integrated by
staying focused on the project requirements.
Catering multiple needs:
Business analyst should be able to handle multiple projects with ease. The projects varies
in terms of requirement, vision , purpose and involved stakeholders and their demands as well.
However the analyst should not find it difficult to switch between various projects.

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6. Key processes involved in understanding the business context:
The ability to understand and manage the key business requirements is to effectively
analyze the needs of the business and provide effective solution for the business requirements.
The solution should be such that it gives the most effective mean to solve the business problems
and maximize the profit by minimizing the risks. The solution should be able to offer excellence
in business operation. No organization wants to waste the available resources and want to use the
resources in such a way that it provides the desired result. The business analyst should be able to
understand the business context effectively to provide correct solution to a business problem.
Critique:
The strategies mentioned above are very important to understand the business context and
these are very standard rules. In addition to that there are some additional tolls that the analyst
should be aware of to be better at understanding the business requirements (Lankoski 2016).
Identification of key operational and support process:
It helps to understand what business strategy is more effective than others in a particular
context (Daniel, Di Domenico and Nunan 2018).
Alignment of process owners:
It helps to understand the ownership of various processes so that the limitations and
responsibilities are well known before formulating any suggestion for business requirements
(Lubberink et al. 2017).

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Ability to conduct process efficient audits:
This is another important strategy to follow when analysing and understanding business
requirements as it helps to understand a process by analyzing the efficiency of that particular
process, thus the assessment and understanding of the process becomes much more effective in
context of the business requirement.
Reflection:
The important strategies that is involved in understanding the business context are:
Proper analysis of the requirements:
It is important to understand the business requirements before proposing any solution.
Only correct assessment of the problem can provide enough insights that is needed to deal with a
business problem.
Various perspective to analyze a given problem:
In order to be better at decision making , the analyst should be able to analyze a problem
from various perspective to get more clear idea about various available solutions and the benefit
of following this approach is that it helps to define the problems in more intuitive way and
provide more efficient strategy to solve them.
Correct assessment of the resources:
The analyst should be aware of the available resources that the organization has and various
limitations and capabilities of the resources. Correct assessment of the resources help to

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formulates strategy that suits the organization most and helps in understanding the business
needs more effectively.

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7. Comparison of Various Requirements Elicitation Techniques:
Synopsis:
The task of choosing the perfect elicitation techniques from the available techniques is
not an easy task as every technique has their own strength and weakness. No technique is perfect
as such (Paul Yeates and Cadle 2010). Some technique is more suitable than others based on the
nature of the task and scope of as well (Prahalad 2008). Some technique is perfect for a specific
task or requirement, while other is not. It all depends on the need of the task.
Critique:
Based on the analysis it can be said that every techniques has some advantages and
disadvantages . some tolls are used at initial stage of the project, some at the later part, some are
used to offer quick guide in requirement analysis , while some are used for systematic
requirement analysis (Abbasi et al. 2015) .That is why it is more important to choose the perfect
one according to the requirement analysis (Yousuf and Asger 2015). However it requires proper
knowledge about the techniques, the advantages and disadvantages of each technique to choose
the perfect one according to the need of the project or task (Nisar, Nawaz and Sirshar 2015).
Reflection:
Elicitation techniques can be defined as the tolls that are used to collect the user
requirements and then based on those requirements the system is developed in such a way that

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the requirements of the stakeholders are fulfilled. The classification of different elicitation
techniques are listed below:
Traditional techniques:
It is one of the old ways that was preferred by the traditional analyst to meet the
requirements elicitation. It involves interviews, surveys and analysis of documents.
Contextual techniques:
It refers to collecting the user requirements at the work environment to analyse them later
to build the required system. Techniques in this category include Observation, Ethnography and
Protocol Analysis.
Group techniques:
It allows various teams of stakeholders to participate in the decision making process to
assist in the designing of the system by offering their expertise. These techniques include:
Prototyping, Joint Application Development, Brainstorming, and Group Work .
Cognitive techniques:
It allows to analyze and gather information up to the human thinking level. It demands in
dept analysis of the requirements. Techniques include Laddering, Card Sorting, Repertory Grids
and Class Responsibility Collaboration.

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