A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge

P.1 Purpose of this release
The purpose of this release is to add refined detailed content to the material that was
published in BOK 1.4, as well as add content in most of the areas not addressed in 1.4.

This release moves us significantly closer to a complete guide to the Business Analysis
Body of Knowledge. As such, this release is being made available to IIBA members only.

We will continue to provide the table of contents and pieces of content to the general
public to help potential members understand what is covered in the BOK.

This document represents a snapshot of the Knowledge Area documentation as of June
2006. Over the past months since the October 2005 previous release we have gathered
feedback and input from many business analysis practitioners through a structured
feedback process.

Each reviewer in that process was pre-screened to ensure they
represented practitioners with at least 3-5 years experience.

Their feedback was used by
the Knowledge Area sub-committees to refine our content. 

We extend a huge thank-you
to each reviewer for taking the time to help in the ongoing creation of the Business
Analysis Body of Knowledge.

We also heard from many IIBA members and potential members who informally
reviewed the previous version.

Rest assured your comments and ideas sparked many
discussions among the core team or sub-committees. Your support and enthusiasm have
been critical is helping us maintain focus and momentum.

Thank you!

P.2 What is and is not in this release

This release includes:

• An updated introductory chapter including an updated definition of the business
analyst role, and a definition of requirements types. The introduction chapter
will continue to be revised as the BOK is further refined.

• Both refined and added content for:
o Enterprise Analysis
o Requirements Planning and Management
o Requirements Elicitation
o Requirements Analysis and Documentation
o Solution Assessments and Validation
o Requirements Communication
• An updated structure for the Underlying Fundamentals area.

This release does not include:

• The detailed content describing the Underlying Fundamentals area

• An updated Glossary





P.3 Continuing the review and refinement process

To address missing content a new sub-committee for Underlying Fundamentals has been
created and is already hard at work on content.

We will also have someone focus on the
Glossary to ensure all key terms are added.

So, while there is still some content to be added for the next release, the primary focus will
be on refinement of the existing material.

The ongoing review and refinement process has a number of components:
BOK Core Team Review for consistency and coherence across the Body of Knowledge
The BOK core team is currently reviewing the inputs and outputs of each knowledge area
in order to:

• fix inconsistencies between chapters
• fix any redundancy between chapters

Many members of the core team have been heavily involved in writing detailed content
for specific knowledge areas.

We now have the opportunity to also participate in a
detailed review of the material we did not write. This will further enable us to find and fix
inconsistencies. Our detailed review will focus on:

• keeping the BOK as a descriptor of the knowledge needed by a business analyst vs.
an analysis process or analysis methodology, or a how-to guide

• verifying that the BOK remains methodology-neutral and broadly applicable

• detailed integration between the Knowledge Areas

• ensuring a consistent level of detail across the Knowledge Areas

Industry Expert Advisory Group for industry validation
We have created a panel of industry experts who can provide feedback and input based
on their specialty and experience. This group will be assisting us through the end of 2006
by reviewing the overall scope of the BOK in preparation of the rollout of the certification
program at the end of this year.


In 2007, the group will assist us with a detailed review of the content.

We are still building this group. As of the date of writing this panel includes:

• Scott Ambler, Owner and Founder of Ambysoft Inc. and Practice Leader Agile
Development, IBM Rational. http://www.ambysoft.com/
• James Baird, Professor at Humber College and Owner of BPM3 Inc.,
www.bpm3inc.com
• Rafael Dorantes, Senior Project Manager, Rational Centre of Competency, IBM
Canada Inc.
• Ellen Gottesdiener, Principal Consultant and founder of EBG Consulting, Inc.,
http://www.ebgconsulting.com/about.asp
• Paul Harmon, Executive Editor, Business Process Trends, http://www.bptrends.com
• Ann M. Hickey, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Information Systems, University of
Colorado, http://web.uccs.edu/ahickey/
• Dean Leffingwell, entrepreneur, software industry executive, and technical
author, http://www.leffingwell.org/bio.html
• Mark McGregor, Principal, BPMG.org (http://www.markmcgregor.com)
• Meilir Page-Jones, President and Senior Consulting Methodologist,
http://www.waysys.com/
• Richard Payne, Consulting Partner, Bauhaus Consulting Group,
http://www.bcgrp.com/
• Karen Tate, Member of the PMI Board of Directors and President of the Griffin
Tate Group, http://www.griffintate.com/
• Steve Tockey, Principal Consultant, Construx Software,
http://www.construx.com/training/instructors/BioSteveTockey.php
• Dr. Ralph R. Young, Director of Process Improvement, Systems and Process
Engineering, Defense Group, Northrop Grumman Information Technology,
http://www.ralphyoung.net

General membership review and input on specific topics
As the review and refinement continues, there will be specific topics or questions we
need to put to the IIBA membership. At various times,
specific topics or small surveys
will be posted on the IIBA forum in the BOK area. Please check there often for topics of
interest to you.