The scope and focus of business analysis work must align with the
business goals, objectives and strategies of the organization.
This helps to ensure that the future state model that is produced is
aligned with where the business wants go and not with where it currently is.
To achieve this, the business analyst should adopt a "top down" approach
and ensure that the project
goals and objectives are aligned with the business goals and
objectives. The future state
business model that is formulated needs to reflect the business processes, information
needs and architectures that are needed going forward.
The risk of adopting a 'bottom-up" analysis approach is that time and money can be
lost modeling archaic, convoluted and soon-to-be redundant business
processes that are not wanted in the future. The BA must
design tomorrow's business systems; not yesterday's business systems.
On exception, however, the business analyst will need to do "bottom-up"
modeling. This is occasionally needed in areas of high complexity, where an
intimate understanding of the current state business model is required.
The Zachman Framework, developed by John Zachman in xxx, provides a
wonderful
overview of the types of business models that are created at each level of
abstraction and for each perspective. It it a useful framework for
better understand the difference between "top down" and "bottom up" business
analysis.
