How to learn about a new business

In a new business analyst position, it can be a challenge to figure out how to learn everything you need to know to be successful. Knowledge about the business and industry is a core competency for a business analyst. It can be acquired over the life cycle of a project, but oftentimes you need to know the basics to get started asking the right questions during elicitation.

Acquiring business and systems knowledge

When working with a new client, I often try to build my knowledge of the business and systems in parallel, but I give priority to understanding the business. Without understanding how the business works, it can be nearly impossible to understand where it’s going, help plan how to get there, and determine how to build or customize systems to support that direction.

Some aspects of the business can be ascertained by the company’s website, and I spend a fair amount of time trying to understand the business with publicly available information and explore the product or system if possible. But most understanding comes from talking to people within the business, whether during the course of elicitation sessions or in an initial “getting acquainted” meeting.

Understanding the business model

Here are some thoughts about the questions to ask and answer to get an understanding of how a business works.

• Who is the customer?
• What is the product?
• How is the product sold? (online, phone, in-person sales)
• What is the cost structure of the product? (subscription, pay-per-unit, etc)
• Where does the money go?
• How do we fulfill or distribute the product?
• How do we produce or support the product?
• How do we support the customer?
• How do we market the product?
• What partners do we work with to do business? How do we manage these relationships?

Some notes on these questions:

• There may be several customers or customer agents. The line between customers and partners can get a bit blurry. Focus at first on understanding the main types of people and organizations with which the organization does business.
• There may be multiple products. Most of the questions are valid for each product the organization sells.
• The organization’s product might be a service. Services are fulfilled by people and this work is often managed in some way. Ask these questions to flesh out fulfillment and distribution requirements.
• The organization’s product might be relatively intangible, like “space” on a website to market their job or some other listing. The concept of fulfillment still applies and will usually lead you down the path toward some systems knowledge.
• If the organization’s product is a tangible item, there is probably a logistics process in place to acquire raw materials, produce the item, and distribute it. Look for partners along this work-flow.
• Asking “where does the money go” or some variation can lead to some interesting perspectives on the business. Look for revenue/profit shares, partnerships, sales commission models, purchasing goods, etc.

As I ask questions and learn about the business, I try to build a big picture before diving too deep. Along the way I build a glossary if one doesn’t already exist. I keep track of all the roles within the organization because this is a great list to refer back to later when starting to model actors and use cases. I also track all the main organizational activities with a brief description.

Eliciting information from subject matter experts

Oftentimes these questions can be difficult for people to answer directly or as a new business analyst you are not given access to people at the level of the organization to have this viewpoint. I find my clients often have me start with a subject matter expert on the systems/process side as opposed to a business expert in management.

One technique I use is to have subject matter experts demo how they use the software. As they walk through their processes, I ask questions around those processes to gather information about how the business works. After a few of these meetings with people from different departments, you can start to synthesize the business model from the ground up.

However you acquire it, it’s important to get to an understanding of the business and not just the systems. This will give your systems knowledge context and help you ask better questions when scoping projects and eliciting requirements.

By Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg. Laura Brandenburg is an independent business analyst consultant. She is passionate about the BA profession and is committed to contributing by supporting this blog as a forum for business analysts to build on each other's experiences. View more blog posts by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

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