Assignment 2: BA Perspectives

Introduction

Your Assignment 2: BA Perspectives is the study and analysis of the following provided case study, which builds upon Assignment 1. People, projects and processes presented below are fictitious and have been inspired by real life scenarios.

The fictitious dates within the case do not reflect the real deadlines of the assignment. Refer to your class schedule or syllabus for the assignment deadline or speak with your instructor.

This assignment will be due after you complete Unit 12. An ideal solution would require you to leverage the learning from Units 8 through 12. Please consider all possible alternatives and document any assumptions in your response. You are expected to work through this assignment after you complete each unit. You are encouraged to build upon your previous work and iterate, as your knowledge grows from unit to unit.

Perspectives Case Study

It is year 2023, and Unila Motors is the most innovative car maker in Canada. Unila manufactures a sports car called Model A. Model A was launched in 2020. And ever since then, it has been determined by the Canadian press to be the best sports car in the world.

Unilas Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is Melon Eusk. Melon foresees that the period between years 2025 to 2030 is going to be very lucrative for the sales of luxury cars. In order to capture a share of this growing sector, Melon started a program on January 1 to build the best luxury car by year 2025. The name of this car would be Model B.

This program is comprised of various projects being led by a Project Leader. Key projects include the following:

1. Interiors (PINT): focused on designing the interior cabin of Model B. This project will determine attributes like features, colors, layout, etc. It will be led by Mr. Sarvey Hectre.
2. Exteriors (PEXT): focused on designing the exterior of Model B. This project will determine attributes like features, colors, shape, etc. It will be led by Ms. Rachel Moss.
3. Computing (PTEC): focused on designing the technology of Model B. This project will determine attributes like hardware and software features. It will be led by Ms. Sonja Myth.

All these projects need to be successful in order to launch Model B effectively. Other members of this program include Mr. Eusk (CEO), Mr. Orange (Chief Financial Officer-CFO), Ms. Apple (Chief Technology Officer-CTO), and Ms. Grape (Chief Designer). All these people were involved in launching Model A in 2020. Sarvey, Rachel, and Sonja will be dedicated 100% to Model B, while others will be splitting their time between Model A and B.

Mr. Hectre is an alumni of the University of Manitoba and happened to meet you in the parking lot one day. You were hired on the spot and joined Unila on January 15th as the Lead Business Analyst (BA) on PINT. Melon asked you create a Business Analysis Core Concept Model (BACCM) for PINT by January 22nd.

You created the BACCM before the due date and reviewed it with several stakeholders. The document was well prepared, and Sarvey asked you to share the Business Analysis Approach for PINT by January 29th.

You created the BA Approach just in time for the due date. Sarvey liked what he saw and wanted you to facilitate 3 meetings with the stakeholders in PINT by February 7th. You were not sure if 3 meetings would be enough, so you decided to lay out a plan for Sarvey.

By March 1st, your work with Sarvey and Melon had captured the attention of Rachel. She was able to tap into your expertise for the business analysis work on PEXT.

During March and April, you held several elicitation sessions on both projects and talked informally with many stakeholder too. Three requirements that were specified were as the following:

• PINT020: Rear seats in Model B shall be able to accommodate at least 3 adults.
• PINT021: Rear passengers of Model B shall be able to egress without requiring any move by front passengers.
• PEXT032: Model B shall have 2 doors.

You started reviews in May. On May 1st, in a session with Ms. Grape, she expressed concerns over these 3 requirements. You discussed this issue with Sarvey and Rachel, and they advised you to review with others. You were told that Melon wanted a prioritized list by May 15th.

Sarvey had to take a long term leave on June 1st. Unila hired a qualified replacement swiftly, Jouis Pitt, so as to not affect any of the project deadlines. Melon came to you and asked that you facilitate his onboarding.

This deliverable was part of Jouiss first week learnings. He was ramped up by June 15th and requested you to review all the requirements elicited so far.

During his onboarding, Jouis also bonded with Ms. Apple and Ms. Grape. Both of them shared information about Model A with Jouis. On June 22nd, he expressed a desire to leverage an interior design which was adapted from Model A. Melon found out about this and asked you to produce a report for him by June 29th.

______________

Melon was pleased with your work. He wanted your assistance with the business architecture at Unila. He had started doing some functional decomposition earlier but had to leave it incomplete. During his efforts, he had already determined that making the best luxury car requires making superlative interiors, exteriors and car computers. He asked you to complete this activity and present a report to him by July 7th.

Customer experience was one of the items you noted during decomposition. As it turns out, luxury car buyers give high importance to the experience during buying, servicing and selling process. Melon asked you to go to Unilas flagship store in Winnipeg and learn more about this. You were asked to bring back a model of the process to get a car serviced by July 14th.

Melon discussed your visit with Ms. Apple. She is the sponsor of a project that will lead to the creation of an executive dashboard for Unilas senior management. Ms. Apple wanted to determine who is a typical customer for Model A and who will be interested in Model B. She asked you to work with the Market Research team and put together User Personas by July 30th.

Ms. Apple also introduced you to Sonja. As part of PTEC, she was preparing a list of features that should be present in the software for Model B. Software evolves rapidly so she asked you to help her with backlog management.

Sonja was impressed by your work and requested Melon that you continue working on PTEC for the month of August. Integration with google maps was one of the items at the top of PTECs backlog. Sonjas developers had allocated the month of August to develop and test code so that Model Bs computer would work seamlessly with google maps. You invested a whole month into business analysis on PTEC.

How to Proceed

Students are required to complete only 2 sections of their choosing out of all sections listed. The assignment is due at the end of the course. Please see below for the section questions that correspond with the units of the course:

8. IT Perspective

In 4 -6 pages, identify and describe the Business Analysis scope in this case from an IT perspective. At the very least, this description should contain all of the following 5 elements: sponsor, targets, role played by yourself, deliverables and methodology.

9. Process Management Perspective

In 1 - 3 pages, create a process model. At the very least, this model should contain all of the following 5 elements: Activity, Event, Directional Flow, Decision Point and Role(s).

10. Business Intelligence Perspective

In 4 - 6 pages, identify and describe the Business Analysis scope in this case from a BI perspective. At the very least, this description should contain all of the following 5 elements: Sponsor, targets, role played by yourself, deliverables and outcomes.

11. Business Architecture Perspective

In 4 -6 pages, select one of the diagramming techniques described in BABOK and create a representation of decomposition results for Melon, and:

1. Use the first page for the diagram.
2. Explain your work and choices using all elements of Functional Decomposition.
3. Describe any limitations and document all assumptions, explaining why these were important in your response.

12. Agile Perspective

In 1 -3 pages, identify if an agile approach was followed for any changes in Unila. Recommend opportunities where Agile should have been followed. In your response, consider all of the following 4 elements: Breadth of change, Depth of change, values & solutions delivered and assumptions.

Grading

This case is open-ended, so there are multiple ways to respond to it. Assignments will be evaluated according to the alignment of various responses with BABOK concepts & themes. Consider the following: