Often, we say the above statement, and sometimes it’s okay.
We are human, and we tend to forget things. But is there a technique that would ensure that we don’t forget critical aspects of the project?
Because if we forget critical aspects of the project, we will run into trouble. Here is another business analysis technique with a worked-out example called item tracking.
Item tracking is vital for any professional because if you don’t track the items you are supposed to track, it will be a troublesome affair for you.
Item tracking technique captures and assigns responsibility for issues and stakeholder concerns. Items can refer to actions, assumptions, constraints, dependencies, defects, enhancements, and issues.
Record items
Record items, manually or by a system, with the following attributes:
- Item ID: Unique ID
- Summary: Brief description of the item
- Category: Grouping of items with similar properties
- Type: Type of item, Date identified, Identified by
- Impact: Possible consequences. Assess with respect to time, cost, scope, or quality
- Priority, Resolution date, Owner
- Resolver: Stakeholder assigned to resolve item
- Agreed strategy: E.g., Accept, pursue, ignore, mitigate and avoid
- Status: E.g., Open, assigned, resolved, and canceled
- Resolution updates: Running log of item’s resolution
- Escalation matrix
Business analyst MUST track each item to its closure or resolution. They should report on item tracking performance.
Strengths
- Stakeholder concerns tracked and resolved.
- Allows ranking importance of outstanding items.
Limitations
- Can be expensive to capture and track items.
- Consumes productive time.
- Stakeholders could become mired in details and statistics.
Worked out Example:
Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) management system is developed for the IT and ITES domain. The primary objective of the GRC management system is to assist companies in implementing Governance, Quality, and Information Security Management Systems in an integrated manner. It has numerous features, one of which is to plan and track projects and programs using standards such as CMMI, ISO 9001, ISO 27001, etc.
Through this example, let us try and understand what the item tracker for Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) management system looks like.
| ID | Issues / Discussion Point | Ref. to BRD | Raised By | Raised On | Severity | Status |
| 1 | Support for task dependency | Schedule | Deepa | 1-Mar-15 | Normal | Accepted |
| 2 | Integration with requirements modeling tools | Change mgmt. | LN Mishra | 1-Mar-15 | Normal | Accepted |
| 3 | Export of reports to ppt. | Reports | Amit Sharma | 1-Mar-15 | Normal | Accepted |
| 4 | Integration with BI tools | Reports | Amit Sharma | 1-Mar-15 | Normal | Accepted |
| 5 | Support for Known error database | Issues | Amit Sharma | 1-Mar-15 | Normal | Accepted |
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