BABok has been revised numerous times over its history. The recent version, BABoK v3, has 50 techniques. Such a high number of techniques can be extremely hard for the human brain to memorize. The BABoK technique mindmap can save individuals almost 40 hours of the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) exam preparation. While tasks and techniques are available in large numbers, you must focus only on learning the smart way, not the hard way.

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What Is BABoK?

BABoK stands for Business Analysis Body of Knowledge. It consists of a description of all the acknowledged practices in the field of business analysis. It offers guidance and knowledge of the skills that must be possessed by business analysts. Published by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA), Canada, the contents included in the BABoK guide have been entirely verified by practitioners. 

The guide does not mandate adherence to the described practices under all circumstances. Instead, it prescribes that business analysis practices must be adapted according to specific conditions. The fundamental content of the guide includes 6 knowledge areas (KA) and 30 business analysis tasks. The knowledge area consists of logically related tasks, and the tasks mentioned under each knowledge area aid in fulfilling the purpose of the related KA.

BABoK Knowledge Areas 

  • Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring
  • Elicitation and Collaboration
  • Requirements Lifecycle Management
  • Strategy Analysis
  • Requirements Analysis and Design definition
  • Solution Evaluation

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50 Techniques of BABoK

  1. Acceptance and Evaluation Criteria
  2. Backlog Management
  3. Balanced Scorecard
  4. Benchmarking and Market Analysis
  5. Brainstorming
  6. Business Capability Analysis
  7. Business Cases
  8. Business Model Canvas
  9. Business Rules Analysis
  10. Collaborative Games
  11. Concept Modeling
  12. Data Dictionary
  13. Data Flow Diagrams
  14. Data Mining
  15. Data Modeling
  16. Decision Analysis
  17. Decision Modeling
  18. Document Analysis
  19. Estimation
  20. Financial Analysis
  21. Focus Groups
  22. Functional Decomposition
  23. Glossary
  24. Interface Analysis
  25. Interviews
  26. Item Tracking
  27. Lessons Learned
  28. Metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
  29. Mind Mapping
  30. Non-Functional Requirements Analysis
  31. Observation
  32. Organizational Modeling
  33. Prioritization
  34. Process Analysis
  35. Process Modeling
  36. Prototyping
  37. Reviews
  38. Risk Analysis and Management
  39. Roles and Permissions Matrix
  40. Root Cause Analysis
  41. Scope Modeling
  42. Sequence Diagrams
  43. Stakeholder List, Map, or Personas
  44. State Modeling
  45. Survey or Questionnaire
  46. SWOT Analysis
  47. Use Cases and Scenarios
  48. User Stories
  49. Vendor Assessment
  50. Workshops

Having an understanding of BABoK can be of immense help to business analysts as the insights provided by the methodologies, techniques, or tasks can change their perspective on daily jobs and enhance the operations of their workplace.

Why Should We Group the BABoK Techniques?

Due to the high number of techniques in BABoK v3, organizing them in a group is both practical and beneficial for business analysts. Grouping the techniques also helps in identifying common attributes of similar techniques. 

It is prudent to divide elicitation techniques into group-based and individual-based elicitation techniques.

Following are the common attributes of every group-based elicitation technique:

  • Possesses a Facilitator, as a facilitator enhances a group activity
  • Difficult to schedule
  • Good to acquire consensus
  • Interpersonal issues and conflicts

There will exist similarities in the strengths and weaknesses of every group-based and individual-based elicitation technique.

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What Does the BABoK V3 Techniques Mind-map Try to Achieve?

The BABoK v3 techniques mindmap attempts to explain the relationship between techniques and knowledge areas. It tries to associate techniques to knowledge areas for achieving maximum optimization. However, this does not indicate that the techniques fail to contribute to other knowledge areas. 

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