by ---Felicia Joyner
Assess Current State
The "Analyze Current State" process is a critical step in business analysis, aimed at understanding the reasons for change within an enterprise and assessing the various elements that make up the current state. Here's an analysis of the purpose, description and elements of this process:
Purpose
The purpose of Analyze Current State is to understand why an enterprise needs to change aspects of its operations and how those changes will impact the organization directly or indirectly. Analyze Current State sets the foundation for change initiatives by identifying business needs, problems, and opportunities.
Description
Ground any change in an enterprise with a clear understanding of why the change is necessary. Assess the current state identifies problems or opportunities requiring modifications to the current state. Business analysts play a crucial role in helping stakeholders identify and articulate the business needs motivating the change.
Scenario: Current State of Valuations
Valuations provide a quantitative assessment of the worth of assets or investments, enabling individuals and organizations to make well-informed financial decisions, allocate resources effectively, and comply with financial and legal requirements. Valuations influence financial decision-making; mergers and acquisitions; business planning; financial reporting; taxation; risk management; investment analysis; exit strategies and more.
Ray Consulting Group performed valuations for their clients utilizing Excel spreadsheets. Over the years valuation profit margins declined. Ray Consulting Group’s processes dictated consultants destroy valuation spreadsheets after an engagement. However, consultants often maintained the valuations and other work products to expedite future valuation work. This posed security concerns and resulted in fines and reputation damage when a consultant’s laptop was stolen.
Key points:
· Understanding the current state is the first step in determining changes needed to achieve a desired future state.
· The scope of the current state can vary, from assessing the entire enterprise to specific components or solutions.
Assess Current State Elements:
· Business Need: These are the core problems and opportunities that drive the enterprise to consider change. Identifying and defining business need guides current state analysis.
· Organizational Structure and Culture: The formal relationships and culture within the organization can either support or impede a change initiative.
· Capabilities and Processes: These describe what the enterprise does and how it does it. Analyzing these elements helps identify gaps and opportunities for improvement.
· Policies define the decision-making framework within the enterprise and may constrain or guide change efforts.
· Business Architecture: Understanding how current state elements fit together and support one another is critical for making effective recommendations.
· Technology and Infrastructure involves assessing the information systems, technology, and physical components supporting the enterprise's operations.
· Internal Assets: Identifying and valuing tangible and intangible assets that play a role in the current state.
· External Influencers: External factors like industry structure, competitors, customers, suppliers, regulatory environment, technology, and macroeconomic conditions can affect the current state and potential changes.
Scenario: Elements of Valuations
Ray Consulting Group’s business need involves providing a lower-cost method of providing valuations to increase margins. They also have an opportunity to secure completed valuations that are compromised by leaving them on the individual consultant’s computer. Organizational Structure and Culture: Some of the consultants are opposed to changes and new systems. However, the consultancy partners favor automation and have hired some younger consultants who welcome new processes and tools. Policies, Capabilities and Processes Ray Consulting Group utilizes Excel Spreadsheets to create valuations. After the engagement, consultants should delete these spreadsheets. However, many consultants retain the valuation and other work products for reuse in future engagements. External Influencers: competitors have assisted in driving valuation prices down. The field of valuation is regulated. Internal Assets: Ray Consulting Group has a cloud-based platform with data security housing other applications. It is possible that this platform can be enhanced to support the valuation part of the business.
Guidelines and Tools:
The process provides various guidelines and tools to support the analysis, including the Business Analysis Approach, Enterprise Limitation, Organizational Strategy, Solution Limitation, and more.
Techniques:
Various techniques are recommended to conduct a thorough analysis, such as benchmarking, business capability analysis, business model canvas, financial analysis, interviews, surveys, and SWOT analysis.
Diagraming tools
There are many tools available to diagram the current state, Visio, draw.io; Lucidchart; Miro; OpenOffice to name a few. I utilized Visio most often. I also utilized draw.io. I worked with a team that took the draw.io diagrams, and added their code to automate processes. Draw.io is integrated with GitHub, a cloud-based service that stores and manages code.
Summary
In summary, Analyze Current State is a fundamental step in understanding the need for change within an enterprise and serves as the foundation for developing a coherent change strategy. It requires a holistic view of an organization, considering internal and external factors, policies, culture, and capabilities to make informed recommendations for change.
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