The activities that the business analyst performs in order to understand the business and technical circumstances that exist before a solution is designed and implemented.

On larger initiatives, it becomes very important to establish a baseline of the business operations and systems that exist in the company before the solution is designed and implemented. The current state analysis work that the business analyst performs is aimed at establishing this baseline.

Many initiatives skip this step of the solution delivery process because:

• • The initiative is too small to see the value of establishing a baseline.
• • The customers of the solution all have a clear understanding of their existing operations and do not require those.
• • The customers of the solution have a clear idea of their pain points and do not require a review of their existing operations to uncover the challenges that the solution must resolve.
• • An current state analysis makes sense, but the employer/client is not able to see the value of spending time to carry out the activity.

As a business analyst, you should be well equipped with the knowledge required to determine when a current state analysis is required, and when it can be skipped with little risk to the project.