Business or Mission Analysis
Lead Authors: Tami Katz Contributing Authors: Lou Wheatcraft, Mike Ryan
The starting point of engineering any system-of-interest (SoI) is understanding the organizational objectives behind the development of the SoI, which is the objective of the concept definition set of activities.
The first concept definition activity is called "Business or Mission Analysis", which involves the effort of defining the problem, threat, or opportunity, as well as the mission, goals, objectives, and measures that will be addressed by a new system, a change to an existing system, a service, an operational change or some other solution. This effort is typically performed by the organization’s strategic and business operations levels and focuses on the identification of the primary purpose(s) of the SoI (its "mission"). The second concept definition activity is called Stakeholder Needs Definition, which explores what capabilities are needed to accomplish the mission.
Business or Mission Analysis is often performed iteratively with the Stakeholder Needs Definition activity to better understand the problem (or opportunity) space, as well as options of solution space.
Purpose and Definition
The purpose of Business or Mission Analysis is to understand a mission or market problem, threat or opportunity, establish the objectives and measures of success of a potential solution that could address the problem/threat/opportunity. This consists of a strategic analysis related to emerging needs, capability gaps, or opportunities and solutions that can be applied to an organization that evolves its strategy for its business objectives. This effort is done prior to project formation to define the problem space and is input to the project team's development efforts.
Principles and Concepts
For the SoI under development, success depends on the project team's understanding the data that constitutes the purpose of the SoI (why?), acceptability or desirability of a solution (what?), measures (how well?), and the conditions in which the SOI must operate (in what operating environment?)
Prior to project formulation, a project champion and business analyst work with key stakeholders at the organization’s strategic and business operations levels to clearly define the problem or opportunity for which the project team is to address. Identifying the specific problem or opportunity will enable the project team to understand why the project is worth doing, the system is needed, and the capabilities, functions, performance, and features that are important to the customers, users, and operators of the system. The next step is to identify the mission, goals and objectives (MGOs) based on the defined problem, threat or opportunity, as well as the measures of success.
- The Mission statement is based on the analysis of a problem, threat, or opportunity that the project was formed to address and defines the “why” - why does the project exist?
- Goals are upper-level needs that form the second level of the hierarchy of the integrated set of needs. Goals are elaborated from the mission statement communicating those things that need to be achieved that will result in achieving the mission. Goals allow the organization to divide the mission statement into manageable pieces and promote a shared understanding between the project team and the organization’s strategic and business operations level stakeholders or customers of what will be done to achieve the mission.
- Objectives are upper-level needs that form the third level of the hierarchy of the integrated set of needs. Objectives are elaborated from the goals providing more details concerning what must be done to meet the goals that will result in the mission to be achieved i.e., what the project team and the system to be developed need to achieve so the system can fulfill its intended purpose (mission) in its operational environment when operated by its intended users.
Once the identification of the problem, threats, opportunities, MGOs and measures are done an evaluation of whether to proceed with the SoI is performed at the enterprise level based on analysis of organization objectives. Upon agreement to proceed with further concept development, the data from the Business and Mission Analysis is provided to the project team to complete the rest of the process (Figure 1).
Figure 1 here:
Define the Problem, Threat, or Opportunity -> Define the Mission, Goals, Objectives (MGOs) and Measures -> project formation
Figure 1. Business or Mission Analysis addresses the effort to generate project success, which is provided to the project team for further concept definition activities. Original SEBoK figure.
In many cases the identification of the problem, threats, opportunities, MGOs and measures are done at a business enterprise or operations levels, where the initial assessment results in the authorization for a project and associated budget along with an acquisition concept. For the project team responsible for developing the SoI, this means seeking an understanding of this content to ensure the outcomes of the project align with the organizations overall strategy behind developing that particular project.
Once the project has been formed the output from the Business or Mission Analysis is then provided to the project organization for use in additional analysis that establishes the overall set of needs (described in Stakeholder Needs and Requirements definition).
Process Approach
Define the Problem, Threat or Opportunity
Identifying the specific problem or opportunity will enable the project team to understand why the project is worth doing, the system is needed, and the capabilities, functions, performance, and features that are important to the customers, users, and operators of the system. The steps to defining the problem or opportunity include:
1. Identify the organization’s strategic and business operations level stakeholders that are impacted by the problem or threat or those who will benefit by pursuing the opportunity.
2. Work with of these stakeholders to understand how they are impacted by the problem or threat or those that will benefit by pursuing the opportunity.
3. Clearly define a statement of the problem, threat, or opportunity.
4. Get stakeholder agreement for the problem, threat, or opportunity statement.
Define the Mission, Goals, Objectives and Measures
To obtain the MGOs and measures, the project champion and business analyst collaborates with the stakeholders that participated in defining the problem or opportunity to better understand what they would view as an acceptable outcome by asking:
- How do they define success?
- What measures would the stakeholders use to define success?
- What is the intended use of the SoI in what operating environment?
- What capabilities, features, functions, and performance do they need?
- What are their expectations for quality and compliance (with standards and regulations)?
- What specific outcome(s) do they expect once the SoI is delivered?
For cases where there is no existing SOI (also known as a “green field” project), a common approach is to characterize the “as is” or “present state “of the organization in terms of the problem, threat, or opportunity and then characterize the “to be” or “future state” of the organization in terms of the resolution of the problem, neutralizing the threat, or the ability to pursue the opportunity.
For existing systems that need to be updated (also known as a “brown field” project), a common approach is to list the problems or issues with the existing “as-is” system and the reasons the SOI needs to be changed. Key information includes what they think needs to be changed and why, and what value will result from the change. What can the existing SOI no longer do, what performance needs to be improved, what changes need to be made concerning interactions with external systems, what updates are needed as a result of changes to applicable standards and regulations.
It is also important to understand different perspectives. The problem/threat/opportunity, MGOs, and measures from a business perspective (developing organization or customer organization) may be different than the consumer’s perspective, thus both must be addressed. The consumer does not care about the developing organizations profits, time to market, market share, etc. The consumer cares about how the resulting product meets their needs. Thus, there will be several sets of problem/threat/opportunity, MGOs, and measures that need to be defined and met by the project team from both a business perspective and a consumer perspective of the product to be developed. This may lead to conflicts, e.g., product price vs. profitability and market share.
Example (from INCOSE Guide to Needs and Requirements):
Problem/Threat/Opportunity: Marketing is seeing an increase of stay-at-home workers, purchasing more coffee makers. Existing coffee makes have single functions while consumers want a multi-function hot beverage maker to get a blend of options like traditional brew or espresso. There is a huge opportunity if first to market.
Mission Statement: Provide a home-based, one-stop, hot beverage facility.
Consumer Goals:
CG1) Obtain home brew coffee quickly
CG2) Obtain consistent output of brewed coffee
CG3) Eliminate the need for multiple appliances by including additional features such a variety of hot beverages (traditional brew, espresso, and teas)
CG4) Easy to use and maintain
CG5) Highly reliable and long lasting
Business Goals:
BG1) Reduce time to market
BG2) Increase profitability
BG3) Increase market share
Business Objectives:
O1) Stock store shelves within one year
O2) Generate coffee and espresso (including steamer/frothier)
O3) Maximize reusability of existing company assets
O4) Increase market share of Company X sales regions
Consumer-focused Measures:
M1) 99% accuracy within temperature based on user temperature option selected
M2) 99% accuracy within duration based on type of beverage selected
M3) 10-year service life
Business-focused Measures:
M4) 40% per unit profit
M5) Greater than 50% market share of Company X sales regions
Practical Considerations
pending
References
Works Cited
INCOSE. 2022. INOSE Needs and Requirements Manual, version 1.1. INCOSE-TP-2021-002-01.
INCOSE. 2022. INOSE Guide to Needs and Requirements Manual, version 1. INCOSE-TP-2021-003-01
Primary References
ISO/IEC/IEEE. 2023. Systems and Software Engineering -- System Life Cycle Processes. Geneva, Switzerland: International Organisation for Standardisation / International Electrotechnical Commissions / Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2023.
INCOSE. 2023. 'Systems Engineering Handbook: A Guide for System Life Cycle Processes and Activities', version 5.0. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley and Sons, Inc, ISBN: 978-1-118-99940-0.
Additional References
None.