A temporary dispensation has been applied to the ST0117 V1.1 end point assessment plan for this apprenticeship. The dispensation will remain live until redundant apprentices identified in the dispensation request have completed their EPA, including any resits and retakes, when it will then be withdrawn. The end-point assessment organisation (EPAO) delivering the EPA for the apprenticeship will implement the dispensation as required and agreed by IfATE, supported and monitored by the relevant EQA provider (EQAP).
The key changes are:
The Training Provider will step in as the employer for the duration of the EPA period in order to ensure that apprentices that have been made redundant can conduct their work based project and complete their apprenticeship.
The dispensation applies to the agreed apprentices only. EPAOs must contact IfATE for each individual case. If your organisation is planning delivery of this EPA, you should follow the requirements as detailed in the plan as the dispensation is intended to support specific apprentices only.
Please contact the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education via enquiries.ifa@education.gov.uk should you require any further clarity.

Overview of the role

Working with organisations to improve their information systems.

Details of standard

Occupation summary

This occupation is found in the public and private sector, large multi-national companies and smaller independent enterprises. Business analysis exists in almost every sector, from not-for-profit organisations through to retail and the financial services. It's fast-paced and collaborative and provides a recognised career with professionals taking lead roles in successful change delivery.

The broad purpose of the occupation is to understand the needs of stakeholders and how these can be met through business change and digital solutions. Business Analysts are change professionals that help organisations deliver business and digital change successfully.

Business Analysts document business problems and user needs, and create solution requirements that align to best practice, and present them in a meaningful and logical way appropriate to the audience. Business Analysts manage stakeholder relationships, ensuring collaboration between business and technical stakeholders. By focusing on benefits and outcomes they ensure the right problems are solved and the right products are developed.

A common area of focus for the Business Analyst role is to model business processes and to facilitate, coordinate and document requirements for the proposed business and IT changes. Business Analysts will determine and present solutions of how technology can be used to deliver business improvements, and support business acceptance to ensure that the proposed solution meets the defined requirements.

They help businesses to understand the current organisational situation, identify future needs and define solutions to meet those needs, often in relation to digital technology. Business Analysts can gain an excellent understanding of the way the organisation works and the sector it operates in. This allows Business Analysts to make recommendations for improvement in relation to people, processes and IT. By analysing, documenting and managing requirements throughout the delivery lifecycle they help achieve successful business outcomes through new processes, data and/or technology.

In their daily work, an employee in this occupation interacts with a broad range of stakeholders, including customers, business users, suppliers, product owners, software developers, testers and senior leaders. These stakeholders include people both internal and external to the organisation.

Business Analysts play a key role in multidisciplinary teams by collaborating with different groups of stakeholders, working to understand and communicate how digital solutions can support the organisation's needs. They interact with stakeholders through leading workshops, conducting interviews and using other techniques to effectively understand the business problems and user needs.

An employee in this occupation will be responsible for investigating business situations, and analysing problems and opportunities for improvement. They will be responsible for investigating and analysing business processes, understanding data and business information needs, and documenting requirements for digital and business change solutions.

Occupation duties

Duty KSBs

Duty 1 Apply structured techniques to investigate wants, needs, problems and opportunities

K1 K2 K3 K6 K8 K9 K17 K18 K22 K26 K27 K28

S1 S2 S3 S5

B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B12 B13

Duty 2 Document the current situation and apply relevant techniques to structure information

K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 K7 K8 K9 K17 K18 K26 K27 K28

S1 S2 S4 S30

B1 B3 B4 B5 B7 B8 B9 B11 B12 B13

Duty 3 Assist in the development of options and recommendations for change

K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 K7 K8 K17 K18 K20 K24 K25 K26 K27 K28

S1 S2 S5 S6 S7 S30

B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B11 B12 B13

Duty 4 Model business processes using relevant techniques

K1 K2 K3 K6 K7 K10 K11 K18 K22 K26 K27

S1 S2 S8 S9 S30

B1 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B11 B12 B13

Duty 5 Perform business process analysis and improvement

K1 K2 K3 K4 K6 K10 K17 K18 K26 K27

S1 S2 S6 S10

B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B7 B8 B9 B10 B11 B12 B13

Duty 6 Redesign business process models in order to reflect changes in working practice or deliver improvements

K1 K2 K3 K4 K6 K7 K8 K10 K11 K17 K18 K22 K26 K27 K28

S1 S2 S8 S9 S11 S21 S30

B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B11 B12 B13

Duty 7 Undertake requirements elicitation with stakeholders to identify business and user needs

K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 K12 K13 K16 K17 K18 K22 K26 K27 K28

S1 S2 S6 S12 S13

B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B12 B13

Duty 8 Analyse, validate, prioritise and document functional and non-functional requirements for business situations, using relevant techniques

K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 K7 K14 K17 K18 K22 K26 K27 K28

S1 S2 S13 S14 S15 S16 S30

B1 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B11 B12 B13

Duty 9 Identify data requirements relating to business improvement

K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 K12 K13 K18 K22 K26 K27

S1 S2 S12 S13 S18

B1 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B12 B13

Duty 10 Assist in the management and controlled change of requirements

K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 K14 K15 K16 K26 K27

S1 S2 S16 S17

B1 B3 B5 B6 B7 B8 B12 B13

Duty 11 Support the creation of data models to illustrate how data is represented within a business system

K1 K2 K3 K6 K7 K18 K27

S1 S2 S18 S19 S30

B1 B3 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B11 B12 B13

Duty 12 Compare current and future state business situations in order to identify the changes required for business improvement

K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 K9 K17 K19 K26 K27 K28

S1 S2 S3 S4 S20 S21 S22 S23

B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B11 B12 B13

Duty 13 Define acceptance criteria for business and system changes, and support business acceptance

K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 K7 K17 K18 K20 K21 K22

S1 S2 S24 S25 S30

B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B12 B13

Duty 14 Identify and analyse stakeholders impacted by a proposed change, understand their perspectives and assess how their interests are best managed

K1 K2 K3 K4 K6 K22 K23 K26 K27

S1 S2 S26 S27

B1 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B12 B13

Duty 15 Assess and document the drivers, costs, benefits and impacts of a proposed business change

K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 K7 K8 K17 K18 K22 K24 K25 K26 K27 K28

S1 S2 S3 S4 S6 S23 S28 S29 S30

B1 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B11 B12 B13


KSBs

Knowledge

K1: The definition of Business Analysis and the range of activities that constitute it Back to Duty

K2: The value of Business Analysis in enabling business improvement and delivering IT system changes Back to Duty

K3: The role of the Business Analyst, and its relationship with other roles on a business change initiative, including those with system development responsibility Back to Duty

K4: Business change and system development life cycles, including the use of appropriate methodologies and the impact of organisational culture and context Back to Duty

K5: The principles, features and differences of waterfall and agile methodologies for project delivery and software development Back to Duty

K6: The importance of effective communication and engagement with a range of stakeholders in relation to Business Analysis assignments Back to Duty

K7: The purpose and value of quality assurance techniques Back to Duty

K8: Approaches to conducting internal and external environmental analysis of an industry domain Back to Duty

K9: The advantages and disadvantages of a range of investigative techniques Back to Duty

K10: The purpose of process modelling and the importance of an organisational view of business processes Back to Duty

K11: Different approaches to document business processes including when it is most appropriate to use each Back to Duty

K12: Techniques to elicit requirements, including when it is most appropriate to use each Back to Duty

K13: The importance of eliciting requirements rather than gathering solution descriptions Back to Duty

K14: Approaches to categorise, validate and prioritise requirements Back to Duty

K15: The importance of requirements management including change control Back to Duty

K16: A broad range of non-functional requirement areas and the importance of including these within requirements engineering Back to Duty

K17: The importance of considering user experience, accessibility and usability requirements in the design of digital solutions Back to Duty

K18: The value of data to an organisation, and how data needs are considered in business improvement Back to Duty

K19: The purpose and activities of the gap analysis process Back to Duty

K20: The role of the business analyst in facilitating business acceptance of changes Back to Duty

K21: The different phases of testing of business and system changes Back to Duty

K22: The importance and the principles of engaging internal and external stakeholders Back to Duty

K23: Techniques to support the identification and analysis of internal and external stakeholders Back to Duty

K24: The purpose and importance of business change impact assessment Back to Duty

K25: The concepts of benefits realisation and management Back to Duty

K26: Legislation and industry standards relevant to the organisation and sector Back to Duty

K27: Data protection regulations and the importance of managing information and data in linewith legislation and organisational policies Back to Duty

K28: Technology and industry trends across the digital sector, and the opportunities thesebring for business improvement and IT solutions Back to Duty

Skills

S1: Apply appropriate approaches to scope, plan and perform Business Analysis Back to Duty

S2: Communicate effectively in a variety of situations with a range of stakeholders Back to Duty

S3: Apply a range of structured investigation techniques to a business situation Back to Duty

S4: Produce an outline definition of a business situation using an appropriate technique Back to Duty

S5: Apply appropriate techniques to identify problems and opportunities within a business situation Back to Duty

S6: Support the identification and presentation of proposed actions to stakeholders in order to gain agreement for further analysis activity Back to Duty

S7: Apply appropriate techniques to analyse and document options and recommendations for change Back to Duty

S8: Elicit process information from stakeholders Back to Duty

S9: Model business processes using relevant techniques, standards, notation and software tools Back to Duty

S10: Analyse business process models to identify opportunities for improvement Back to Duty

S11: Produce models of redesigned business processes Back to Duty

S12: Elicit requirements from stakeholders to identify business and user needs Back to Duty

S13: Document clear functional and non-functional requirements in line with local standards Back to Duty

S14: Analyse documented requirements to remove duplication, conflict and overlap Back to Duty

S15: Prioritise requirements using an appropriate prioritisation approach Back to Duty

S16: Validate requirements with stakeholders Back to Duty

S17: Support the establishment of requirements traceability Back to Duty

S18: Elicit business data needs from relevant sources Back to Duty

S19: Support the development of simple data models using relevant techniques, standards, notation and software tools Back to Duty

S20: Document current business situations to enable gap analysis and decision making Back to Duty

S21: Support the development of models of future state business situations Back to Duty

S22: Identify key differences between current and future business situations Back to Duty

S23: Identify actions required to move from the current to future business situation Back to Duty

S24: Define acceptance criteria for business and system changes Back to Duty

S25: Support business acceptance of business and system changes Back to Duty

S26: Apply relevant techniques to research and identify stakeholders Back to Duty

S27: Analyse and document stakeholders' areas of interest and influence Back to Duty

S28: Support the development of cost/benefit analysis for proposed business changes Back to Duty

S29: Evaluate and document the key impacts on people, process, organisation, technology and information Back to Duty

S30: Present information in a manner appropriate to the audience Back to Duty

Behaviours

B1: Act logically, analytically and objectively in a range of situations Back to Duty

B2: Apply creative thinking when problem solving Back to Duty

B3: Work independently and collaboratively Back to Duty

B4: Use own initiative and take responsibility appropriate to the role of Business Analyst Back to Duty

B5: Take a thorough and organised approach and plan analysis activities in line with business priorities Back to Duty

B6: Build and maintain positive working relationships with a range of people Back to Duty

B7: Use a range of methods of communication appropriate to the situation Back to Duty

B8: Maintain a productive, professional and secure working environment Back to Duty

B9: Aware of the wider business environment and own contribution to business objectives Back to Duty

B10: Be comfortable and confident interacting with people from technical and non-technical backgrounds Back to Duty

B11: Tailor manner of presentation to be appropriate to the audience Back to Duty

B12: Work flexibly and effectively as part of a multidisciplinary team throughout the fulllifecycle Back to Duty

B13: Demonstrate commitment to continuous professional development in relation toBusiness Analysis and the digital sector Back to Duty


Qualifications

English and Maths

Apprentices without level 2 English and maths will need to achieve this level prior to taking the End-Point Assessment. For those with an education, health and care plan or a legacy statement, the apprenticeship’s English and maths minimum requirement is Entry Level 3. A British Sign Language (BSL) qualification is an alternative to the English qualification for those whose primary language is BSL.

Professional recognition

This standard aligns with the following professional recognition:

  • BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT for Register of IT Technicians (RITTech) level 4


Additional details

Occupational Level:

4

Duration (months):

18

Review

this apprenticeship will be reviewed in accordance with our change request policy.

Status: Approved for delivery (available for starts)
Level: 4
Reference: ST0117
Version: 1.1
Date updated: 30/12/2022
Approved for delivery: 31 March 2017
Route: Digital
Typical duration to gateway: 18 months (this does not include EPA period)
Maximum funding: £18000
LARS Code: 165
EQA Provider: Ofqual
Employers involved in creating the standard: Allianz, AssistKD, BUPA, NHS Digital, Zurich Insurance, Barclaycard, National Grid, Department of Work and Pensions, Co-operative Bank, Virgin Atlantic, Nationwide, Yorkshire Water

Version log

Version Change detail Earliest start date Latest start date
1.1 Standard, funding band and end-point assessment plan revised. 01/06/2021 Not set
1.0 Approved for delivery 31/03/2017 31/05/2021

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