Glossary

Business analysis glossary: 81 terms in plain English

Short, practical definitions of the words business analysts use every day, each explained as What it is, Why it matters and an Example on a fictional company.

Business analysis has its own vocabulary, and the same word can mean different things in different teams. This glossary gives each term one clear meaning, a reason to care and a concrete example, so you can follow a requirements meeting, a Jira board or a technical conversation without nodding politely and hoping for the best. The terms follow the same order as a real project, from stakeholders and requirements to SQL, APIs, testing and go-live.

Use it alongside the business analyst blog, where longer articles show the terms at work, and the BA Lab, where you practise them on a simulated company project. All companies and numbers in the examples are fictional.

A

Acceptance Criteria: Acceptance criteria are the specific conditions a story or feature must satisfy to be accepted.
Agile: Agile is an approach to delivering work in small steps, with frequent feedback and the ability to change direction.
API (Application Programming Interface): An API is a defined way for one piece of software to ask another to do something or provide data, without knowing how it works inside.
API Contract: An API contract is the agreed description of how an API behaves: its endpoints, accepted inputs, returned outputs, error responses and rules.
AS-IS Process: The AS-IS process is how work is really done today, including workarounds, delays and manual steps.

B

Backlog: A backlog is an ordered list of work a team may do, such as stories, bugs and improvements.
Benefits Realisation: Benefits realisation is checking, after delivery, whether the expected benefits of a project have actually happened, and taking action if they have not.
BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation): BPMN is a standard set of symbols for drawing business processes: events, tasks, gateways for decisions, and flows between them, usually grouped into lanes for each participant.
BRD (Business Requirements Document): A BRD is a document that records the business need, objectives, scope, stakeholders and high-level requirements of a project.
Bug Report: A bug report describes a defect: something that behaves differently from what was expected.
Business Analysis: Business analysis is the practice of understanding how an organisation works, finding the problems or opportunities that matter, and defining the changes that would create value.
Business Analyst: A business analyst is a person who investigates business problems, gathers needs from the people involved, and turns them into clear requirements that a delivery team can build and test.
Business Case: A business case is the argument for doing a project.
Business Requirement: A business requirement states a goal or need of the organisation, usually without saying how a system will meet it.

C

Change Management: Change management is the work of preparing people for a change and helping them adopt it.
Confluence Page: A Confluence page is a document in a shared team wiki where requirements, meeting notes, decisions and guides are written, linked and kept up to date.

D

Dashboard: A dashboard is a visual display of key measures, usually on one screen, that helps users monitor performance and spot problems.
Data Model: A data model describes the data an organisation needs: the things it keeps information about, their attributes and how they relate.
Data Validation: Data validation is checking that data is complete, correctly formatted, consistent and plausible.
Data Visualisation: Data visualisation is presenting data as charts, maps and tables so patterns, comparisons and outliers are easy to see.
DAX Measure: A DAX measure is a calculation written in DAX, the formula language of Power BI, that is evaluated according to the filters applied to a report.
Decision Log: A decision log is a simple record of important decisions: what was decided, why, who decided, the date and the alternatives considered.
Defect Triage: Defect triage is the process of reviewing reported defects and deciding for each one its severity, priority, owner and whether to fix now, later or not at all.
Definition of Done: The definition of done is a shared checklist that every piece of work must satisfy before it counts as complete.

E

Elicitation: Elicitation is the set of activities used to draw out information from stakeholders and other sources so you can understand needs.
Endpoint: An endpoint is a specific address of an API where a particular request can be sent, for example /orders or /orders/123.
Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD): An entity relationship diagram is a picture of a data model.
Epic: An epic is a large body of work that is too big to finish in one sprint and is broken down into several user stories.

F

Field Mapping: Field mapping documents how each data field in a source system corresponds to a field in a target system, including format conversions, default values and rules for missing data.
Foreign Key: A foreign key is a column that holds the primary key value of a row in another table, creating a link between them.
FRD (Functional Requirements Document): An FRD describes in detail how a system must behave to satisfy the business requirements.
Functional Requirement: A functional requirement describes something the system must do: a behaviour, calculation, rule or interaction.

G

Gap Analysis: Gap analysis compares the current state with a desired future state and lists the differences, called gaps, in processes, skills, data, systems or policy.
Gherkin (Given/When/Then): Gherkin is a plain-language format for writing examples of behaviour with the keywords Given (starting situation), When (action) and Then (expected result).
Go-Live: Go-live is the point at which a new or changed solution starts being used in real operations.
GROUP BY: GROUP BY is the SQL clause that groups rows sharing a value, so aggregate functions such as COUNT, SUM and AVG can be calculated for each group instead of for the whole table.

H

HTTP Method: An HTTP method tells the server what kind of action is requested.
HTTP Status Code: An HTTP status code is a three-digit number a server returns to say what happened to a request.

I

Integration: An integration connects two or more systems so they can share data or trigger actions automatically.
Interview Technique: Interview technique is the skill of running a one-to-one conversation that produces useful information.
INVEST Criteria: INVEST is a checklist for good user stories: Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small and Testable.

J

Jira Ticket: A Jira ticket, also called an issue, is a tracked item of work in a tool such as Jira, for example a story, task or bug.
JOIN: A JOIN combines rows from two tables based on a matching column, usually a foreign key matching a primary key.
JSON: JSON is a lightweight text format for structured data, made of names and values inside curly braces and square brackets.

K

KPI (Key Performance Indicator): A KPI is a measure of how well an organisation or process is achieving an important goal.

M

Meeting Minutes: Meeting minutes are a short written record of a meeting: who attended, what was discussed, what was decided and which actions were assigned to whom by when.
Metric: A metric is any quantifiable measure, such as number of orders, average delivery time or percentage of failed payments.
MoSCoW Prioritisation: MoSCoW is a way to rank requirements into Must have, Should have, Could have and Won't have (this time).
MVP (Minimum Viable Product): A minimum viable product is the smallest version of a product that delivers real value to users and lets the team learn from real use.

N

Non-Functional Requirement: A non-functional requirement describes how well the system must work rather than what it does.

P

Pain Point: A pain point is a specific problem that causes delay, cost, errors or frustration in a process or product.
Power BI: Power BI is a business intelligence tool from Microsoft for connecting to data, modelling it, calculating measures and building interactive reports and dashboards.
Power/Interest Grid: A power/interest grid is a two-by-two chart that places stakeholders by how much power they have over the project and how interested they are in it.
Primary Key: A primary key is a column, or combination of columns, whose value uniquely identifies each row in a table.
Problem Statement: A problem statement is a short, specific description of what is wrong, who is affected, how we know and why it matters now.
Process Model: A process model is a diagram or description of the steps, decisions, people and systems involved in completing a piece of work from start to finish.
Product Owner: The product owner is the person in a Scrum team accountable for the product's value.

R

RACI Matrix: A RACI matrix is a table that shows, for each task or deliverable, who is Responsible for doing it, who is Accountable for the outcome, who must be Consulted and who is only Informed.
Requirement: A requirement is a statement of a need that a solution must meet.
Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM): A requirements traceability matrix is a table linking each requirement to the other things that depend on it, such as design items, test cases and defects.
REST API: A REST API is a common style of web API where each kind of thing, such as customers or orders, has an address (URL) and standard actions like GET, POST, PUT and DELETE are used to read or change it.

S

Scope: Scope is the agreed boundary of a project: what will be delivered and, just as important, what will not.
Scrum: Scrum is a popular agile framework with fixed-length sprints, defined roles (product owner, Scrum Master, developers) and events such as planning, daily check-ins, review and retrospective.
SELECT Statement: A SELECT statement is the SQL command that reads data.
Sign-Off: Sign-off is the formal confirmation, by an authorised person, that a deliverable such as a requirements document, a test result or a release is accepted.
SMART Objectives: SMART objectives are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.
Sprint: A sprint is a fixed, short period, commonly one to four weeks, in which a Scrum team plans, builds and reviews a small set of backlog items.
SQL (Structured Query Language): SQL is the standard language for asking questions of, and changing data in, relational databases.
SRS (Software Requirements Specification): An SRS is a document describing the complete software behaviour and constraints, usually combining functional and non-functional requirements, interfaces and data.
Stakeholder: A stakeholder is any person or group who is affected by a project or who can influence it.
Stakeholder Analysis: Stakeholder analysis is the structured activity of identifying stakeholders, understanding what each one needs, how much influence they have and how they feel about the change, and then deciding how to involve them.
Story Points: Story points are a relative estimate of the effort, complexity and uncertainty of a user story, often using a scale like 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13.
Swimlane Diagram: A swimlane diagram is a process diagram divided into horizontal or vertical lanes, one for each person, team or system responsible for steps.
SWOT Analysis: SWOT analysis lists an organisation's or option's Strengths and Weaknesses (internal) and Opportunities and Threats (external) to support a decision.

T

Test Case: A test case is a specific check with preconditions, steps, input data and an expected result.
TO-BE Process: The TO-BE process is the improved way of working you propose after the change.

U

UAT (User Acceptance Testing): User acceptance testing is the final testing stage, in which the business users who will use the solution check that it supports their real work and meets the agreed requirements before release.
Use Case: A use case describes how a user, called an actor, interacts with a system to achieve a goal.
User Story: A user story is a short description of a need from the user's point of view, usually written as "As a [type of user], I want [goal], so that [benefit]".

W

Waterfall: Waterfall is a sequential way of delivering projects in which each phase, such as requirements, design, build, test and release, is largely completed before the next begins.
Workshop: A workshop is a facilitated group session with a clear purpose, such as agreeing a process, listing requirements or prioritising features.