Perspectives are used within business analysis work to provide focus to tasks and techniques specific to the context of the initiative. Most initiatives are likely to engage one or more perspectives. The perspectives included in the BABOK® Guide are:

• Agile,
• Business Intelligence,
• Information Technology,
• Business Architecture, and
• Business Process Management.

These perspectives do not presume to represent all the possible perspectives from which business analysis is practiced. The perspectives discussed in the BABOK® Guide represent some of the most common views of business analysis at the time of writing.

Any given initiative includes one, many, or all of these perspectives. For example, an initiative may have a technology component (Information Technology Perspective), the technology component may mean business process changes (Business Process Management Perspective), the initiative may decide to do part, or all of the work with an agile approach (Agile Perspective). Another initiative may merge two organizations and need to look at the business capabilities and how the transformation impacts those capabilities (Business Architecture Perspective), and the business leaders need updated information for decision making and analysis (Business Intelligence Perspective). Large or complex initiatives will likely employ all perspectives.

For more information regarding this structure, see Perspectives (p. 9).

While the business analysis tasks detailed in the BABOK® Guide are intended to be applicable across all areas of business analysis, they are also pertinent to each specific business analysis perspective. Perspectives provide ways to approach business analysis work in a more focused manner suitable to the context. The perspectives help interpret and understand the knowledge areas and tasks in the BABOK® Guide from the lens in which one is currently working.

Each perspective follows a common structure:

• Change Scope,
• Business Analysis Scope,
• Methodologies, Approaches, and Techniques,
• Underlying Competencies, and
• Impact on Knowledge Areas.