3. Analysis at Multiple Horizons
3.1 Overview of the Three Horizons
Agile Extension to the BABOK® Guide
The Strategy Horizon refers to the decisions that impact the entire organization. Business analysis practitioners operating at this horizon support decisions about strategy and the allocation of available resources in support of that strategy.
Decisions made at the Strategy Horizon identify the products, services, and initiatives to which the organization allocates resources.
Business analysis practitioners working at the Strategy Horizon identify short- term goals, initiatives, and risks that align to organizational strategy, and articulate the problems that must be understood in order to make strategic decisions.
The time horizon of the Strategy Horizon may be as short as three months to as long as multiple years ahead. This time frame continually shifts and moves forward, creating what can be considered a rolling time frame.
Business analysis practitioners working at the Strategy Horizon constantly consider what can be done to add value and how to learn valuable lessons quickly.
For more details regarding the Strategy Horizon, see 4. Strategy Horizon.
The Initiative Horizon refers to decisions that impact a particular goal, initiative, or team. Business analysis practitioners operating at this horizon support initiative based decisions about how to create value with the resources available, as well as better understanding the needs of the stakeholders and the options available.
At the Initiative Horizon, business analysis practitioners support decisions that are acted on in a shorter time period than at the Strategy Horizon and over a longer period of time than at the Delivery Horizon. Feedback and learning at the Initiative Horizon supports the analysis being done at both the Strategy Horizon and the Delivery Horizon.
Agile business analysis at the Initiative Horizon may support decision makers in a single team or in multiple teams. Each team may work independently or they may be highly interdependent, leading to a need to understand complex dependencies between teams.
For more details regarding the Initiative Horizon, see 5. Initiative Horizon.
The Delivery Horizon refers to decisions made regarding the delivery of the solution. Business analysis practitioners operating at this horizon work with the delivery team to understand how to best break down work, how to deliver and test the value the team is creating, and how to learn quickly from the work the team is doing.
The team working at the Delivery Horizon works on prioritized work from the backlog and turns it into a valuable product or service that meets the identified outcome or goal of the solution.
At the Delivery Horizon, business analysis practitioners support decisions that are acted on in a shorter time period than at the Initiative Horizon and impact the solution currently being developed. Business analysis practitioners work with a variety of stakeholders including decision makers and customers to deliver value directly to the customer.
For more details regarding the Delivery Horizon, see 6. Delivery Horizon.
