Case

Uttarakhand was formed on the 9th November 2000 as the 27th State of India, when it was carved out of Northern Uttar Pradesh. Located at the foothills of the Himalayan Mountain ranges, it is largely a hilly State. It is rich in natural resources especially water and forests with many glaciers, rivers, dense forests and snow-clad mountain peaks. It has almost all major climatic zones, making it amenable to a variety of commercial opportunities in horticulture, floriculture and agriculture. It has a vast tourism potential in adventure, leisure, and eco-tourism. With levels of literacy higher than the national average, the state has abundant availability of quality human resources.

The Government of Uttarakhand has undertaken several policy measures and incentives in order to encourage inflow of investment into the various sectors of its economy. Uttarakhand plans to be one of the most forward-thinking and digitized state government in India. State plans to use its citizens' portal for its customers to interact directly with the state and local governments officials for services. State's long-term vision is to increase the quality of life, provide better, sustainable services and to improve governance. One of the ways it does this is by providing easily accessible, always available, user-friendly and 24x7 online transparent digital services. State Government believes all customers, whether they be citizens, visitors or businesses, should be able to trigger and actively participate in governmental business processes such as obtaining welfare services, construction permits, environmental/green approvals, necessary approval for organizing an event in a public space, obtaining financial support, licenses, various governmental approval, employment, medical and police help, grievance handing and information on policies & regulations and state and local taxes management etc.

Currently state has limited automation in Government services delivery. State government plans to implement an IT based robust, scalable, well documented and supported, standards-compliant and easily extensible technology solution for its services delivery. Solution should be user-friendly to provide customers with a seamless, corporate-branded experience on desktop, laptops, tablets and mobile etc. Solution in addition to automating all identified services must have digital signing services, such as checking the validity of documents provided by customers, or delivering official documents digitally signed by the public authority. Solution must improve transparency by providing customers with detailed tracing information of executed process tasks, so they can track progress. State Government has chosen your company to undertake business process analysis consultancy assignment and draft high-level requirements of the solution for its development and deployment by outsourcing to an Indian IT company. Your company will frame Request for Information (RFI) of proposed solution to initiate tendering process. Answer following questions based on the case:

For this case, you have been hired as a Lead BA by state government to assess and review current government processes and its problems and propose right Process & Systems solutions to meet Government's long-term online services delivery strategy and to support new initiatives. You are requested to explore the state Government's processes and service delivery issues, IT strategy and answers questions below. Be as elaborative as possible:

1. What will be your role and responsibilities as lead Business Analyst (BA) for this assignment to study Government of Uttarakhand process and service delivery problems and recommend a long-term cost-effective IT enabled implementable solution which will be used to frame draft RFI for Government approval?
2. You are planning to have team of six BAs for this assignment. Can you identify major knowledge areas team members BAs will be required to have for undertaking this assignment? What are the four key competencies BAs must have for the assignment. Justify your answer.
3. Prior Research is important of any business process analysis assignment. Do you agree? Justify your answer in relation to this assignment. What prior research you and your team will undertake for this assignment.
4. State Government objective of public service is to grow on its strength and eliminate its weaknesses and faults to achieve social, politically set targets.You plan to undertake VMOST analysis for internal environment analysis of State Government before starting the assignment. Explain concept and usage of VMOST analysis for internal environment analysis for this assignment? Identify and define Uttarakhand Government's strategy.
5. What is the importance of POPIT model for this assignment?Use a POPIT model view required by Business Analyst to explore problems of state government and propose solution for successful delivery of business changes.
6. As Project Manager and lead BA you are required to propose and define BPA project life cycle. Among multiple options available, which lifecycle you will use for this assignment? Justify your selection. What are the major phases/ activities of proposed lifecycle?
7. To investigate problems of commercial business license ( such as hotel, industry, services company, medical facilities etc ) issue process, you plan to interview key stakeholders. Identify major stakeholders for this project with justification. You also plan to conduct interview of key stakeholders for Commercial business license issue process to capture new systems requirement after problem analysis. What are major advantages and disadvantages of conducting interview for this assignment? Will questionnaire be better option for this assignment to collect stakeholders concerns and expectations over interview technique? Discuss in details.
8. One of the requirements of this assignment is that business analysts to examine the entire government business area and take a thoughtful approach to study problems of existing processes and systems and to developing ideas for solutions. What will be your approach for this assignment? Explain your problem-solving approach for this assignment. What do you understand by Five "Whys?" Analysis technique? Explain Five "Whys?" technique in the context of this assignment which you will use to capture and analyze citizen's unhappiness with birth certificate issue process at local government.
9. Business Process Modelling is a very important activity for this assignment. What is Business Process modeling and its importance in the context of this assignment? You are planning to use Swim Lane technique to document existing and to be processes in this assignment. Explain your understanding of Swim Lanes and its advantages and disadvantages.
10. Business Process Analysis assignment is supported by Chief Minister of Uttarakhand and senior political leadership of state but being opposed by trade union leaders of clerical staff of Government. Union leader is of the opinion that after the assignment Government will bring automation and modern tools to streamline functions which will reduce manpower and lead in loss of jobs. What will be your approach to handle resistant Union leaders who are opposing this assignment?