Compliance or Regulatory Standards
Compliance or Regulatory Standards are a specific category of Enterprise Environmental Factors that exert external constraints on a portfolio component, program, or project. These standards are typically imposed by governmental bodies or industry organizations and are motivated by various considerations including but not limited to:
Security: Standards may specify requirements for ensuring the secure handling, storage, and transmission of data.
Personal Information Protection: Regulations may be in place to ensure the safeguarding of personally identifiable information (PII).
Legal Considerations: These could involve anything from contractual obligations to intellectual property rights.
Safety Reasons: In industries like healthcare, aviation, or manufacturing, safety standards are often imposed to minimize risks to human life.
The standards may come in different forms:
Documentation Requirements: Some standards specify what types of documentation must be maintained for a project. This could range from project plans to data protection impact assessments.
Actual Project Requirements: These could be specific features or functions that the project outcome must include to be considered compliant.
In terms of business analysis, these compliance or regulatory standards have a few key implications:
Audit Preparedness: Adherence to these standards is crucial for passing internal or external audits. Thus, in the process of requirements elicitation, analysis, and documentation, the business analyst must ensure that all specified compliance or regulatory standards are met.
Traceability and Monitoring: The standards often dictate more formal approaches to traceability and monitoring. The traceability matrix, for instance, may need to include specific columns that map requirements to applicable regulatory clauses.
Tailoring Constraints: Due to these standards, the options for tailoring the business analysis approach may be limited. For instance, in highly regulated industries, a business analyst may not have the liberty to use informal methods of requirements elicitation or documentation.
Impact on Requirement Set: Business analysts have to incorporate these standards into the requirements set, thereby directly affecting the scope, quality, and deliverables of the portfolio component, program, or project.
Compliance or Regulatory Standards are non-negotiable guidelines or rules that must be adhered to during the course of a portfolio component, program, or project. They influence multiple facets of business analysis, from requirements elicitation and documentation to traceability and monitoring, and necessitate a rigorous approach to ensure full compliance.