BCS BA Found. · BCS · Investigating the Business Situation · Bank updated 2026-11-04
BCS BA Found. practice questions: Investigating the Business Situation
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These 5 questions come from the Investigating the Business Situation section of our BCS BA Found. bank (21 questions on this area, which carries 13% of the real exam). Every question is original, with the correct answer explained and linked to the source it is drawn from.
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1/5 · Investigating the Business Situation
A business analyst is facilitating a workshop and wants participants to visually capture how different departments, external agencies and prevailing concerns interact within a confusing, messy business situation, without following a strict diagramming notation. Which visualisation technique is most appropriate to use during the workshop?
AA CARDI log
BA use case diagram
CA RASCI matrix
DA rich picture
2/5 · Investigating the Business Situation · easy
When designing interview questions, which type of question is most useful for confirming a specific fact quickly, such as "How many invoices does your team process each day?"
ALeading question
BRhetorical question
CClosed question
DOpen question
3/5 · Investigating the Business Situation
A BA wants to confirm, across a population of 500 branch staff, whether a problem identified during earlier interviews with a small sample of staff is widespread across the whole organisation. Which technique is most appropriate for this purpose?
AA rich picture diagram
BA discovery workshop session
CShadowing a single employee
DA survey or questionnaire
4/5 · Investigating the Business Situation · hard
A business analyst is investigating how a claims-processing team handles an unusual escalation procedure that occurs only a handful of times per year and cannot be predicted in advance. Continuous on-site presence cannot be justified while waiting for an occurrence. Which investigation technique is most suitable for capturing what actually happens when the escalation occurs?
ASpecial purpose records, asking staff to complete a log or record whenever the escalation occurs
BActivity sampling, because a statistically valid proportion of time spent on the escalation can be calculated from brief random observations
CUnstructured interviews conducted after the event, relying on staff to recall exactly what they did
DFormal observation, with the analyst present at all times until the escalation is triggered
Answer: A. The syllabus distinguishes special purpose records from other fact-finding techniques precisely because they suit activities that happen too rarely, unpredictably, or over too long a period for direct or sampled observation to be practical. Staff themselves capture the facts as the event occurs, giving more reliable data than exception recall after the fact or a statistical sampling method that assumes reasonable frequency.
Source: the BCS Business Analysis Foundation syllabus - Investigating the Business Situation
5/5 · Investigating the Business Situation · hard
In a discovery workshop, two directors and several junior analysts who have never met are asked to propose improvements. In an earlier session only the boldest attendees spoke, and the results were skewed. The facilitator wants every attendee to contribute and to give a sense of which topics matter most. Which approach should be used next?
Aeach attendee privately writes suggestions on adhesive notes for grouping
Bthe facilitator announces a topic and invites ideas to be called out freely
Cthe facilitator goes round the table and asks everyone for a suggestion
Dattendees are asked to reverse their normal assumptions about the problem
Answer: A. Technique 18 notes that brainstorming works when people are comfortable and not afraid of criticism; with unfamiliar participants or big status differences only the bolder contribute. A round robin can put quiet people on the spot. The Post-it exercise gives thinking time, avoids immediate exposure, and produces some quantitative data because repeated topics show importance.
Source: Paul, Cadle, Turner (eds), Business Analysis Techniques, 2nd ed., BCS, Technique 18: Workshops (Discovery techniques), p. n/a
Source: the BCS Business Analysis Foundation syllabus v4.1 + 'Business Analysis, 4th Edition' (Paul & Cadle, BCS 2020) - Investigating the Business Situation
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