Reference library
APPENDIX A
Glossary and Acronyms
Definitions of role and level terms, the six official competency areas, everyday working terms, and industry and technical vocabulary.
Role and Level Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| OFA | Operational Functional Analyst |
| OFA 1 | Foundational Stewardship - entry level of the OFA career path |
| OFA 2 | Developing Stewardship - second level of the OFA career path |
| FNA1 | Job Code for the official Church workforce title "Functional Analyst 1 - Hybrid," the real, authoritative job classification underlying this curriculum's OFA 1 content; see Appendix N |
| Stewardship | A standing of trust in which someone is entrusted with responsibility for something and is accountable for how well it was cared for |
| Stewardship area | One of the four broad domains of OFA responsibility: Requirements Management and Analysis, Operational and Technical Support, User-Centered Product Vision and Roadmap, Process Improvement and Best Practices |
The Six Official Competency Areas Overview
- A.Introduced in full in Module 1
- B.An OFA 1 is expected to develop working knowledge and application of two to four of these, not all six.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Business Architecture | Modeling an organization's structure, capabilities, and value streams to understand how work and outcomes connect across the organization |
| Business Analysis | The general discipline of identifying business needs and determining solutions to business problems |
| Enterprise Analysis | Assessing an organization's current capabilities against its strategic goals to identify and justify potential initiatives before a specific project begins |
| Requirements Elicitation/Analysis | Drawing out, examining, and refining stakeholder needs into clear, verifiable requirements |
| Solution Assessment/Validation | Confirming that a delivered solution actually meets the requirement it was built to satisfy, and assessing whether it performs as expected |
| Requirements Management | Tracking, maintaining, and controlling requirements and their relationships throughout a project's life |
Working Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Requirement | A statement of what a business or ministry outcome needs, independent of how it will be built |
| Request | What a stakeholder asks for, which may or may not reflect the true underlying requirement |
| Solution | A specific proposed way of meeting a requirement |
| Workstream | A bounded piece of work with a defined scope that can be assigned to and owned by one person |
| Triage | The initial assessment of a reported issue to determine severity and likely cause |
| Escalation | Raising an issue to someone with more authority, expertise, or context to resolve it |
| Artifact | Any documented output of OFA work, such as notes, a requirements document, or a test record |
| Launch (go-live) | The point at which a solution moves from being built and tested to being actually used by its intended audience |
| Launch-readiness check | A basic review confirming a solution's deliverables match its documented requirements, testing is complete, and a rollback plan and communication exist, before go-live |
Industry and Technical Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| BABOK | Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge, maintained by the IIBA; the primary industry reference for business analysis practice |
| IIBA | International Institute of Business Analysis, the professional association that maintains the BABOK Guide and business analysis certifications |
| ISTQB | International Software Testing Qualifications Board, the body that defines standard testing vocabulary and certifications |
| ITIL | A widely used framework for IT service management, covering concepts such as incident, request, and change |
| MoSCoW | A prioritization framework that sorts items into Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have this time |
| RACI | A framework for clarifying roles in a decision or activity: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed |
| SQL | Structured Query Language, the standard language for retrieving and managing data in a relational database |
| Data dictionary | A reference document describing what each field or table in a system represents and what values it can hold |
| API | Application Programming Interface, a defined way for two systems to exchange data or trigger actions in one another |
| Severity | How serious a defect is in terms of its impact, independent of how quickly it needs to be fixed |
| Priority | How urgently a defect needs to be fixed, independent of how serious it is |
| UAT | User Acceptance Testing, the stage where intended users confirm a system meets their needs before go-live |
| Data migration | The process of moving data from one system or format to another, typically as part of retiring the original system |
| Deep link | A link that opens directly to a specific screen or piece of content inside an app, rather than to its home screen |