Understanding transitioning from traditional business analysis to agile business analysis: the case of South African Banks
type: CreativeWork
description: Customer needs are rapidly changing, and organisations strive to respond accordingly. Thus, many organisations explore innovative approaches to address their needs and challenges. Some innovations include developing new technologies, products, and service offerings. These innovative approaches need organisations to inspect, adapt and adopt new ways of working and moving (transitioning) from the traditional business analysis approach to the agile one. However, the transition has its challenges. Some challenges are either unknown or unclear to many organisations that intend to transition from a traditional business analysis approach to an agile one. Some of the challenges organisations faced are struggling to reduce uncertainty, and lack of quicker response time. This has been attributed to a lack of empirical evidence or limited terms of reference. This was the main motivation for this study. This study aimed to help gain a deeper understanding of transitioning from traditional business analysis to agile business analysis in the context of large South African organisations. Qualitative research methods were employed to achieve this aim. Two financial services (banking) organisations were selected as cases using the case study method. This allows activities to be understood in their natural settings and from two perspectives. The use of two cases helped with the generalisation of some of the findings. Participants were selected from both organisations based on the criteria. The semi-structured interview technique was used to gather data to a point where new information was not forthcoming. The moments of translation from the Actor Network Theory (ANT) were used to analyse the data collected. Primarily, this is because ANT focuses on relationships, interactions between actors, and how negotiations shift from one point to another. Thus, the theory was crucial in achieving the aim of the study. Using the theory for analysis helps reveal the benefits and challenges of tra…
abstract: Customer needs are rapidly changing, and organisations strive to respond accordingly. Thus, many organisations explore innovative approaches to address their needs and challenges. Some innovations include developing new technologies, products, and service offerings. These innovative approaches need organisations to inspect, adapt and adopt new ways of working and moving (transitioning) from the traditional business analysis approach to the agile one. However, the transition has its challenges. Some challenges are either unknown or unclear to many organisations that intend to transition from a traditional business analysis approach to an agile one. Some of the challenges organisations faced are struggling to reduce uncertainty, and lack of quicker response time. This has been attributed to a lack of empirical evidence or limited terms of reference. This was the main motivation for this study. This study aimed to help gain a deeper understanding of transitioning from traditional business analysis to agile business analysis in the context of large South African organisations. Qualitative research methods were employed to achieve this aim. Two financial services (banking) organisations were selected as cases using the case study method. This allows activities to be understood in their natural settings and from two perspectives. The use of two cases helped with the generalisation of some of the findings. Participants were selected from both organisations based on the criteria. The semi-structured interview technique was used to gather data to a point where new information was not forthcoming. The moments of translation from the Actor Network Theory (ANT) were used to analyse the data collected. Primarily, this is because ANT focuses on relationships, interactions between actors, and how negotiations shift from one point to another. Thus, the theory was crucial in achieving the aim of the study. Using the theory for analysis helps reveal the benefits and challenges of tra…
author: Iyamu, Augustine
language: en
keywords: South Africa, Banks, Business analysis
date published: 2025
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:34:09Z
provider: University of Cape Town
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Department of Information Systems

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/42311