The SMBA Thesaurus: A Semantic Foundation for Business Analysis
The Unified Semantic Model of Business Analysis (SMBA) is an open, community-driven effort to create a unified, harmonized, machine-readable, and machine-understandable representation of knowledge about Business Analysis as a profession.
Drawing on authoritative sources such as the IIBA®, PMI®, IREB®, and IQBBA®, SMBA integrates their terminology and conceptual structures into a shared semantic foundation. This foundation is expressed through controlled vocabularies, SKOS-based thesauri, taxonomies, and ontologies that together form a consistent and logically connected view of BA knowledge.
SMBA does not seek ownership of the content drawn from these sources. Its purpose is to build a unified, comprehensive, and mutually agreed semantic model, a structure that respects original intellectual property while enabling interoperability and clarity across standards.
The ultimate goal is to enable smarter tools and systems, from knowledge management platforms to AI- and LLM-powered assistants, that can accurately interpret and apply Business Analysis knowledge.
SMBA welcomes collaboration from practitioners, researchers, and organizations who share the vision of making Business Analysis knowledge transparent, connected, and ready for the digital age.
Unified Terminology
Harmonizes terminology across multiple BA standards into a single, coherent SKOS Thesaurus.
Machine-Readable
Structured using SKOS, RDF, taxonomies and ontologies for seamless integration with modern AI and knowledge systems.
Open & Collaborative
Community-driven project respecting intellectual property while fostering interoperability.
Standards-Based
Built on authoritative sources including IIBA®, PMI®, IREB®, and IQBBA®.
Web-based resource
Develops publicly accessible, web-based resource that offers a consistent set of concepts organized into ontologies, taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, and thesauri. Each concept is accessible via its unique URI for global use.
Future-Ready
Creates machine-readable, machine-understandable semantic model of Business Analysis knowledge built for AI assistants and next-generation knowledge platforms.
Explore Thesaurus Graph
Visualize terminological relationships between Business Analysis terms
Interactive Thesaurus Graph
Explore the interconnected web of Business Analysis terminology
Built on Authoritative Sources
This thesaurus integrates terminology from the following standards, publications, and resources
Agile Extension to the BABOK® Guide
A standard on the practice of business analysis in an agile context. Published jointly by IIBA® and the Agile Alliance®.
IIBA BABOK® Guide v3
The Business Analysis Competency Model® Version 4
The Business Analysis Competency Model® version 4 identifies the behaviours and techniques associated with each level of business analysis performed at work. It assists readers in understanding the levels of competency in the business analysis profession and supports the four levels of IIBA’s Multi-level Competency-Based Certification program by highlighting key competency components associated with each business analysis task.
Object Management Group (OMG)
An international, open membership, not-for-profit technology standards consortium that develops enterprise integration standards for a wide range of technologies and industries.
International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA)
A non-profit professional association for business analysis professionals, providing certification, training, and resources for the business analysis community worldwide.
Project Management Institute (PMI)
A global professional organization for project management professionals, offering certifications, standards, and resources including the PMBOK Guide and PMI Guide to Business Analysis.
International Requirements Engineering Board (IREB)
A non-profit organization dedicated to establishing and improving requirements engineering as a professional discipline through certification, education, and research.
International Qualifications Board for Business Analysis (IQBBA)
An organization providing internationally recognized certification schemes for business analysts, focusing on standardizing business analysis qualifications globally.
Recently Added Terms
Showing the latest 20 of 219 available concepts
acceptance criteria
Criteria associated with requirements, products, or the delivery cycle that must be met in order to achieve stakeholder acceptance.
actor
A human, device, or system that plays some specified role in interacting with a solution.
adaptive approach
An approach where the solution evolves based on a cycle of learning and discovery, with feedback loops which encourage making decisions as late as possible.
allocation
artifact
Any solution-relevant object that is created as part of business analysis efforts.
assumption
An influencing factor that is believed to be true but has not been confirmed to be accurate, or that could be true now but may not be in the future.
behavioural business rule
BABOK: A business rule that places an obligation (or prohibition) on conduct, action, practice, or procedure; a business rule whose purpose is to shape (govern) day-to-day business activity. Also known as operative rule.
behavioural characteristics
Your demonstrated character traits on the job that are observed by others or by you.
benchmarking
A comparison of a decision, process, service, or system's cost, time, quality, or other metrics to those of leading peers to identify opportunities for improvement.
body of knowledge
The aggregated knowledge and generally accepted practices on a topic.
brainstorming
A team activity that seeks to produce a broad or diverse set of options through the rapid and uncritical generation of ideas.
business (business analysis)
See enterprise
business analysis
The practice of enabling change in the context of an enterprise by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.
business analysis approach
The set of processes, rules, guidelines, heuristics, and activities that are used to perform business analysis in a specific context.
business analysis communication plan
A description of the types of communication the business analyst will perform during business analysis, the recipients of those communications, and the form and frequency of those communications.
business analysis effort
The scope of activities a business analyst is engaged in during the life cycle of an initiative.
business analysis information
Any kind of information at any level of detail that is used as an input to business analysis work, or as an output of business analysis work.
business analysis package
A document, presentation, or other collection of text, matrices, diagrams and models, representing business analysis information.
business analysis plan
A description of the planned activities the business analyst will execute in order to perform the business analysis work involved in a specific initiative.
business analyst
Any person who performs business analysis, no matter their job title or organizational role.