Impact analysis uses one or more matrices to infer (that is indirectly identify) what things might be impacted by a change. So, you can show the relationship of processes to other things, such as: strategies, documents, decisions, or systems in a matrix. The processes are the rows and the columns might be documents (or any other model type). The matrix would show what processes use which documents.

Using impact analysis, for example, you have several matrices. One matrix has “Strategies” as rows and “Processes” as columns and another matrix has “Processes” as rows and “Systems” as the columns. This is accomplished by using the linkage of a “Strategies-to-Processes” and “Processes”-to-“Documents”. As an analyst, you can see which “Systems” would be impacted if a change is made to “Strategies”.

Since we are limited in how much we can spend in money and time to gather the information directly, this is technique is very useful. You could gather material that shows what strategies are related to systems but it is not obvious nor is it easy to gather. It is easy to gather the material on which processes support which strategies. This is often done as part of a strategic planning exercise. You also can find out which systems support different process since often IT has that material. With the use of inference technique, you can easily identify which strategies impact the most systems, document etc. So, when management contemplates a change in strategy, you will know how much effort it will take to align the business with the new strategy. Today, in most businesses, the assessment of impact is just a good guess often done by consultants.