How to align analysis and strategy

I saw this "http://www.alinement.net/component/content/article/42"

My issue with this article is that it identifies a problem - and present no real answer.

This item raises two issues:
- Ambiguity in business strategy significantly impedes BA work and an uncertain strategy will delay getting clear answers to specific questions.
- An ability to make decisions where trade offs are required mean analysis and design impossible.
In both cases what is required is semantic precision.

BA could enhance their role if they applied semantic precision. Natural language and using word documents as the means of maintaining knowledge militates against this. The advice given covers some areas where precision is required - but gives no clues as to how to go about being precise.

Few would disagree that we need to be:
- Clear about the objectives and constraints (e.g. time-horizon)
- Understand the reasons for and importance of requirements (and know which are mandatory, which highly desirable etc.) i.e. record reasoning and priority
- Define the appetite for risk and innovation (e.g. how creative does the solution need to be) and in fact understand what is wrong with the current state (i.e. the implications of ‘doing nothing’)
- Identify and facilitate the resolution of conflicts between stakeholders - which must start by making such conflicts explicit e.g. A thinks XYZ is priority 3, B thinks XYZ is priority 7
- Concisely and specifically document your understanding of the strategies. [Using what semantics?]
- State sensitive assumptions. [And presumbaly relate them to something?]

The question is how can we: be clear, record reasoning and priority, make explicit relationships and record strategies explicitly.

The strategy should not be to put things into "words". It should be 1st to define a small canonical set of concepts (words, relationships) and use these with precision - and ontology if you like. This would allow us to eliminating synonomous terms, relate concepts explicitly etc. This allows us to be clear about what concepts are we dealing with and how do we relate concepts. How do we deal with priorities (and networks of prioritised items).

For example how do we rate importance e.g. is a requirement marginally critical to a high priority business goal more important (less important or equally important), than a requirement very critical to a medium or low priority business goal.