In this 3 day course students will learn a clear understanding of all the facets of the business analysis role, including a thorough walkthrough of the various domain/knowledge areas that comprise the business analysis profession.
Target Audience
This course is intended for intermediate to advanced Business Analysts who are looking to improve their skills for eliciting, analyzing, documenting, validating, and communicating requirements.
Other Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites for this course. This course is suitable for both beginner and intermediate Business Analysts who want to increase their skills for writing and managing effective requirements on their projects.
Course Outline
1 – Introduction to Business Analysis
What is Business Analysis Benefits and Challenges Project Success Factors
2 – A Closer Look at the Business Analyst Role
Definition of a business analyst Responsibilities of a business analyst Importance of communication/collaboration BA role vs. PM role. Project roles involved in requirements IIBA/PMI and the goals of a professional association. Purpose for having a BA standard IIBA’s BABOK® Guide and PMI’s Practice Guide in Business Analysis Business analysis beyond project work Business analysis core concepts Business analysis perspectives IIBA and PMI certifications for business analysts Workshop: Choose Your Project.
3 – Supporting the Project Portfolio (Enterprise Analysis)
Define Strategy Analysis and when to perform Strategy Analysis. Components of Strategy Analysis. Defining the business need and Envisioning the Product and Project Defining business requirements. The importance of stakeholders and Stakeholder identification. Tips for analyzing stakeholders. Techniques for managing stakeholder lists Discussion: Who is involved in strategy analysis? Workshops: Define the Business Need, Write Business Requirements, and Identify Stakeholders
4 – Understanding and Defining Solution Scope
Defining solution scope and Techniques for defining solution scope. Applying the brainstorming technique. Project scope vs. Product scope. Finding solution boundaries. The Context Diagram Actors and key information Workshop: Draw a Context Diagram.
5 – Understanding Requirements
What is a requirement? Requirement types Business, Stakeholder, Solution, and Transition requirements. Assumptions and constraints, Business rules and Taxonomy of business rules. Decision tables; How to write simple calculations Requirements vs. business rules Document requirements Workshop – Document Requirements.
6 – Elicitation and Process Modeling
Why do we model processes? What is Business Process Management? Using a modeling notation “As Is” vs. “To Be” modeling. Why use BPMN? Basic BPM notation and Business Process Modeling – A case study. Business Process Realignment “As Is” vs. “To Be” activity diagrams Workshop: Create a Business Process Model
7 – Planning & Eliciting Requirements
Interviewing – what and why? Preparing for an effective interview. Types of questions to ask; Sequencing questions. Active listening techniques. Planning for elicitation. Conducting the interview. Establishing rapport, Active Listening and Feedback techniques. Types of elicitation techniques Workshops: Planning for Elicitation and Conducting an Elicitation Session
8 – Use Case & User Story Analysis
What is an Actor and Types of Actors? How to “find” Use Cases? Diagramming Use Cases Tips on naming Use Cases. Explaining scenarios; The use case template Components of a use case Scenario examples. Best practices for writing Use Cases Scenarios and flows Alternate and exception flows Exercises: Drawing a Use Case Diagram, Writing the Main Success Scenario, and Writing Alternate and Exception Scenarios
9 – Analyzing & Documenting Requirements
Requirements and Use Cases; Non-Functional requirements. User Interface Requirements UI Data Table Reporting requirements, Data requirements and Data accessibility requirements. Characteristics of good requirements The business requirements document (BRD) BRD vs. Functional Requirements Specification. Preparing the requirements package. Requirements traceability Workshops: Develop a User Interface, Analyzing Requirements, and Tracing requirements.
Course Objectives
Obtain a thorough understanding of the core responsibilities of the business analyst Understand the main professional associations and standards supporting business analysts in the industry Discuss and explore the components of each of the domains/knowledge areas that comprise the work of business analysis Recognize the importance of properly defining the business need prior to engaging in requirements activities Formulate a strong understanding of the concepts that comprise strategy analysis Obtain experience with identifying and analyzing stakeholders Decipher between project and product scope and successfully use models to communicate scope Thoroughly understand and identify the various requirements categories and be able to recognize requirements of various types Explore business rules analysis Understand the benefits of process modeling and the common modeling language of BPMN Discuss process models and how the techniques can capture details about the as-is/to-be environment Learn how to properly prepare and conduct interviews Explore the components of use cases Learn what it means to package requirements Obtain hands-on experience with a number of business analysis techniques and gain hands-on experience eliciting, defining, and writing requirements.
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