About this Course

Why do more than 50% of projects fail to meet their original objectives? Why do we continue to see the number of troubled and canceled projects on the rise? According to PMI’s 2014 Pulse of the Profession® In-Depth Report, 47% of failed projects fail to meet goals due to poor requirements management ^[1]. With a strong correlation between poor requirements practices, failed projects, and wasted dollars; organizations can no longer afford to accept mediocre business analysis skills from those fulfilling the business analysis role.

This course provides students a clear understanding and total immersion into all of the facets of the business analyst role, including a thorough walkthrough of the various domain/knowledge areas that comprise the business analysis profession. Students are provided an opportunity to try their hand at several business analysis techniques for eliciting, analyzing, and modeling requirements. The business analysis work performed in strategy analysis and solution evaluation, which is most often the least familiar to business analysts, is thoroughly presented and explored. Students completing this course will be well equipped with new skills and knowledge that can be immediately applied on current and future projects.

This course intends to provide beginner and intermediate students a total immersion into the business analyst role by exposing attendees to the various aspects of the business analysis profession and numerous techniques to allow them to improve elicitation, analysis, and documentation of requirements.

This course is compliant with IIBA’s Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK® Guide) version 3 and is aligned with and upholds the practices as discussed in PMI’s Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide.

Audience Profile

This course is intended for beginner to intermediate Business Analysts who are looking to improve their skills by learning best practices and techniques for eliciting, analyzing, documenting, validating, and communicating requirements.

At Course Completion

Upon completing this course, students will be able to:

• 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 knowledge of and experience with the important work of stakeholder analysis
• 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
• Develop interviewing skills and explore ways to plan and structure interviews
• Examine different forms of requirements documentation
• Explore elements of communication, conflict, and issue management
• Obtain a solid understanding of the concepts and activities involved in solution evaluation
• Obtain hands-on experience with a number of business analysis techniques for eliciting, analyzing, and modeling requirements

Prerequisites

No prerequisites - This course is suitable for both beginner and intermediate Business Analysts who would like to increase their skills in order to elicit, write and effectively manage requirements for their projects.

Course Outline

DAY 1

Section 1: Introduction to Business Analysis

• What is Business Analysis?
• Benefiting from business analysis
• Business analysis and project success
• Challenges of business analysis
• Discussions:
• Who performs business analysis functions in your organization?
• Exploring solutions options
• Your biggest challenges on past projects

Section 2: A Closer Look at the Business Analyst Role

• Definition of business analyst
• Responsibilities of a business analyst
• The BA/PM roles
• 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 core concepts
• Business analysis perspectives
• IIBA and PMI certifications for business analysts
• Workshop: Introduction to Case Study

Section 3: Strategy Analysis and Change

• Define Strategy Analysis
• When to perform Strategy Analysis
• Business models
• Defining the business need
• Root cause analysis
• 5 Whys
• Fishbone diagram
• Defining business requirements
• Discussions:
• Who is involved in strategy analysis in your organization?
• Workshops:
• Create a Business Model
• Define the Business Need
• Create a Fishbone Diagram
• Write Business Requirements

Section 4: Defining a Change Strategy

• Define change strategy
• Gap analysis
• Determining solution options
• Enterprise readiness
• Cultural fit
• Operational and functional analysis
• Impact analysis
• Transitioning to the future state

Section 5: Stakeholder Analysis

• What is a stakeholder?
• The importance of stakeholder analysis
• Stakeholder identification
• Stakeholder types
• Tips/techniques for identifying analyzing stakeholders
• Keeping track of stakeholders
• Workshop: Identify Stakeholders

DAY 2

Section 6: Understanding and Defining Solution Scope

• Defining solution scope
• Techniques to use
• Project scope versus product scope
• Finding solution boundaries
• What is a feature?
• Identifying key features
• Discussion: Identifying Solution Scope
• Workshops:
• Draw a Context Diagram
• Defining Scope with Features

Section 7: Understanding Requirements

• What is a requirement (IEEE and IIBA definitions)
• Project roles involved in requirements activities
• Requirements types
• Assumptions and constraints
• Business rules
• Decision tables and inference rules
• Requirements vs. business rules
• Requirements vs. specifications
• Discussions:
• Requirements
• Business rules
• Workshops:
• Define a Business Rule
• Write Requirements

Section 8: Business 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
• Developing a business process model
• Using a facilitated session
• Business Process Modeling – A case study
• Developing a Business Process Model
• Workshop: Create a Business Process Model

Section 9: Preparing for Requirements Elicitation

• Types of elicitation techniques
• Interviewing – what and why?
• Preparing for an effective interview
• Selecting the right interviewees
• Types of questions to ask
• Sequencing of questions
• Discussion: Elicitation Techniques You Have Used
• Workshop: Planning for an Interview

DAY 3

Section 10: Elicitation using Interviews and Workshops

• Conduct the Interview
• Establishing rapport with stakeholders
• Active listening and listening styles
• Workshops and getting the right people
• The role of the facilitator
• The brainstorming technique
• Decision rules and reaching consensus
• Avoiding Groupthink
• Encouraging participation
• Managing meetings and conflict
• Workshop: Conduct an Interview

Section 11: Confirming Elicitation Results

• Defining requirements analysis
• Prioritizing requirements (MoSCoW, Timeboxing, Voting, etc.)
• Documenting requirements
• Other uses for specifications and models
• Unified Modeling Language (UML®)
• Explaining user stories
• The traceability matrix
• Communicating requirements
• Workshop:
• Analyzing Requirements
• Identifying User Stories
• Tracing Requirements
• Obtaining Approval

Section 12: Analyzing Requirements with Use Cases

• What is an actor?
• Types of actors
• Defining actors
• Locating use cases
• Use case diagrams
• Use case tips
• Defining and identifying scenarios
• Parts of a use case
• Defining primary, secondary actors and pre and post conditions
• Best practices for writing use cases
• Template: Use Case Specification
• Workshop:
• Drawing a Use Case Diagram
• Write the Main Success Scenario

DAY 4

Section 12 (cont’d): Documenting Requirements

• Scenarios and flows
• Alternate and exception flows
• Alternate scenario post conditions
• Guidelines for Alternate flows
• Examples of alternate and exception flows
• Workshop: Writing Alternate and Exception Flows

Section 13: Documenting Requirements

• How requirements relate to use cases
• Writing Non-Functional requirements
• User Interface Requirements
• Reporting requirements
• Data requirements
• Data accessibility requirements
• Business requirements document (BRD)
• BRD vs the Functional Requirements
• Verifying Requirements
• Quality attributes
• Purpose of the requirements package
• BA Deliverables across knowledge areas/domains
• Planning BA deliverables
• Workshops:
• Develop a User Interface
• Verifying Requirements

Section 14: Managing and Communicating Business Analysis Information

• Business analysis communication
• The business analyst’s role in communication
• Forms of communication
• 7Cs of communication
• Symptoms of information overload
• Information mapping
• Presentation and common elements
• Requirements walkthroughs
• Conflict and issue management
• Conflict resolution techniques

Section 15: Evaluating the Solution

• Understanding solution evaluation
• Verification vs. validation
• Timing of solution evaluation
• Planning solution evaluation
• Performing solution evaluation
• Using existing metrics
• Evaluating long term performance
• Qualitative vs. Quantitative measures
• Tools and techniques used in solution evaluation
• Comparing expected vs. actuals
• When variances occur
• Proposing recommendations to address variances
• Communicating evaluation results

Section 16: Additional Information

• Helpful links for obtaining additional business analysis information

Course Outline

Section 1: Introduction to Business Analysis

• What is business analysis
• Benefits and challenges of business analysis
• Project success factors

Section 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

Section 3: Supporting the Project Portfolio (Enterprise Analysis)

• Define Strategy Analysis
• When to perform Strategy Analysis
• Components of Strategy Analysis
• Defining the business need
• Envisioning the Product and Project
• Defining business requirements
• The importance of stakeholders
• 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
  • Identify Stakeholders

Section 4: Understanding and Defining Solution Scope

• Defining solution scope
• 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

Section 5: Understanding Requirements

• What is a requirement?
• Requirement types
• Business, Stakeholder, Solution, and Transition requirements
• Assumptions and constraints
• Business rules
• Taxonomy of business rules
• Decision tables
• How to write simple calculations
• Requirements vs. business rules
• Document requirements
• Workshop – Document Requirements

Section 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
• Business Process Modeling – A case study
• Business Process Realignment
• “As Is” vs. “To Be” activity diagrams
• Workshop: Create a Business Process Model

Section 7: Planning and 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
• Feedback techniques
• Types of elicitation techniques
• Workshops:
  • Planning for Elicitation
  • Conducting an Elicitation Session

Section 8: Use Case and User Story Analysis

• What is an Actor?
• 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
  • Writing Alternate and Exception Scenarios

Section 9: Analyzing and Documenting Requirements

• Requirements and Use Cases
• Non-Functional requirements
• User Interface Requirements
• UI Data Table
• Reporting requirements
• Data requirements
• 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
  • Tracing requirements

Section 10: Additional Information

• Useful books and links on writing effective requirements