With elicitation serving as a major component of the requirements process, it is imperative that business analysts maintain high competency levels in elicitation practices and technique use to help organizations overcome the requirements-related challenges faced on projects. Regardless of whether you are a practitioner just starting off your career in business analysis or whether you have been performing the role for some years, this course will provide insight into the latest thoughts on elicitation and writing effective requirements and present a number of current techniques that are being applied on projects across industries today. This course may earn a Credly Badge.

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* Actual course outline may vary depending on offering center. Contact your sales representative for more information.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Understand the role of the business analyst and core competencies for performing successfully
Discuss the criticality of business analysis and requirements for successful project outcomes
Understand the main professional associations and standards supporting business analysts in the industry
Discuss the common problems with requirements and explore approaches to address these issues
Obtain a clear understanding of the various requirements types and the significance for eliciting each type
Demonstrate your ability to identify stakeholders
Explore various methods for understanding and analyzing stakeholders
Discuss and apply good planning practices to requirements elicitation efforts
Obtain knowledge and understanding of over 15 current and commonly applied elicitation techniques
Understand how to progress from elicitation to analysis to documentation
Write well-formed and validated requirements
Gain understanding of the best practices for writing quality requirements
Learn the technical writing techniques that apply directly to writing requirements documents
Discuss writing pitfalls, risks that impact requirements, and how to address them
Learn best practices for communicating and collaborating with stakeholders, sharing the results of elicitation and the resulting documentation
Learn approaches for validating requirements
Understand the difference between validating requirements and validating the solution

1

  • Review of Foundational Concepts

  • Definition of a business analysis
    Definition of business analyst
    BA role vs. PM role
    Business analysis competencies
    Benefits of business analysis
    Purpose for having a BA standard
    IIBA's BABOK Guide and PMI's Practice Guide in Business Analysis
    Business analysis core concepts
    Discussion- Project challenges
2

  • Understanding Requirements

  • Common problems with requirements
    Understand the problem first
    Define the business need
    Situation statements and moving to requirements
    Understanding requirement types
    Business requirements
    Stakeholder/User Requirements
    Solution Requirements
    Functional Requirements
    Non-Functional Requirements
    Assumptions and Constraints
    Discussions- Requirement problems, business needs, and identifying non-functional requirements
3

  • Discovering Stakeholders

  • Definition of a stakeholder
    Stakeholder types
    Identifying stakeholders
    Performing stakeholder analysis
    Stakeholders and requirements
    Tips for identifying stakeholders
    Grouping stakeholders
    Creating a RACI model
    Tips for analyzing stakeholders
    Documenting results of stakeholder analysis
    Workshop- Discovering stakeholders
4

  • Preparing for Requirements Elicitation

  • Planning for elicitation
    Benefits of elicitation planning
    What do you plan?
    The elicitation plan
    Setting objectives for elicitation
    Determining the scope for elicitation
    Establishing pre-work
    Determining the outputs for the session
    The iterative nature of elicitation
    Elicitation roles
    Elicitation planning techniques
    Discussions- Who to involve in elicitation, planning impacts, and unplanned elicitation
    Workshop- Planning for elicitation
5

  • Conduct Requirements Elicitation

  • Elicitation skillset
    Types of elicitation techniques
    Using active listening in elicitation
    Techniques for performing elicitation
    Benchmarking/Market Analysis
    Brainstorming
    Business Rules Analysis
    Collaborative Games
    Concept Modeling
    Data Mining
    Data Modeling
    Document Analysis
    Focus Groups
    Interface Analysis
    Interviews
    Observation
    Process Modeling
    Prototyping
    Survey or Questionnaire
    Workshops
6

  • Write Effective Requirements

  • Elicitation and Analysis
    Requirements related issues
    Implications of bad requirements
    Elicitation and documentation
    Writing skillset
    Documenting requirements
    Modeling requirements
    Defining the project life cycle
    Impact of project life cycle on documentation
    Requirements specifications
    Characteristics of good requirements
    Guidelines for writing textual requirements
    Structuring a requirement
    Writing pitfalls
    Traceability
    Requirements attributes
    Risks associated to requirements
    Discussions- Project Life Cycle and Correcting Poorly Written Requirements
    Workshops- Documenting Requirements and Identify Characteristics of Good Requirements
7

  • Confirm and Communicate Elicitation Requirements

  • Business analysis communication
    Requirements communication
    Communication skills
    The 7 Cs
    Timing of communication
    Planning communication
    Importance of Collaboration
    Planning collaboration
    Documenting communication/collaboration needs
    Confirming elicitation results
    Verify requirements
    Characteristics of good requirements (revisited)
    Requirements checklist
    Requirements validation
    Signing off on requirements
    Discussions- Responsibility for Communication, Eliciting Communication Needs, Validation
    Signoff
    Workshops- Communicating Requirements and Obtaining Signoff
8

  • Evaluate the Solution

  • Business analyst role in solution evaluation
    Why solutions under perform
    What we are looking for in solution evaluation
    When does solution evaluation occur
    Performing solution evaluation
    Planning solution evaluation
    Metrics that might exist
    Evaluating long term performance
    Qualitative vs. quantitative measures
    Tools & techniques used in solution evaluation
    Comparing expected to actuals
    When solution evaluation discovers a variance
    Tools/techniques for analyzing variances
    Proposing a recommendation
    Communicating results of solution evaluation
    Discussion- Addressing Variance
9

  • Wrap up and Next Steps

  • Useful books and links on writing effective requirements
    BABOK Guide
    Business Analysis for Practitioners- A Practice Guide

Audience

This course is intended for beginner to intermediate business and requirements analysts who are looking to improve their elicitation and requirements writing and documentation skills. This course is also a great fit for technical writers, product and software testers, project managers, product owners who work closely with business analysts or who perform some for of business analysis themselves.

Language

English

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this course. This course is suitable for both novices and experienced people who need to elicit and write effective requirements. It is recommended that participants complete the BA01: Business Analysis Essentials course prior to enrolling or have equivalent experience.

$2,195

Length: 3.0 days (24 hours)

Level:

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