This course provides students 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. Students are provided an opportunity to try their hand at several business analysis techniques to assist with improving their skills in stakeholder identification, scope definition, and analyzing, documenting, and modeling requirements.

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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:

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.

1

  • Introduction to Business Analysis

  • What is business analysis
    Benefits and challenges of business analysis
    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
    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, and Identify Stakeholders
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
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
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
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
    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?
    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
    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
10

  • Additional Resources

  • Useful books and links on writing effective requirements

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.

Language

English

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.

$2,195

Length: 3.0 days (24 hours)

Level:

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