Business Analysis Essentials

Course Outline

Section 1: Introduction to Business Analysis

• Business analysis defined
• The activities that comprise business analysis
• IIBA/PMI and the goals of a professional association
• IIBA’s BABOK® Guide and PMI’s Practice Guide in Business Analysis
• Exercise: Requirements challenges

Section 2: The IIBA™ and the role of the Business Analyst

• Business analyst defined
• BA role vs. PM role
• Importance of communication/collaboration
• The deliverables produced as part of business analysis
• The BA career path
• Exercise: Review case Study

Section 3: Strategy Analysis and Change

• The definition of Strategy Analysis
• Components of Strategy Analysis
• Identifying stakeholders and business needs

Exercises:

• Business Need development
• RACI Stakeholder Identification

Section 4: Understanding and Defining Solution Scope

• Defining Solution Scope
• Project scope vs. product scope
• Defining a problem statement
• Techniques for defining scope

Exercises:

• Conduct a brainwriting session
• Create a context diagram
• Optional exercise:
• Create a Use Case Diagram

Section 5: Understanding Requirements

• Define the term requirement
• Understand requirement types
• Present the requirements process
• Requirements vs. specifications and business rules

Exercise: Identify Requirements Section 6: Planning and Eliciting Requirements

• The Requirements Work Plan (RWP)
• Components of the RWP
• Identifying good questions for elicitation
• Active listening
• Categories and types of elicitation techniques

Exercise: Planning for elicitation Section 7: Analyzing and Documenting Requirements

• Understanding requirements analysis
• The Business Requirements Document (BRD)
• The BRD vs. the functional requirements specification
• BRD components
• The purpose of packaging requirements

Exercise: Analyzing Requirements Section 8: Elicitation and Process Modeling

• Why models are created
• Objectives of modeling
• What is process management
• Understanding process modeling
• Modeling using BPMN
• AS-IS vs. TO-BE modeling
• BPMN subclasses
• BPMN simple structure
• Prototyping
• Business Process Modeling case study

Exercises:

• Modeling
• Create a Prototype of your application

Section 9: Verifying and Validating Requirements

• The difference between validation and verification
• Characteristics of good requirements
• Risks associated with requirements
• Types of testing approaches
• Creating a test plan
• Requirements traceability matrix
• Verified and validated requirements

Exercise: Testing Requirements Section 10: Additional Resources

• Helpful links for obtaining additional business analysis information