Duration : 3 days
Course Reference : HJB-BA101
Price : € 795,– excl. VAT per participant

Course Description : In this introductory course, you’ll delve into the role and responsibilities of the business analyst (BA)- the communication link between all business areas and a critical player in project success. Learn techniques for ensuring project success every step of the way-from identifying and analyzing potential projects to making sure that the final project product meets the requirements you identified. Through hands-on exercises, you’ll learn to define the scope of work and master requirements-gathering techniques that will work for a variety of projects and audiences. You’ll consider the unique needs of customers, stakeholders, and the IT department as you work toward building, documenting, communicating, and managing requirements.

Course Objectives : This workshop will provide the participants with:

• Role and importance of the BA
• Vocabulary standards and business analysis practices through the use of the IIBA A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK Guide)
• Plan BA requirements activities
• Elicit requirements from stakeholders, with an emphasis on interviews
• Analyze stated requirements, with an overview of modeling techniques
• Document requirements for different types of projects
• Verify and validate requirements
• Elements of requirements management and communication and the BA’s role in them
• Elements of solution verification and validation and possible BA roles
• Enterprise analysis: choosing appropriate projects
• Necessary competencies and best practices of BAs
• Waterfall, incremental, and agile lifecycles and how they change BA practices

Course Setup : A balanced mix of lecture, group discussions, and individual and team exercises are used to develop the skills necessary to elicitate, document and validate requirements.

Target Audience : Systems analysts, business analysts, requirements analysts, developers, software engineers, IT project managers, project managers, project analysts, project leaders, senior project managers, team leaders, program managers, testers, and QA specialists.

Professional Development Units :  21 PDU’s, 2.1 CEU’s, 21 IIBA CDU’s

BABOK Knowledge areas : This workshop will address the following knowledge areas:

• Business analysis planning & monitoring
• Elicitation
• Requirements management & communication
• Enterprise analysis
• Requirements analysis
• Solution analysis & validation

Course Outline: The following topics will be addressed in this workshop :

• Session 1. Introduction to Business Analysis
• Importance of Effective Business Analysis
• Role of the BA
• Standardization and Adaptability
• Session 2. Requirements Planning
• Role of the BA in Requirements Planning
• Vision and Scope Document
• Types of Requirements
• Identifying Stakeholders
• Selecting Elicitation approach
• Requirements Management Plan
• Session 3. Requirements Elicitation Techniques
• Interviews
• Focus groups
• Requirements workshop: Requirements meeting
• Requirements workshop: JAD session
• Brainstorming
• Observation
• Survey
• Prototype
• Document analysis
• Business rules analysis
• Reverse engineering
• Product trials
• Session 4. Requirements Analysis
• Need for Analysis
• Using Analysistechniques to get Stakeholder Feedback and Verify and Validate Developing Requirements
• Value of Modelling Techniques in Analysis
• Modelling Techniques
  • Organizational model
  • Location model
  • Business Interaction model
  • Process/flow models
  • Use case models
  • Data models
  • State model
• Business Rules Analysis
• Prioritizing Requirements
• Verifying and Validating Requirements
• Session 5. Requirements Documentation
• Formal and Informal Documentation and the level of detail required
• Writing for Usability and Comprehension
• Common Requirements Document Defects
• Components of a Formal Requirements Document
• Requirements Verification and Validation
• Requirements Sign-Off
• Session 6. Requirements Management and Communication
• Communication throughout the Project and to decommission
• Change Management
  • Define a baseline
  • Define a change management process
  • Identify the Change Authority
• Traceability and its Uses
• Requirements Attributes
• Session 7. Solution Validation and Acceptance
• Testing and Non-Testing Methods
• Purposes of Validation
  • Find defects
  • Prove compliance to requirements
• Test Cases and Test Suites
• Challenges in Testing
• Structured Testing
• Role of the BA in Solution Validation: the V Model
• Solution Acceptance and Project Close-Out
• Session 8. Enterprise Analysis
• Role of the BA on the Enterprise Analysis Team
• Steps in Enterprise Analysis
  • Define the business need
    • Techniques for root cause analysis
  • Assess capability gaps
    • SWOT analysis
  • Determine the solution approach
  • Define the solution scope
  • Perform Feasibility Study
  • Define the business case
    • Contents of business case
    • Who does what?: the BA’s limited role in developing a business case
• Session 9. Competencies, Best Practices, and Life Cycle Models
• Competency Proficiency
• BA Necessary Competencies
• Best Practices
  • Use iterative analysis
  • Focus on process improvement
  • Apply progressive elaboration
  • Check as you go
  • Use the investigative approach
  • Adopt traceability
  • Formalize business analysis through standardization
  • Improve communication through modeling
• Life Cycle Models and the effect on business analysis activities
  • Waterfall
  • Incremental
  • Agile
• Session 10. Business Analyst skills & competencies
• Communication Skills
• Leadership Skills
• Problem-Solving Skills
• Business Knowledge
• IT Knowledge