BA30: Foundations of Business Analysis

To view the class schedule you need to become an Affiliate

• Largest “Guaranteed To Run” public technical training schedules available
• Easy to become an Affiliate – no charge or fee

Become an EPIC Affiliate

already an Affiliate?  Login

About this Course

This course provides students a clear understanding and total immersion into all the facets of the business analyst role, including a thorough walk through 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 is aligned to the IIBA BABOK Version 3 and covers the IIBA knowledge areas on the Entry Certificate in Business Analysis (ECBA) exam.

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

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.

Outline

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?

DAY 1 (cont’d)
▪ 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

DAY 4 (cont’d)
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

Prerequisites

No prerequisites