Foundations of Business Analysis

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

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

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?
• Workshops:
• Create a Business Model
• Define the Business Need
• Create a Fishbone Diagram
• Write Business Requirements

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

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

6 – Understanding & 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

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

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

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

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

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

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
• 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

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

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

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

16 – Additional Resources

• Helpful links for obtaining additional business analysis information