Business Analysis Fundamentals

 

Target Audience

The course is aimed at junior or trainee Business Analysts with up to about 18 months experience.

Approach

This is a highly interactive course where participants are encouraged to learn though a mixture of lectures, exercises and group discussion. There is an emphasis on practical application through the use of a case study which will help participants increase their confidence in applying their learning in the real world. 

Instructors

All of our instructors have real world experience of working as business analysts and are not just ‘training specialists’. Whilst our emphasis is on practical knowledge and skills, all of our instructors are also accredited to teach qualification based courses in business analysis.

Course Objectives

By the end of the course the Business Analyst will be able to:

  • Integrate into a project or team environment with an understanding of their role, key responsibilities and relationship to fellow project members as well as other liaison points within the organisation
  • Work with business users to gather and document high-level and detailed requirements
  • Work with business users to document project scope at a detailed level
  • Break complex business scenarios or problems into process and data models
  • Apply end-to-end thinking to complex business and system problems to ensure ‘right first time’ documentation and solutions
  • Work with business users and delivery teams to develop optimum solutions to defined requirements
  • Plan and manage analysis activity including quality and sign-off reviews
  • Confidently present findings to their peer group and project team

Course Information

Pre-requisites:

  • None other than a general understanding of the business or project environment

On-Going Support:

  • 90 days post-course support via email or telephone
  • Sample templates of common business analysis deliverables provided as part of the course

Duration

  • 4 days (may be run over 5 if a less intensive course is required or the previous experience of the delegates is very limited).

Participants

  • Maximum 10 delegates per course

Delivery Method

  • Public Schedule or On-site

Venues

  • London or your own

Course Content

1. Introduction to the Business Analyst Role

1.1 The role of the Business Analyst and how the role has evolved from the Systems Analyst

1.2 Fundamental rules of Business Analysis

1.3 Business Analysis competencies

2. The Project Lifecycle and the Business Analyst

2.1 Project approaches such as Waterfall, Iterative and Agile – benefits and problems of different approaches

2.2 Deliverables produced by Business Analysts in different parts of the project lifecycle

2.3 How the Business Analyst fits into the ‘traditional’ project lifecycle

2.4 How approaches like Agile can affect the responsibilities of the Business Analyst

3. Project Scoping and Definition Basics

3.1 The importance of project definition/initiation

3.2 Contents of a PID/PDR

3.3 Defining SMART Objectives

3.4 Understanding project constraints

3.5 Quality criteria for IT systems

3.6 Project scoping checklist

4. Business Case Basics

4.1 Project roles in producing a business case

4.2 Constructing a basic business case

4.3 Identifying costs and benefits

4.4 Overview of NPV, IRR and ROI

4.5 Benefits realisation

4.6 Business Case checklist

5. Effective Interviewing

5.1 The different user perceptions of IT and business change

5.2 Basic interviewing rules

5.3 Alternative approaches to interviewing

6. Requirements Hierarchy and Types of Requirement

6.1 Definition of requirements and why they need to be defined

6.2 Business requirements and Functional requirements

6.3 The importance of defining requirements at a high and low level of detail

6.4 Non-functional requirements and how to define them

6.5 The difference between requirements and solutions

6.6 Requirements checklist

7. Requirements Documentation Techniques

7.1 Plain text example

7.2 Requirements Catalogue example

7.3 Process based example

7.4 Use Case example

7.5 CASE tools and Requirements Databases

7.6 Pro’s and Con’s of different approaches

7.7 Requirements style in Agile projects

8. Process Modelling Basics

8.1 Definition of a process and a process model

8.2 How process modelling helps the Business Analyst

8.3 Process modelling as a requirements definition tool

8.4 Overview of BPMN

8.5 Instructor led exercise to develop a process model

8.6 Best practice for process modelling

8.7 Hints and Tips

8.8 Process modelling checklist

9. Producing Use Case Diagrams and Descriptions

9.1 Drawing use case diagrams

9.2 Writing use case descriptions

9.3 Include and Extend constructs

9.4 Instructor led example of producing a use case diagram

10. Getting from Requirements to Solutions

10.1 Prioritising and assessing requirements for delivery

10.2 Running a delivery transition workshop

10.3 Setting expectations

10.4 The importance of detailed requirements

10.5 Supporting IT development

10.6 Implications of off-shored and outsourced development

10.7 IT Transition Checklist

Available Courses

This is available as an on-site course only, no public courses are scheduled.



If you would like further information on our courses, or would like to discuss how we can build a course for your organisation using our training modules, please contact us.