Business Analysis Foundational Training Overview
This Foundational Business Analysis training course teaches aspiring business analysts how to design, model, and document business processes and measure their impact on business performance. Attendees learn how to define business goals before creating requirements, analyze stakeholders, conduct interviews, manage conflict, and more.
This course is compliant with IIBA’s Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK® Guide) version 3 and is aligned with the practices in PMI’s Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide.
Location and Pricing
Accelebrate offers instructor-led enterprise training for groups of 3 or more online or at your site. Most Accelebrate classes can be flexibly scheduled for your group, including delivery in half-day segments across a week or set of weeks. To receive a customized proposal and price quote for private corporate training on-site or online, please contact us.
In addition, some courses are available as live, instructor-led training from one of our partners.
Objectives
- Understand the core responsibilities of the business analyst
- Understand the leading professional standards supporting business analysts in the industry
- Explore the components of each of the domains/knowledge areas that comprise the work of business analysis
- Define business needs before engaging in requirements activities
- Understand the concepts that comprise strategy analysis
- Perform stakeholder analysis
- Decipher between project and product scope and use models to communicate the scope
- Identify the various requirements categories and recognize different types of requirements
- Develop interviewing skills
- Plan and structure interviews
- Examine different forms of requirements documentation
- Explore communication, conflict, and issue management
- Understand the concepts of a solution evaluation
- Apply business analysis techniques for eliciting, analyzing, and modeling requirements
Prerequisites
No prior experience is presumed.
Outline
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Introduction to Business Analysis
- What is Business Analysis?
- Benefiting from business analysis
- Business analysis and project success
- Challenges of business analysis
- Who performs business analysis functions in your organization?
- Exploring solutions options
- Your biggest challenges in past projects
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
- The purpose of 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
- Introduction to Case Study
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
- Who is involved in strategy analysis in your organization?
- Create a Business Model
- Define the Business Need
- Create a Fishbone Diagram
- Write Business Requirements
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
Stakeholder Analysis
- What is a stakeholder?
- The importance of stakeholder analysis
- Stakeholder identification
- Stakeholder types
- Tips/techniques for identifying and analyzing stakeholders
- Keeping track of stakeholders
- Identify Stakeholders
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
- Identifying Solution Scope
- Draw a Context Diagram
- Defining Scope with Features
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
- Define a Business Rule
- Write Requirements
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
- Create a Business Process Model
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
- Elicitation Techniques You Have Used
- Planning for an Interview
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 a consensus
- Avoiding Groupthink
- Encouraging participation
- Managing meetings and conflict
- Conduct an Interview
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
- Analyzing Requirements
- Identifying User Stories
- Tracing Requirements
- Obtaining Approval
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 and secondary actors and pre and post conditions
- Best practices for writing use cases
- Template: Use Case Specification
- Drawing a Use Case Diagram
- Write the Main Success Scenario
- Scenarios and flows
- Alternate and exception flows
- Alternate scenario post-conditions
- Guidelines for Alternate flows
- Examples of alternate and exception flows
- Writing Alternate and Exception Flows
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
- Develop a User Interface
- Verifying Requirements
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
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. actual
- When variances occur
- Proposing recommendations to address variances
- Communicating evaluation results
Conclusion and Additional Information
Training Materials
All Business Analysis training students receive comprehensive courseware.
Software Requirements
For in-person deliveries, attendees do not need computers for this course. We will provide full classroom setup instructions that will include seating in small groups, with supplies such as flipcharts, sticky notes, markers, and pens for the attendees and a projector and Internet connection for the instructor's laptop.
Online deliveries for this interactive training will use an online meeting platform (such as Zoom, WebEx, GoTo, or Teams) to have face-to-face contact online, including use of breakout rooms for group activities.
