Audience
Job roles relevant to this certification include:
- Business Analyst
- Junior Business Analyst
- Change Manager
- Project Manager
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites for this course.
Duration
3 days. Hands on.
Course Objectives
Upon completion, learners should be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- The role and competencies of a Business Analyst.
- The strategic context for business analysis and the BA service framework.
- How to investigate the current and target business states.
- Defining a solution and preparing a business case.
- Eliciting and managing requirements.
- Delivering a solution.
Course Content
What is Business Analysis
Describe the business change lifecycle
List the following principles of business analysis:
Root causes not symptoms
Business improvement not IT system change
Options not solutions
Feasible, contributing requirements, not meeting all requests
Entire business change lifecycle, not just requirements definition
Negotiation not avoidance
Describe the variants of the business analyst role
Enterprise
Technical/systems
Digital
Project
Proxy product owner
The Competencies of a Business Analyst
Explain the concept of the T-shaped Professional
Identify the three areas of business analysis competency:
Personal qualities
Business knowledge
Professional technique
The Strategic Context for Business Analysis
Describe business analysis and the strategic context
Define the factors assessed using PESTLE to analyse an external environment
Identify the elements of the VMOST technique used to analyse an internal environment
Describe the following elements of performance measurement:
Critical success factors
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Describe the structure of a SWOT analysis
Describe the following techniques used in strategy execution:
The POPIT model
The purpose of the business model canvas
The Business Analysis Service Framework
Identify the following services in the Business Analysis Service Framework (BASF):
Situation investigation and problem analysis
Feasibility assessment and business case development
Business process improvement
Requirements definition
Business acceptance testing
Business change deployment
Stakeholder engagement
Investigating the Business Situation
Define workshops:
Advantages and disadvantages of workshops
List techniques used for discovery workshops
List techniques used for visualisation workshops
Define observation:
Advantages and disadvantages of observation
Formal observation
Shadowing
Define interviews:
Advantages and disadvantages of interviewing
Define scenarios:
Advantages and disadvantages of scenarios
Define prototyping:
Advantages and disadvantages of prototyping
Define user role analysis:
Advantages and disadvantages of user role analysis
Personas
Define quantitative approaches:
Surveys or questionnaires
Activity sampling
Document analysis
Describe the following two diagrammatic techniques used to record a business situation:
Rich pictures
Mind map
Analysing and Managing Stakeholders
Identify stakeholder categories using the stakeholder wheel
Describe the Power/Interest grid technique to analyse stakeholders:
Resulting stakeholder management strategies:
Watch
Keep satisfied
Constant active management
Keep onside
Keep informed
Ignore
Describe stakeholder responsibilities using RACI:
Responsible
Accountable
Consulted
Informed
Improving Business Services and Processes
Explain the business process hierarchy:
Enterprise level
Event-response level
Actor-task level
List the following techniques used to model the enterprise level processes:
SIPOC
Value chain analysis
Value propositions
Describe the following aspects of the event response level:
Business events
Creating business process models
UML activity models
Describe the following aspect of the actor-task level:
Analysis considerations at actor-task level
Describe analysis of the following aspects of the as-is process model:
Identifying problems
Analysing the handoffs
Analysing the tasks and procedures
Identify generic approaches to improving business processes:
Simplification
Redesign
Bottleneck removal
Change task sequence
Redefine boundary
Automate processing
Define the purpose of customer journey maps:
Provides an external perspective
Customer-focused
Defining the Solution
Describe the gap analysis process:
Comparing current to target state
Identify gaps to be addressed
Explain the use of POPIT in gap analysis
Describe the process for developing options:
Identify, shortlist, evaluate, produce business case
Describe the purpose of design thinking:
Stages of design thinking:
Empathise
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Evaluate
Create
Divergent and convergent thinking
Discover
Define
Develop
Deliver
Making the Business Case
Describe the lifecycle for a business case in business case development
Identify the areas of feasibility assessment:
Business
Technical
Financial
Define the structure and contents of a business case:
Introduction
Management or executive summary
Description of current state
Options considered:
Options described
Analysis of costs and benefits
Impact assessment
Risk assessment
Recommendations
Appendices/supporting information
List the key features relevant to the production of a business case within an Agile environment
Identify the elements of a CARDI Log
Explain the purpose of the following investment appraisal techniques:
Payback
Discounted cash flow and net present value
Establishing the Requirements
Explain the requirements engineering (RE) framework
Identify the following actors in requirements engineering:
The business representatives
The project team
Identify the types of requirement
Describe the hierarchy of requirements:
Link to strategy and legal obligations
Describe requirements elicitation techniques:
Tacit and explicit knowledge
Elicitation techniques
Workshops
Modelling
Prototyping
Interviews
Document analysis
Identify the following elements of requirements analysis:
Requirements filters
INVEST
Prioritising requirements using MoSCoW
Business rules
Documenting and Modelling Requirements
Identify the following documentation styles
Text-based documentation style
Diagrammatic
List elements of a requirements catalogue
Describe the format of user stories
Describe the elements of the use case diagram used to model functional requirements
Describe the elements of a class model used to model data
Describe the product backlog in modelling and documentation in an Agile environment
Define the structure of the business requirements document
Validating and Managing Requirements
Describe the following types of requirements validation:
Formal
Agile (less formal, iterative)
Describe the following aspects of requirements management:
Traceability:
Horizontal
Vertical
Change control
Delivering the Requirements
Describe the following types of delivery lifecycle:
The waterfall lifecycle
The “V” model
The incremental lifecycle
The stages of the iterative lifecycle (Agile)
Explain advantages and disadvantages of the above lifecycles:
Control
Definition
Pace
Clarity
Delivering the Business Solution
Explain the role of the business analyst in the business change lifecycle
Describe the role of the business analyst during the design, development andtest stages:
Design:
Communication
Modelling
Provide clarity
Collaboration
Development:
Advice and queries
Problem solving
Test:
Acceptance criteria
Test criteria
Describe the following approaches used in the implementation stage:
Business readiness assessment:
McKinsey 7S Framework
CPPOLDAT
Transition and migration:
Direct changeover (big bang)
Parallel
Pilot
Phased
People’s response to change:
SARAH
Describe how the benefits plan is used in the realisation stage:
Context/vision
Benefits profiles
Benefits dependency network
Responsibilities
Tracking procedures