COURSE OBJECTIVE:
After you complete this course you will be able to demontrate:
• Knowledge and understanding of business analysis principles and techniques
• The role and competencies of a business analyst
• Strategy analysis
• Business system and business process modelling
• Stakeholder analysis
• Investigation and modelling techniques
• Requirements engineering
• Business case development
TARGET AUDIENCE:
This course is aimed at anyone requiring an understanding of Business Analysis, Business analysts, Business managers and their staff, Business change managers, Project managers
COURSE PREREQUISITES:
There are no prerequisites for this course
COURSE CONTENT:
1. What is Business Analysis
• The origins of business analysis
• The development of business analysis
• The impact of outsourcing
• Competitive advantage of using IT
• Successful business change
• The importance of the business analyst
• Business analysts as internal consultants
• The scope of business analysis work
• The range of analysis activities
• Strategic analysis and definition
• IT systems analysis
• Business analysis
• Taking a holistic approach
• The role and responsibilities of a business analyst
• Definition of the business analyst role
• Further aspects of the business analyst role
2. The Competencies of a Business Analyst
• Personal qualities
• Business knowledge
• Professional techniques
• The development of competencies
3. Strategy Analysis
• The context for strategy
• The definition of strategy (Johnson, Scholes and Whittington 2008)
• Strategy development
• External environment analysis
• PESTLE analysis
• Porter's five forces model
• Internal environment analysis
• MOST analysis
• Resource Audit
• Boston Box
• SWOT analysis
• Executing strategy
• The McKinsey 7-S model
• The Balanced Business Scorecard
• Critical Success Factors and Key Performance Indicators
4. The Business Analysis Process Model
• An approach to problem-solving
• Stages of the business analysis process model
• Investigate the situation
• Consider the perspectives
• Analyse the needs
• Evaluate the options
• Define the requirements
• Objectives of the process model stages
• Procedure for each process model stage
• Techniques used within each process model stage
5. Investigation techniques
• Interviews
• Advantages and disadvantages of interviewing
• Preparing for interviewing
• Conducting the interview
• Following up the interview
• Observation
• Advantages and disadvantages of observation
• Formal observation
• Protocol analysis
• Shadowing
• Ethnographic studies
• Workshops
• Advantages and disadvantages of workshops
• Preparing for the workshop
• Facilitating the workshop
• Techniques
• Following the workshop
• Scenarios
• Advantages and disadvantages of scenarios
• Process for developing scenarios
• Documenting scenarios
• Prototyping
• Advantages and disadvantages of prototyping
• Quantitative approaches
• Surveys or Questionnaires
• Special Purpose Records
• Activity Sampling
• Document Analysis
• Documenting the current situation
• Rich Pictures
• Mind Maps
6. Stakeholder Analysis and Management
• Stakeholder categories and identification
• Customers
• Partners
• Suppliers
• Competitors
• Regulators
• Owners
• Employees
• Managers
• Analysing stakeholders
• The Power/Interest Grid
• Stakeholder management strategies
• No or low interest and no or low power/influence
• Some or high interest but no or low power/influence
• No or low to high interest but some power/influence
• No or low interest but high power/influence
• Some interest and high power/influence
• High interest and high power/influence
• Managing stakeholders
• Stakeholder plan/assessment
• Understanding stakeholder perspectives
• Soft Systems Methodology
• Analysing the perspectives
• CATWOE
• Business activity models
• Creating a business activity model
• Types of activities – Plan, Enable, Do, Monitor, Control
• Developing a consensus model
7. Modelling Business Processes
• Organisational context
• Functional view of an organisation
• An alternative view of an organisation
• The organisational view of business processes
• Value propositions
• Process models
• Business events
• Developing the business process model
• Analysing the as-is process model
• Improving business processes (to-be business process)
• Business rules
• Simplify the process
• Remove bottlenecks
• Change the sequence of tasks
• Redefine process boundary
• Automate the processing
• Redesign the process
8. Defining the solution
• Gap analysis
• Identifying areas of concern
• Framework for gap analysis (elements of POPIT model)
• Formulating options
• Introduction to Business Architecture
• Definition of Business Architecture
• Business Architecture techniques
• Definition of a capability model
• Definition of a value stream
9. Making a Business and Financial Case
• The business case in the project lifecycle
• Identifying options
• Assessing project feasibility
• Business feasibility
• Technical feasibility
• Financial feasibility
• Structure of a business case
• Contents of a business case
• Categories of costs and benefits
• Impact assessment
• Risk assessment
• Investment appraisal
• Payback
• Discounted cash flow and Internal rate of return
10. Establishing the Requirements
• A framework for requirements engineering
• Actors in requirements engineering
• The business representatives
• The project team
• Requirements elicitation
• Tacit and explicit knowledge
• Requirements elicitation techniques
• Requirements analysis
• Requirements filters
• SMART requirements
• Requirements validation
11. Documenting and Managing Requirements
• The requirements document
• Structure
• Content of the requirements document
• The requirements catalogue
• Types of requirements; general, technical, functional and non-functional
• Hierarchy of requirements
• Documenting a requirement
• Managing requirements
• Elements of requirements management
12. Modelling Requirements
• Modelling system functions
• Use case diagrams
• Modelling system data
• Entity Relationship Diagrams
• Entities, attributes and relationships
• Types of relationships
• Class Models
• Objects and classes
• Attributes
• Associations
13. Delivering the Requirements
• Delivering the solution
• Context
• Lifecycles
• The waterfall lifecycle
• The ‘V' model lifecycle
• Incremental lifecycle
• Iterative systems development lifecycle
14. Delivering the Business Solution
• BA role in the business change lifecycle
• Design stage
• Information and Technology
• Development
• Testing
• Design
• Implementation stage
• SARAH model
• Realisation stage
• Contents of the benefits plan
FOLLOW ON COURSES:
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