Business Analysis Training

Business Analysis ―
Requirements Discovery and Facilitation

Goals

Acquiring skill for the role of business analyst (BA) or business system analyst in a modern software development organization is often left to “on the job” experience, or to chance. The BA role is firmly in the middle between the customer/end user community, and the IT organization that must produce solutions meeting the customer’s expectations. The BA role is complex and requires skill in multiple dimensions, including: harvesting of requirements, serving as a Subject Matter Expert, satisfying business strategy defined by multiple constituencies, and communicating business process goals and process details to technical groups.

At the end of this course, the student will be able to:

Identify and organize various types of business requirements.
Fulfill the role of mediator between the business and IT constituencies
Ask the right questions to discover the project’s requirements
Explain the significance and purpose of core artifacts useful to the BA
Express business requirements using diverse presentations including Unified Modeling Language artifacts
Understand how offshore development projects affect the role of the BA

Duration

Two days.

Prerequisites

Experience in requirements gathering, or systems analysis is desirable, but not mandatory.

Cost

Please call 1-803-781-7628 for public enrollment and private, on-site pricing.

Description

This course is a 2-day, very interactive curriculum that focuses on the role of the BA within the process of software specification and development. Through numerous examples it enables BAs to work more effectively with the IT team by teaching how to express business requirements in forms that IT can directly use. In the course exercises the BAs learn to identify the business entities in the business domain, how to express these concepts in both visual and textual means, and how to specify the semantic relationships among those entities. Each topic section clearly identifies how it maps to the IIBA Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK). This course also addresses the role of the BA in offshore development projects where the BA must describe requirements for development groups overseas.

Topics

Introduction

The Role Of The BA

– Customer Needs & IT Needs

– The Skill Set Of A BA

– The BA’s Core Knowledge Set

The Practice Of Business Analysis

– BA Responsibilities

– Requirements Shepherding

– Analysis Workflow

– Dark Side Of Business Analysis

– What The BA Does Not Do!

– Exercise: What Are Your Challenges?

The Landscape Of Requirements

– Requirements, Features And Constraints

– Types Of Requirements

– Requirements Source, Audience And Approval

The Offshore Challenge

– Project Management Challenges

– Challenges For The Business Analyst

Business Requirements

– Establishing Project Vision And Scope

– Introduce Example Case Study

– Example Case Study: Business Rqts

– Unified Process Vision Documentation

– The Vision Document Problem Statement

– Example: Problem Statement

– Introduce Student Exercise Case Study

– Exercise Case Study: Business Rqts

– Exercise: Create A Problem Statement

– Documenting Project Scope

– Example: Scope Statement

– Small Group Exercise: Business Rqts Challenge

– Large Group Discussion: The Offshore Challenge

Visualizing Scope

– Value Of The Context Diagram

– The Components Of The Context Diagram

– Component Naming Guidelines

– Example: Context Diagram

– Exercise: Reading The Context Diagram

– How To Construct A Context Diagram

– Exercise: Build A Context Diagram

– The Offshore Challenge: Using The Context Diagram

User Requirements

– All Users Are Not Equal

– User Attributes

– Assigning User Attributes

– Example: User Attributes

– Exercise: Identify User Attributes

– User Surrogates

– When Requirements Collide: Alternative Decision-Making Approaches

– The Offshore Challenge: Effect On Decision-Making

Finding User Requirements

– Requirements Elicitation Techniques

– Questionnaires, Interviews, Brainstorming

– Role Playing, Requirements Workshops

– Prototypes/Proofs Of Concept

– Large Group Exercise: Project Improvement Facilitation

Presenting User Requirements

– Use Cases And Scenarios

– Process-Flow Vs. Traditional Functional Requirements

– Example Case Study: Use Case Review

– Scenarios: Specific Paths Through A Use Case

– The Offshore Challenge: Use Cases, User Stories And Flows

Functional & Non-Functional Requirements

– Distinguishing “Does” From “Is”

– Relationship Between User Requirements And Functional Requirements

– Functional Requirements From Use Cases

– Example Case Study: System Functional Rqts

– Documenting Non-Functional Requirements

– IEEE 830 & The Supplementary Specification

– Example: Supplementary Specification

– Documenting Software Requirements

– Summary: Functional, Non-Functional, User Requirements, And The Software Requirements Specification

Business Domain Modeling

– Structural Modeling

– Behavioral Modeling

– Functional Modeling

– Data Modeling

The Unified Modeling Language

– The 13 UML 2.X Diagrams

– The Offshore Challenge: UML As A Solution

The UML Structural Models

– UML Class Diagramming

– Classes, Relationships, And Multiplicity

– Example: Iteratively Developing Class Diagrams

– Small Group Exercise: Develop A Class Diagram

– Why BAs Should Develop UML Models

The UML Behavioral Models

– UML State Machine Diagrams

– State As Constraint On Behavior

– Example: State Machine Diagrams

– Small Group Exercise: Develop A State Machine Diagram

Managing Requirements

– Large Group Discussion: How Are You Managing Requirements?

– How Requirements Become Un-Managed

– BAs Role In Managing Requirements

– Requirements Traceability & Change Control

– CCM Tools

Wrapup

References

Audience

Business or system analysts, technical managers, and software developers who wish to learn techniques for successful business analysis in software development.

For more information about this course or other courses please contact Evanetics at 1-803-781-7628.