Foundations of Business Analysis

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Learn How To:

• Identify the roles and responsibilities of the business analyst
• Define requirements
• Explain the importance of managing risk
• Define the solution vision and scope
• Plan the requirements elicitation process
• Recognise the importance of analysing and documenting requirements
• Explain the role of modelling for documenting and communicating requirements
• Perform requirements validation and traceability

Course Synopsis

At the project’s earliest stages the business analyst is key to defining the requirements, as well as planning, defining and validating project scope. It’s important to have an understanding of the breadth of knowledge that a business analyst brings to the project team when developing business solutions.

Foundations Of Business Analysis is designed to provide you with a basic understanding of the benefits, functions and impact of this critical role. The target audience for this course includes those who are new to the business analyst role or those who supervise and/or work with business analysts. This course provides a special focus on the business analysis function as it relates to developing information technology solutions, given that such an understanding is essential for project success.

The course discusses the business analysis process as it is applied throughout a project to include the pre-project activities that comprise enterprise analysis. Participants also learn how a business analyst supports the project throughout the solution development life cycle, from establishing the solution vision and scope in the analysis phase to validating that requirements have been met in the testing phase.

After completing this course, you will understand why and when to involve the business analysis function. Plus, you will have a working vocabulary to enable you to communicate effectively with those who perform that role.

Course Topics

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1. Understanding Complexity In Projects
   1. What is business analysis?
   2. Best practice in business analysis
   3. Benefits of business analysis
2. The Role Of The Business Analyst
   1. The business analysis process
   2. BA role vs. project manager role
   3. BA competencies
   4. The BA career path
3. Supporting The Project Portfolio
   1. The project portfolio
   2. Strategic enterprise analysis
   3. Solution Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
4. Developing The Solution Vision And Scope
   1. Defining solution vision and scope
   2. Vision and scope report
   3. Conducting a visioning workshop
   4. Validating solution scope
   5. Traceability
5. Understanding Requirements And Business Rules
   1. Functional, nonfunctional and implementation requirements
   2. Requirements vs. specifications
   3. Requirements vs. business rules
   4. Risk management and risk response strategies
6. Planning And Eliciting Requirements
   1. The Requirements Work Plan (RWP)
   2. Components of the RWP
   3. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
   4. Elicitation keys to success
   5. Elicitation techniques
   6. Preparing for change
7. Analyzing And Documenting Requirements
   1. Analyzing requirements
   2. Characteristics of effective requirements
   3. The Business Requirements Document (BRD)
   4. The BRD vs. the technical specifications document
   5. Components of the BRD
   6. BRD validation techniques
8. Modeling Requirements
   1. Modeling requirements
   2. Models vs. diagrams
   3. As-Is vs. To-Be modeling
   4. Types of models
   5. Models and the BRD
9. Assessing And Validating Requirements
   1. Validation and verification
   2. V-Model of testing
   3. Levels and types of testing
   4. The master test plan
   5. Test scenarios and test cases