Program Description

Business Analysis Driving Business Success: Driven by the rise of complexity and uncertainty in today’s world, business analysis is key to enabling change that drives project and business success.

The Business Analyst has been described as the person who bridges the divide between IT departments and the business organizations they support. For all of the tools and techniques to elicit requirements, nothing is more important than making the most of human contact between these two interdependent groups. This seminar discusses several useful approaches to gathering requirements, focusing on the facilitation of collaborative sessions and the clear translation of business needs into requirements.

Course Objectives:

• Practice new tools and techniques that will strengthen elicitation and collaboration results   
• Develop a framework for improved stakeholder collaboration
• Maintain stakeholder engagement and commitment through requirements elicitation and documentation
• Identify and create use cases and user stories
• Write effective requirements
• Ensure focus on business value delivery

Course Outline:

I. The Strategy-Focused Organization

• Background: The need to think strategically
• Linkage to the Balanced Scorecard

II. Good Requirements

• Business rationale
• Requirements classification
• Creating the road map

III. Elicitation and Collaboration

• Understanding the difference
• Stakeholder analysis
• What to elicit

IV. Techniques

• Process analysis techniques
• Interviews, focus groups, surveys
• Brainstorming
• User stories
• Use cases
• When, why and how to use the techniques

V. Writing Requirements

• Transitioning from elicitation to requirements
• Requirements tips and guidelines