Essential Skills for the Business Analyst

Eliciting, Documenting, and Analyzing Requirements

Technique is the very foundation of a good business analyst and this workshop teaches techniques. This workshop will help Business Analysts to analyze, document and propose solutions for large and/or complex business areas and to prepare functional specifications. The analysts will be able to gather requirements and record them QUICKLY, ACCURATELY AND COMPLETELY with a battle-proven process. This workshop will significantly reduce the number of post production errors while enhancing the reliability and maintainability of the delivered application.

This 4-day workshop is designed to move a business analyst from guesswork to actual work. The workshop will promote the use of reusable techniques that will strengthen any organizations requirements gathering process. Effective communication is a crucial topic for nearly all occupations. The ability for the business analyst to communicate with business managers and users to gather, understand and document business requirements across affected business areas is an essential skill that needs to be cultivated. This workshop presents a comprehensive process for systematically developing complete and accurate requirements in the shortest possible time. Industry best practices and structured techniques are combined with effective proven modeling methods throughout the workshop. Participants will apply learned techniques to improve how they elicit, analyze, document and manage the requirements gathering process.

Who Should Attend

This workshop is extremely helpful for systems project leaders, business analysts, systems analysts and designers, software engineers, data administrators and systems users who are involved in the client contact and requirements development process. Any employee whose job performance includes effective communications and problem solving would benefit from this workshop. This would include senior managers, project managers, business domain experts, technical project leads, business analysts, customer support personnel, and all IT personnel.

Workshop Objectives

Establish and realize the ROI for requirements.
Create an effective customer-development partnership.
Delineate critical success factors.
Come to an understanding of human thought processes.
Watch yourself think and be able to make adjustments "on the fly" to better give any situation what it most needs.
Results orientated with good communication and interpersonal skills.
Discover how you currently think, and what skills need improvement to "round out" your thinking repertoire. Discover how to set and manage customers' expectations.
Distinguish 'fact' from 'opinion and bias' from 'reason'.
Learn to recognize deceptive arguments.
Eliminate hostile situations that impede corporate progress.
Understand the various methods of gathering information.
Identify scope boundaries, and develop a high-level view of a project.
Identify the structure of the application area or system under study.
Analyze, define, and model the business processes, data, and rules.
Use rules and structure to test the results.
Create a clear, complete and accurate requirements specification.
Understand how the requirements specification components support the design.
End to end experience of the project lifecycle.

Outline


I. The Foundation
	The foundation topics are essential for understanding all other topics. They are a necessary part of any curriculum in human interactions.
		(a) Understanding People
				Different Styles of Behavior, Learning, Managing, Relating.
				The Reasons and How to Apply the Knowledge
		(b) Understanding Communication
				The Basic Communication Model
				Influences and Barriers
				The Different Forms of Communication
				The Power of Listening
II. The Interactive Skills
	These skills are the life blood of dealing with people. They are inter-related and part of almost every human interaction process.
		(a) Influencing
		(b) Conflict Management
		(c) Negotiating
		(d) Image Projection
		(e) Working with Difficult People
		(f) Dealing with Organizational Politics
III. Questionnaires
	When large numbers of people are involved it may be impossible to interview everyone. The information gathering can be effectively augmented with well developed questionnaires.
		(a) Selecting Participants
		(b) Designing the Questions
		(c) Administering the Questionnaire
		(d) Follow-Up
IV. Interviewing
	It is almost impossible to gather information from others without having to interview somebody. Interviewing is not a haphazard question session, nor is it an interrogation. This section examines the skills and techniques applicable to a successful interviewing experience.
		(a) Determine the People to Be Interviewed
		(b) Establishing Objectives and Developing Questions
		(c) Different Types of Questions
		(d) Preparation for the Interview
		(e) Conducting the Interview
		(f) Dealing with Interview Problems
		(g) Documenting the Interview
		(h) Evaluating the Interview
V. Facilitating Group Sessions
	The most effective method for information gathering is the group session. This is a process of getting together a group of the people who have the knowledge or understanding of the practices being studied. The group is managed by a facilitator who then uses a systematic procedure for eliciting and documenting information.
		(a) Understanding Facilitation
				What Is Facilitation?
				What Does a Facilitator Do?
		(b) Running a Session
				Facility
				Participants
				Preparation
				Startup (Introduction and Orientation)
				Managing the Session
				Closing
				Follow-Up
		(c) Behavior and Practices
				Core Behaviors
				Core Practices
				Understanding Group Behavior
				Developing a Group and Creating Participation
				Giving and Receiving Feedback
				Neutrality and Assertiveness
				Dealing with Difficult Group Dynamics
VI. Facilitation Tools and Techniques
	There are a number of tools and techniques that should be in every facilitator's tool kit; tools that may be used to handle particular situations or circumstances. This section identifies and describes some of those tools.
		(a) Idea Tools
		(b) Brainstorming Tools
		(c) Decision-Making Tools
		(d) Problem-Solving Tools
		(e) Questioning Techniques
		(f) Recording Techniques
		(g) Modeling Techniques
VII. The Business Analysis Process
	Setting the workshop scope and expectations. Understanding the project phases and management processes and where business analysis and requirements fit in. Understanding the concepts of analysis and the tasks involved in the business analysis process.
		(a) The Software Development Life Cycle
		(b) Workshop Focus
		(c) Analysis and Requirements Definitions and Concepts
		(d) The Principal Tasks in Analysis
		(e) The Meaning and Structure of a Requirements Specification
		(f) The Roles Involved in Developing Requirements
		(g) Communicating with Models
		(h) Model Artefacts and Notation
		(i) Using UML (Unified Modeling Language)
		(j) Justification of Requirements Effort and the Return on Investment
VIII. Identifying Scope and Context of the Project (High-Level View)
	Taking a high-level view to establish the scope and boundaries of the project, and create a clear illustration of the perceived business goals and objectives, as well as the context of the project.
		(a) Project Initiation and the Project Charter
		(b) Developing the Business Case
		(c) Determining Project Scope
		(d) Creating a Context Diagram and Scope Statement
		(e) Definition and Concepts of Business Functional Processes
		(f) Identifying the Functionality of the Proposed System
		(g) Introduction to Business Use Cases (BUCs)
		(h) Introduction to the Case Study
			Assignment: Find the business functional processes.
		(i) Creating a Business Use Case Map
IX. Analyzing and Modeling Business Process
	Isolating the business processes for detailed analysis, and creating a Business Use Case (BUC) model for each process. Introducing the BUC template, and working through the development of the various artifacts.
		(a) Definitions and Terms Involved in Business Use Case Modeling
		(b) Introduction to the BUC Template
		(c) Creating the Heading Section for the BUC Model
		(d) Identifying Events, Triggers and Outcomes
		(e) Developing a Base Course Narrative
			Assignment: Create a base course narrative for the case study.
		(f) Finding Exceptions and Variations
X. Detailing the Business Process Models
	Adding information about business rules, reports and inquiries and capturing statistical information about the Business Use Case.
		(a) Related Business Rules
		(b) Types of Business Rules
		(c) Discovering and Documenting Business Rules
		(d) Creating a Rules Catalogue
		(e) Identifying and Recording Related Reports and Inquiries
		(f) Capturing the Process Statistics
XI. Discovering Business Data
	Using a model to capture and illustrate the use of data by the business processes. This sets the stage for an effective data design.
		(a) Managing the Discovery of Business Data
		(b) Identifying Business Objects
		(c) Using an Object Participation Diagram to Illustrate the Data Usage
		(d) Constructing an Object Participation Diagram
		(e) Analyzing the Data
			Assignment: Create an object participation diagram.
		(f) Evaluating Object Rules
		(g) Creating an Object Rules Table
			Assignment: Create an object rules table.
XII. Specifying the Business Objects
	Creating a detailed specification for each business object as a means to discover the required data architecture for the system.
		(a) The Business Object Defined
		(b) The Object Definition Template
		(c) Naming Objects
		(d) Identifying Object Rules
		(e) Data Attribution
			Assignment: Create an object definition.
		(f) Discovering Object Operations
			Assignment: Add operations to the object definition.
XIII. Elaborating the Business Use Cases
	Creating a greater level of decomposition and detailing when dealing with complex systems.
		(a) Elaborating the Narrative
		(b) Refactoring the Narrative with Use Cases
		(c) Refactoring Extensions and Variations
		(d) Numbering and Traceability
		(e) Modeling User Interfaces
		(f) Creating an Interface Logic Chart
			Assignment: Create an interface logic chart.
XIV. Developing a Requirements Specification (Putting it All Together)
	Understanding how all the components come together to form a useful document that completely and accurately defines the requirements. Considering project management issues such as change control and estimating.
		(a) How the Models Work Together
		(b) Model Validation
		(c) An Appropriate Modeling Sequence
		(d) The Purpose and Structure of a Requirements Specification
		(e) Forms of Abstraction
		(f) Level of Detail
XV. Managing Requirements Elicitation
	Examining the process of eliciting requirements and managing the people and effort. Understanding the essentials of effective communication in the world of business analysis.
		(a) The Importance of Users
		(b) The Requirements Elicitation Process
		(c) Challenges and Barriers to Success
		(d) The Communication Model
		(e) Obstacles to Effective Communication
		(f) How to Overcome the Obstacles
		(g) The Process of Listening
		(h) Interviewing
		(i) Asking the Right Questions
		(j) Information Gathering Methods
		(k) Interactive Analysis
		(l) What Makes the Process Work?
		(m) The Steps, Participants, and Facility
		(n) The Sessions — Opening, Controlling, Closing
		(o) An Examination of the Benefits
		(p) The Deliverables in Detail
XVI. Creating a Requirements Definition
	A major assignment to study an application domain and use all the techniques learned to create a complete set of models forming the requirements definition.
XVII. Summary and Conclusion
	Wrapping up with discussion on lessons learned and how to apply what has been learned. Confirming the need for more effective analysis and high quality requirements definition.
		(a) Objectives Revisited
		(b) The Key Lessons Learned
		(c) How to Apply the Lessons
		(d) The Opportunities and Challenges in Real Life
		(e) Wrap-Up

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