Credits: 21 CDUs / 3 Days

Course Level: Intermediate/Advanced

Prerequisites:
No prerequisites – This course is suitable for both intermediate and experienced Business Analysts who would like to increase their skills with eliciting, writing and managing effective requirements for projects.

Course Abstract:
Why do more than 50% of the IT projects fail to achieve the original objectives for which the project had started? Why are there so many project “re-starts”?  There are several key challenges organizations face in translating user needs into systems specifications.

Successful projects are built on the foundation of well-written requirements. This course provides the techniques to help Business Analysts write well-formed, testable, verifiable user requirements that translate client needs into clear and testable solutions. These requirements ensure the business and stakeholder needs are implemented correctly in the final product.

Course Objectives:
Participants will learn to perform stakeholder analysis, utilize techniques to elicit the needs of these stakeholders, translate their needs into solution requirements, and confirm these requirements are well-written, correct, and precise.
This course is fully-compliant with the IIBA’s Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (v2.0) and enforces the industries best practices and techniques for eliciting, analyzing, documenting, validating, and communicating requirements. You’ll learn the technical writing techniques that apply directly to writing requirements documents and you’ll learn to apply proper techniques for writing-correct, clear, concise, comprehensive, and cohesive requirements.

Included:

• Full Student Guide and requirements templates

Intended Audience:
This course is intended for intermediate to advanced Business Analysts who are looking to improve their skills by learning best practices and techniques for eliciting, analyzing, documenting, validating, and communicating requirements.

Learning Objectives:
By taking this course, the students will learn how to:

• Describe the business need by writing a problem statement
• Perform Stakeholder Analysis while utilizing a Stakeholder Map
• Define system boundaries by using a Context Diagram
• Write Business and Stakeholder requirements
• Use a Decision Table to capture business rules
• Utilize a Business Process Model to describe a workflow
• Plan for and elicit requirements using several elicitation techniques
• Draw a Use Case Diagram to help scope the project
• Write main, alternate, and exception scenarios
• Organize and sequence requirements into a user requirements document
• Develop a User Interface prototype

Workshop Objectives:

• Throughout the course, the students will work together in groups on an actual project of their choice.  The exercises in each section allow the students to apply what they’ve learned to document requirements for their real-life projects.

Course Outline:

Section 1: Introduction to Business Analysis

• What is Business Analysis
• Benefits and Challenges
• Project Success Factors

Section 2: The IIBA and the CBAP Certification

• BA role and responsibilities
• The IIBA mission and history
• CBAP Overview
• BA-BoK guide and purpose
• Overview of knowledge areas
  Exercise  – Ball Toss Challenge
• BA role vs. PM role
• Importance of requirements communication
  Exercise  – Choose Your Project

Section 3: Supporting the Project Portfolio

• The purpose of Enterprise Analysis
• The executive paradox
• Defining the business need
  Exercise – Defining the Business Need
• Goals and objectives
• Business requirements
  Exercise – Writing Business Requirements
• The importance of stakeholders
• Stakeholder identification
• Keeping track of stakeholders
  Exercise – Identifying Stakeholders

Section 4: Developing the Solution Vision and Scope

• Purpose of defining the vision and scope of a project
• Conducting brainstorming sessions
• Brainstorming usage considerations
• Finding system boundaries
• The Context Diagram
• Actors and key information
  Exercise: Draw a Context Diagram

Section 5: Understanding Requirements and Business Rules

• What is a requirement?
• Requirement types
• Business, Stakeholder, Solution, and Transition requirements
• Assumptions and constraints
• Business rules
• Taxonomy of business rules
• Decision tables
• How to write simple calculations
• Requirements vs. business rules
  Exercise – Writing Requirements

Section 6: Business Process Modeling

• Why do we model processes?
• What is Business Process Management?
• Basic BPM notation
• Developing a Business Process Model
• Business Process Modeling – A case study
  Exercise – Create a Business Process Model

Section 7: Planning and Eliciting Requirements

• What is requirements elicitation?
• Interviewing – what and why?
• Preparing for an effective interview
• Types of questions to ask
• Sequencing questions
• Active listening techniques
  Exercise – Planning for Elicitation
• Conducting the interview
• Establishing rapport
• Feedback techniques
  Exercise – Conducting an Elicitation Session
• Other elicitation techniques

Section 8: Writing Testable Requirements using Use Case Analysis

• What is an Actor?
• Types of Actors
• How to “find” Use Cases?
• Diagramming Use Cases
• Tips on naming Use Cases
  Exercise – Drawing a Use Case Diagram
• What are scenarios?
• The Use Case template
• Scenario examples
• Best practices for writing Use Cases
  Exercise – Writing the Main Success Scenario
• Scenarios and flows
• Alternate and exception flows
  Exercise – Writing Alternate and Exception Scenarios

Section 9: Analyzing and Documenting Requirements

• Requirements and Use Cases
• Non-Functional requirements
• User Interface Requirements
  Exercise – Develop a User Interface
• UI Data Table
• Reporting requirements
• Data requirements
• Data accessibility requirements
• Preparing the requirements package
• Business Analysis deliverables
  Exercise – Analyzing Requirements

Section 10: Additional Information

• Useful books and links on writing effective requirements

Download PDF:
BA27-Writing & Managing Effective Requirements – 3 days