Business Analysis for the IT Professional

What you will accomplish

• Describe the relation between projects and processes
• Describe three major project development methodologies
• Discuss the basics of enterprise analysis and its impact on project selection
• Learn the communications processes and how they can impact project requirements
• Determine each participant’s communications style (BEST profile) and how that understanding can help in eliciting requirements
• Gather and document user requirements using the following techniques:

* Interviews
* Collaborative sessions
* Prototyping
* Using the Work Breakdown Structure
* Use case basics
* Business process analysis

• Modeling the business
• Fundamentals of Process Modeling
• Requirements validation through Data Modeling
• Testing fundamentals and quality assurance

Who should attend

• New business analysts
• Experienced business analysts looking to update their skills and understanding of their role
• Project managers who incorporate business analysis roles in their projects
• Managers that have business analysts on their staff
• Individuals with a general understanding of database concepts and programming and systems development

Outline

1 Overview
1.1     BA Responsibilities
1.2     Communications
1.2.1     Information distribution
1.2.2     Communications styles
1.3     Documentation strategy

2 Requirements Gathering
2.1     Levels of requirements on a project
2.2     Identifying needs vs. wants
2.3     Techniques for gathering requirements
2.3.1     Interviewing
2.3.2     Prototyping
2.3.3     Use Cases
2.3.4     Collaborative Workshops
2.3.5     Work Breakdown Structure
2.3.6     Business Process Analysis
2.3.7     Use Cases
2.4     Ranking requirements

3 Modeling
3.1     Business Process Analysis
3.1.1     Business Process Improvements (BPI)
3.1.2     Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
3.2     Data Modeling
3.2.1     Fundamentals
3.2.2     Entity Relationship Diagrams

4 Fundamentals of testing
4.1     Testing strategy
4.2     Ensure project quality and quality of the product
4.3     Test scripts

5 Templates
5.1     Software/Product Requirements Outline
5.2     Use Case Template
5.3     Test Plan Template

6 Practical Application Sessions
6.1     Determine your own Communication Style
6.2     Interview a project sponsor
6.3     Develop Use Cases and a Use Case Diagram
6.4     Gather requirements while developing a Work Breakdown Structure
6.5     Create a Business Process model
6.6     Design and facilitate a Requirements-Gathering session
6.7     Develop a high-level Requirements Document
6.8     Develop an Entity Relationship Diagram
6.9     Create a Project Test Plan