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Category: Business Analysis

Business Analysis

Posted in Business Analysis

Business analysts crack the code for IT/business alignment and integration

Regardless of the job boards or “skills in demand” surveys you watch, one of the fastest growing areas in IT is that of the Business Analyst. Now, it may end up taking some slightly different titles…Requirements Engineer, Service Manager, or even Business Process Modeler, but make no mistake, this is a critical job role for now, and one with accelerating need in the future, with more strategic sourcing, more business needs, and more dependency on IT to automate and facilitate business processes.

As the name implies, a Business Analyst’s job is to, well…, analyze business practices and facilitate IT solutions to business problems and opportunities. Most of the time, this involves

  • Eliciting requirements through various techniques (interviews, workshops, etc.)
  • Modeling requirements (using tools like use cases, process models, class diagrams, etc.
  • Validating and prioritizing requirements

Regardless of a business’s sourcing strategy, requirements must be elicited and validated in-house (to ensure no foxes in the henhouse). The most important ability to deliver successful IT projects is to be able to correct capture and manage requirements; without the correct requirements the project team stands virtually no chance of success in delivering the right business solution.
Successful business analysts support their customers in

  • Early-stage business case development and prioritizing business investments in IT
  • Identifying key stakeholders and documenting stakeholder drivers, requirements, and outcomes
  • Supporting a cross-functional view of business processes and facilitating process efficiencies
  • Focusing IT solutions on realized business benefits, and not just tool features
  • Aligning customer requirements to achievable and deliverable IT targets
  • Properly scoping and controlling IT project timelines, costs, and deliverables

While there are many different skills areas fundamental to a business analyst, one place to learn more is the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK), published by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). All of our courses are approved as recommended preparation for IIBA certifications like the Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP).

Posted in Business Analysis, Making IT WorkTagged business analysis, business analysts, careers, employment, jobs, opportunities

Blocking and tackling — establishing a culture of CSI

The more I read, and the older I get, the more focused I become on results. At the end of the day, people care about outcomes, and are less picky about the path we take to achieve them.

Many of the success stories about ITIL are really success stories about the culture of CSI. You’ll see a common thread among them.

  • Establish clarity around goals and objectives first…do tools later (perhaps MUCH later)
  • Get quick wins to build momentum
  • Focus as much on the organizational change as on the tools
  • Be willing to win a little at a time to win a lot in the long run.
  • Get better every day…not every 6-month review

As I counsel my clients, resist the temptation for large-scale CMMI Level 1 – 3 moonshots and focus on establish real commitment to CSI.

Do you have established processes, including written policies, procedures, and process owners?
If not, what are the 2-3 most important things to get started?

  • Clear goals and objectives
  • Accountable, empowered owners
  • Reliable Metrics

Don’t try to implement all the processes at once. Focus on processes and services that will optimize the value and help you achieve quick wins…Incident, Change, and Request Fulfillment come to mind as great places to start.

BTW, RF is consistently underrated (maybe because it doesn’t make any vendors rich)…spending time making “routine service requests” really routine, for you and your users, is enormously beneficial.

Start small to win big!

Posted in Business Analysis, ITIL, Making IT WorkTagged accountable owners, Clear goals and objectives, CMMI, CSI, culture, empowered owners, Reliable Metrics

Effective Methods of Software Testing Workshop

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Course Description

Proactive Testing™ enables you to deliver better software in less time by doing more effective testing, while also providing the value that overcomes traditional user, manager, and developer resistance. Applying special strategies and techniques that spot many of the highest yet ordinarily-overlooked risks, Proactive Testing™ makes sure the most important unit/component, integration/assembly, system, and UAT testing is done in limited available time. Moreover, by managing within an overall Quality perspective that catches more defects earlier when they are easier to fix, and actually prevents many showstoppers and other errors, Proactive Testing™ also can cut developers’ time, effort, and aggravation. After establishing core concepts, this interactive workshop shows Proactive ways to apply powerful proven structured test planning and design techniques that produce value, not busywork. To enhance learning, participants practice each key technique in a series of exercises with various aspects of a real case fact situation.

Participants will learn:

  • A structured Proactive Testing™ model of testing that should be performed throughout the life cycle.
  • Ways testing actually can cut time, effort, and aggravation for users, developers, and managers.
  • Writing industry-accepted test plans, designs, and cases that make testing easier and more reliable.
  • Multiple techniques/checklists to design more thorough tests and discover overlooked conditions.
  • Managing test execution, including estimating/allocating resources and reporting defects and status.
  • Applying risk analysis and reusable testware to perform more of the important testing in less time.

Who Should Attend?

This course has been designed for testing professionals and others who manage and perform testing of software products, and also for analysts, designers, and system/project managers who need to know how Proactive Testing™ can cut software development time and effort.

Course Length

3 days

Course Outline

HOW TESTING CAN CUT EFFORT & TIME
Testing for correctness vs. testing for errors
Developer views of testing
Exercise: Your defined testing process
What is a process, why it matters
REAL vs. presumed processes
Why most IT process improvement efforts fail
Exercise: Your REAL testing process
Meaningful process measures, results, causes
Defect injection, detection, ejection metrics
Economics of quality problems in life cycle
Keys to effective testing
CAT-Scan Approach™ to find more errors
Dynamic, passive and active static testing
Developer vs. independent test group testing
V-model and objectives of each test level
Reactive testing—out of time, but not tests
Proactive Testing™ Life Cycle model
Proactive user acceptance criteria
Strategy—create fewer errors, catch more
Test activities that save the developer’s time
Applying improvements

TEST PLANNING VALUE NOT BUSYWORK
Why test planning often is resisted
Buzzword boilerplate platitudes paperwork
Test plans as the set of test cases
Six reasons to plan testing
Risk elements, relation to testing
Traditional reactive risk analysis, issues
IEEE Standard for Test Documentation
Overcoming controversial interpretations
Testing structure’s advantages
Enabling manageability, reuse, selectivity
Test plans, designs, cases, procedures

PROACTIVE MASTER TEST PLANNING (BIG RISKS)
Exercise: Anticipating showstoppers
Spotting overlooked large risks
Involving key stakeholders, reviewing plans
Formal and informal risk prioritization
Dynamic identification of design defects
Risk-based way to define test units
Letting testing drive development
Preventing major cause of overruns
Stomach ache metric
Testing highest risks more and earlier, builds
Master Test Plan counterpart to project plan
Strategy approach, use of automated tools
Sequence of tests, sources of data
Entry/exit criteria, anticipating change
Test environment, supporting materials
Estimating testing, avoiding traps
Roles, responsibilities, staffing, training
Schedule, risks and contingencies, sign-offs
Management document, agreements
Maintaining the living document

DETAILED TEST PLANNING
(MEDIUM-SIZED RISKS)
IEEE Standard on Unit Testing
Requirements-based functional testing
Non-functional requirements challenges
Black Box testing strategy
3-level top-down test planning and design
Detailed Test Plans for large risks
Exercise: Functionality matrix
Test designs for medium-sized risks
Use cases, revealing overlooked conditions
Detailed Test Plan technical document

WHITE BOX (STRUCTURAL) TESTING
Structural (white box) degrees of coverage
Flowgraphing logic paths
Applying structural paths to business logic
Exercise: Defining use case test coverage
Flaws of conventional use-case testing
Exercise: Additional use case conditions

INTEGRATION/SYSTEM/SPECIAL TEST PLANNING
Risks, issues integration testing addresses
Graphical technique to simplify integrations
Integration test plans prevent schedule slips
Smoke tests, increasing their value
Special tests
Load, performance, stress testing
Ongoing remote monitoring, reliability
Security, configurations, compatibility
Distribution and installation, localization
Maintainability, support, documentation
Usability, laboratories raising the bar

TEST DESIGN: BOTH VERB AND NOUN (SMALL RISKS)
Why tests need to be designed
Appropriate use of exploratory testing
Exercise: Disciplined brainstorming
Checklists, ad hoc exploratory pros and cons
Data formats, data and process models
Exercise: Applying checklists
Business rules, decision tables and trees
Exercise: Create a decision table
Equivalence classes and boundary values
Exercise: Identify logical equivalence classes
Formal, informal Test Design Specifications
Exercise: Defining reusable test designs
Complex conditions, defect isolation
Test Cases for small risks
Test Case Specifications vs. test data values
Exercise: Writing test cases, script/matrix

MAINTENANCE AND REGRESSION TESTING
Maintenance vs. development, why so harder
Improve attention and knowledge
Regression testing, minefield effect
Exercise: Testing maintenance changes

AUTOMATED TESTING TOOLS
Key test automation issues
Tools for a managed environment
Coverage analysis, execution aids
Test planning, design, administering
Automated test execution tools, issues
Scripting approaches, action words

MEASURING AND MANAGING TESTING
What is a test case survey
Relevance for estimating test-based tasks
Traceability concepts and issues
Estimating non-test-based test project tasks
Defect reports that prompt suitable action
Determining defect age
Status reporting people pay attention to
Projecting when software is good enough
Defect density, reductions
Defect detection/removal percentages
Exercise: Measuring testing effectiveness

Course Director

Patrick von Schlag
Mr. von Schlag has more than 25 years of real-world experience managing IT and business organizations. He has served as a consultant, facilitator, and instructor in support of more than 200 ITSM program deployments, with a focus on practical benefits. He holds all 11 ITIL 2011 certifications and runs an accredited learning consultancy focused on Making ITIL Work ™ in real organizations. His customer list includes The Walt Disney Company, Microsoft, Nike, Sears, US Marine Corps, US Army, US Air Force, 2nd and 5th Fleet US Navy, DISA, IRS, Federal Reserve, The Hartford, Citigroup, Amgen, Los Angeles County, Port of Long Beach, GDIT, Accenture, Serco, Deloitte, and hundreds of other market-leading companies.

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Posted in Business Analysis

Effective Use Case Development

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Course Description

This class presents an up-to-date, practical guide to use case writing. The class expands on the classic treatment of use cases to provide software developers with a “nuts-and-bolts” tutorial for writing. The course thoroughly covers introductory, intermediate, and advanced concepts in use case development. During the class the instructor will use examples of both good and bad use cases to reinforce the student’s learning.

Objectives
At the completion of this course, the student will be able to:

  • Understand the key elements of use cases
  • Understand stakeholders, design scope and scenarios
  • Develop a use case style guide with action steps and suggested formats
  • Use an extensive list of time-saving use case writing tips
  • Develop a helpful presentation of use case templates
  • Develop a proven methodology for taking advantage of use cases

Topics

  • Introduction
  • The use case as a contract for behavior
  • Scope
  • Stakeholders
  • Three named goal levels
  • Preconditions, triggers, and guarantees
  • Scenarios and steps
  • Extensions
  • Linking use cases
  • Formats to choose from
  • On being done
  • Scaling up to many use cases
  • CRUD and parameterized use cases
  • Business process modeling
  • The missing requirements
  • Use cases in the overall process
  • Mistakes fixed

Who Should Attend?

This course is designed for analysts, software engineers, application experts, and technical project managers.

Course Length

4 days

Course Outline

I. Introduction
A. What is a use case?
B. Requirements and use cases
C. Use Cases as project-linking structure
D. When use cases add value
E. Manage your energy

II. The Use Case as a Contract for Behavior
A. Interactions between actors with goals
B. Contract between stakeholders with interests
C. The graphical model

III. Scope
A. Functional scope
B. Design scope
C. The outermost use cases
D. Using the scope-defining work products

IV. Stakeholders
A. The primary actor
B. Supporting actors
C. The system under discussion
D. Internal actors and white-box use cases

V. Three Named Goal Levels
A. User goals (blue, sea-level)
B. Summary level (white, cloud/ kite)
C. Subfunctions (indigo/black, underwater/clam)
D. Using graphical icons to highlight goal levels
E. Finding the right goal level
F. A longer writing sample: “handle a claim” at several levels

VI. Preconditions, Triggers, and Guarantees
A. Preconditions
B. Minimal guarantees
C. Success guarantee
D. Triggers

VII. Scenarios and Steps
A. The main success scenario
B. Action steps

VIII. Extensions
A. Extension basics
B. The extension conditions
C. Extension handling

IX. Linking Use Cases
A. Sub use cases
B. Extension use cases

X. Formats to Choose From
A. Forces affecting use case writing styles
B. Standards for five project types
C. Conclusion

XI. On Being Done

XII. Scaling Up to Many Use Cases
A. Say less about each one (low-precision representation)
B. Create clusters of use cases

XIII. CRUD and Parameterized Use Cases
A. CRUD use cases
B. Parameterized use cases

XIV. Business Process Modeling
A. Modeling versus designing
B. Linking business and system use cases

XV. The Missing Requirements
A. Precision in data requirements
B. Cross-linking from use cases to other requirements

XVI. Use Cases in the Overall Process
A. Use cases in project organization
B. Use cases to task or feature lists
C. Use cases to design
D. Use cases to UI design
E. Use cases to test cases
F. The actual writing

XVII. Mistakes Fixed
A. No system
B. No primary actor
C. Too many user interface details
D. Very low goal levels
E. Purpose and content not aligned
F. Advanced example of too much UI

Prerequisites

Students should have a general understanding of object-oriented analysis and design concepts. Students that have attended an object-oriented analysis and design course have fulfilled this requirement. Basic computer skills and a familiarity with Windows-based applications are also a must.

Credits Earned

28 PDU Credits

Course Director

Patrick von Schlag
Mr. von Schlag has more than 25 years of real-world experience managing IT and business organizations. He has served as a consultant, facilitator, and instructor in support of more than 200 ITSM program deployments, with a focus on practical benefits. He holds all 11 ITIL 2011 certifications and runs an accredited learning consultancy focused on Making ITIL Work ™ in real organizations. His customer list includes The Walt Disney Company, Microsoft, Nike, Sears, US Marine Corps, US Army, US Air Force, 2nd and 5th Fleet US Navy, DISA, IRS, Federal Reserve, The Hartford, Citigroup, Amgen, Los Angeles County, Port of Long Beach, GDIT, Accenture, Serco, Deloitte, and hundreds of other market-leading companies.

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Posted in Business Analysis

Software Quality Assurance

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Course Description

Proactive SQA™ is a key basis of significant value-enhancing revisions to IEEE SQA Std. 730’s often-resisted “traffic cop” enforcement of procedural compliance. SQA also addresses but is not synonymous with tail-end quality control (QC) testing, catching errors right before they go out the door when they are too expensive and risky to fix. Effective systems organizations realize SQA can and should do far more, contributing proactively to assure the software process in fact does the right things well so it truly produces high quality cheaper by catching and preventing errors early. This interactive workshop explains common SQA misconceptions and the six functions SQA should perform that provide far greater value, analyzes why SQA groups so frequently have failed in IS, and presents practical approaches for successfully using SQA effectively throughout any life cycle to produce high quality systems. Exercises enhance learning.

Participants will learn:

  • Reasons for SQA failures and factors critical to success of SQA in IS development.
  • Common interpretations of what SQA is and issues with them.
  • The six Proactive Software Quality Assurance™ functions that SQA should perform.
  • Proven quality management and review methods for promoting quality and preventing errors.
  • A structured Proactive Testing* model of which testing activities should be performed when and by whom within the life cycle to maximize testing efficiency and effectiveness.
  • Truly agile test planning techniques that prevent showstoppers.
  • Designing tests that spot numerous ordinarily overlooked defects in less time.
  • Writing industry-accepted test plans and test designs.
  • Applying risk analysis, reusable testware, and metrics to perform more thorough testing in less time.
  • Measuring system quality and SQA/Testing effectiveness.

Who Should Attend?

This course has been designed for quality and testing specialists, systems and business managers, project leaders, analysts, auditors, and others responsible for information system quality.

Course Length

3 days

Course Outline

SYSTEM/SOFTWARE QUALITY AND QUALITY ASSURANCE
Exercise: What is quality, quality assurance
Quality in the project manager’s triangle
Quality is free, cost of poor quality
What we, others mean by quality
Need for positive common quality definition
Quality factors and quality dimensions
Engineered Deliverable Quality™
Quality assurance vs. quality control
SQA in IEEE Stds. 12207 and 730
Proactive SQA changes in IEEE Std. 730
Not just ‘traffic cop’ compliance

SYSTEM/SOFTWARE PROCESSES
REAL vs. Presumed processes, silos
Exercise: Your software process
Defect injection, detection, ejection metrics
Economics of quality problems in life cycle
Making the business case for SQA
Life cycle concepts, waterfall vs. iterative
Process capability, variation, improvement
Project, process, product measures
Direct and indirect process evaluation
SEI Process Capability Maturity Models

QUALITY ASSURANCE CONCEPTS
Exercise: Why SQA groups so often fail
SQA groups’ changes over time
Common SQA interpretations, issues
Quality control (QC) testing
‘QA Test’
Document and procedure compliance
‘QA Reviews’ and toll gates
Standards and procedures manuals
Staffing and organizational influence
Reasons for resistance to SQA
SQA needs broader view of quality
Proactive SQA™ for effectiveness
Assuring processes vs. doing it all
6 functions of effective software QA
QA Plans, quality reviews of deliverables
Exercise: Managing SQA tasks, resources
Engineering standards, conventions
Quality controls at all key points
Project control
Configuration management, checkpoints
Record keeping and auditing
Metrics and analysis for improvement
Exercise: Key product and process metrics
Promoting awareness and recognition

ACTIVE STATIC TESTING
Role of requirements in producing quality
Exercise: ‘Established Requirements’ issues
Exercise: Reviewing Requirements
Unrecognized weaknesses of “Regular Way”
Why review of requirements fails
Formal technical reviews, procedures
Review approaches, formality
Often overlooked walk through limitations
Why reviews so economically find defects
Foundation technique, topic guidelines
Evaluating requirements form, testability
REAL, business vs. system requirements
Finding overlooked, incorrect requirements
Reviewing design suitability and content
Four powerful design review CAT-Scans
Exercise: Reviews and Software Process QA

HOW TESTING CAN CUT EFFORT & TIME
Testing for correctness vs. testing for errors
Developer views of testing
Reactive testing—out of time, but not tests
Proactive Testing™ Life Cycle model
CAT-Scan Approach™ to find more errors
Dynamic, passive and active static testing
V-model and objectives of each test level
Developer vs. independent test group testing
Strategy—create fewer errors, catch more
Four keys to effective testing
Need for testing sampling
Written vs. not written benefits and issues
Test activities that save the developer’s time
The “we don’t have time” fallacy

TEST PLANNING VALUE NOT BUSYWORK
Risk elements, relation to testing
Proactive vs. reactive risk analysis
IEEE Standard for Test Documentation
Benefits of the structure
Enabling manageability, reuse, selectivity
Test plans vs. test designs, cases, procedures
Exercise: Anticipating showstoppers
Risk-based way to define test units
Letting testing drive development
Preventing major cause of overruns
Master Test Plan counterpart to project plan
Approach, use of automated tools
Entry/exit criteria, anticipating change

DETAILED TEST PLANNING
IEEE Standard on Unit Testing
Functional (Black Box) testing strategy
3-level top-down test planning and design
Exercise: Functionality matrix
Detailed Test Plan technical document
White box structural testing coverage
Use cases, revealing overlooked conditions
Exercise: Defining use case test coverage

INTEGRATION/SYSTEM TEST PLANNING
Graphical technique to simplify integrations
Integration test plans prevent schedule slips
Smoke tests; system and special testing
Daily, top- and bottom-down builds strategy

DESIGNING AND WRITING TEST CASES
Exercise: Your challenges and issues
Exercise: Disciplined brainstorming
Checklists find more overlooked conditions
Data formats, data and process models
Business rules, decision tables and trees
Equivalence classes and boundary values
Formal, informal Test Design Specifications
Leveraging reusable test designs
Test Case Specifications vs. test data values
Writing test cases, script/matrix
Embedding keystroke-level procedural detail
Exploratory testing applied most effectively

MEASURING AND MANAGING TESTING
Estimating
Defect isolation
Defect reporting, categories and analysis
Defect reports that prompt suitable action
Exercise: Measures for managing testing
Common measures of test status, issues
Exercise: Test status report audiences
Projecting when software is good enough
Exercise: Measuring testing effectiveness
Exercise: Post-Implementation Review

Course Director

Patrick von Schlag
Mr. von Schlag has more than 25 years of real-world experience managing IT and business organizations. He has served as a consultant, facilitator, and instructor in support of more than 200 ITSM program deployments, with a focus on practical benefits. He holds all 11 ITIL 2011 certifications and runs an accredited learning consultancy focused on Making ITIL Work ™ in real organizations. His customer list includes The Walt Disney Company, Microsoft, Nike, Sears, US Marine Corps, US Army, US Air Force, 2nd and 5th Fleet US Navy, DISA, IRS, Federal Reserve, The Hartford, Citigroup, Amgen, Los Angeles County, Port of Long Beach, GDIT, Accenture, Serco, Deloitte, and hundreds of other market-leading companies.

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Posted in Business Analysis

Modeling Techniques for the Business Analyst

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Course Description

The business analyst has become a pivotal role for information technology projects, responsible for bridging the gap between IT and the key business participants of any project. The business needs must be communicated in a way that supports business user validation as well as providing the foundation for the technical staff to design and build a successful solution. This class focuses on the many types of modeling techniques that are used by the business analyst in system development and provide hands-on experience for attendees to learn how to develop and interpret the models. Techniques taught are IIBA compliant.

Topics

  • Overview of BA role
  • Introduction to Modeling
  • Overview of the most common system development methodologies (SDLCs)
  • How modeling supports the SDLCs
  • Business Process Improvement, Re-engineering and modeling
  • Context Models
  • Process Models
  • Usage Models
  • Data Models
  • Design Models
  • Tips for Success

Who Should Attend?

This course is designed for:

  • New business analysts, systems analysts and business architects
  • Experienced business analysts looking to update their modeling skills or understanding the modeling skills required for the CBAP certification
  • Project managers who incorporate business analysis roles in their projects

Course Length

4 days

Course Outline

I. Overview of BA role

II. Introduction to Modeling

III. Overview of the most common system development methodologies (SDLCs)

IV. How modeling supports the SDLCs

V. Business Process Improvement, Re-engineering and modeling

VI. Context Models

VII. Process Models
A. Business Rules
B. Decision Trees / Tables
C. Event and Trigger Identification
D. SIPOC Business Models
E. Functional Decomposition Diagram
F. Workflow Models (As-Is, To-Be)
G. Flowcharts and Activity Diagrams
H. Sequence Diagrams
I. State Models

VIII. Usage Models
A. User Profiles
B. Use Case Modeling
C. User Stories
D. Storyboards
E. Prototyping
F. Screen Navigation and User Interface Design

IX. Data Models
A. Data Dictionaries
B. Data Flow Diagrams
C. Entity Relationship Diagrams
D. Class Models
E. Data Transformation and Mapping
F. Metadata

X. Design Models
A. Techniques in common with business models
B. Architecture or Network Diagram
C. System Structure Chart
D. System Flow Diagram
E. Security Model (CRUD)

XI. Tips for Success

Credits Earned

28 PDU Credits

Course Director

Patrick von Schlag
Mr. von Schlag has more than 25 years of real-world experience managing IT and business organizations. He has served as a consultant, facilitator, and instructor in support of more than 200 ITSM program deployments, with a focus on practical benefits. He holds all 11 ITIL 2011 certifications and runs an accredited learning consultancy focused on Making ITIL Work ™ in real organizations. His customer list includes The Walt Disney Company, Microsoft, Nike, Sears, US Marine Corps, US Army, US Air Force, 2nd and 5th Fleet US Navy, DISA, IRS, Federal Reserve, The Hartford, Citigroup, Amgen, Los Angeles County, Port of Long Beach, GDIT, Accenture, Serco, Deloitte, and hundreds of other market-leading companies.

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Posted in Business Analysis

Business Analysis for the IT Professional

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Course Description

The business analyst role has evolved from that of a business procedures analyst to that of a business liaison between the non-technical user community and the technical solution providers. This course provides proactive, introductory coverage of the knowledge and skills essential to business analysts today and the foreseeable future.

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

Course Length

4 days

Course 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

Credits Earned

28 PDU Credits

Course Director

Patrick von Schlag
Mr. von Schlag has more than 25 years of real-world experience managing IT and business organizations. He has served as a consultant, facilitator, and instructor in support of more than 200 ITSM program deployments, with a focus on practical benefits. He holds all 11 ITIL 2011 certifications and runs an accredited learning consultancy focused on Making ITIL Work ™ in real organizations. His customer list includes The Walt Disney Company, Microsoft, Nike, Sears, US Marine Corps, US Army, US Air Force, 2nd and 5th Fleet US Navy, DISA, IRS, Federal Reserve, The Hartford, Citigroup, Amgen, Los Angeles County, Port of Long Beach, GDIT, Accenture, Serco, Deloitte, and hundreds of other market-leading companies.

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