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Business Analysis Course

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Overview

Business Analysis is about identifying and understanding business requirements so that information systems can meet business needs. Many IT development projects fail to deliver because not enough effort is spent on analysing and prioritising business requirements. The central theme is that system development should be business driven rather than led by technology. It encompasses the view that information systems include business processes as well as information technology.

The course covers essential approaches to requirements elicitation, business analysis and financial justification – all within a project framework. It is practical and interactive delivered using a mixture of lectures, workshops and case study exercises. Participants will learn how to elicit and document user requirements, construct high level business models, produce more detailed business models and use these models within a variety of development lifecycles.

By the end of this course delegates will be able to:

  • Identify relevant techniques used in business analysis and where they are best used in the system development life cycle.
  • Understand the importance of strategic analysis and its associated techniques.
  • Carry out a preliminary investigation including a feasibility study.
  • Elicit business requirements using traditional fact-finding methods and techniques.
  • Analyse, document and validate business requirements.
  • Carry out use case analysis, produce a use case diagram and document use cases.
  • Model as-is and to-be business processes at various levels from context diagrams down to the documentation of elementary processes.
  • Build an entity-relationship diagram (data model) and understand where and why it is used.
  • Carry out a basic cost-benefit analysis using financial techniques and tools.
  • Understand the fundamentals of effective communication.

Audience

This course is designed for business and systems analysts, developers, business users, team leaders and project managers.

Prerequisites

Those attending should have some basic knowledge of the information systems development process and information technology.

Outline

  • Introduction to Business Analysis
  • The Origins of Business Analysis.
  • The Development of Business Analysis.
  • Scope of Business Analysis Work.
  • Strategic Analysis and Definition.
  • Holistic Approach.
  • Role & Responsibilities of Business Analyst.
  • Guiding Principles for Business Analysis.
  • Analyst Required Skills.
  • Development Processes
  • Waterfall.
  • Incremental.
  • Extended 'V' Model.
  • Spiral Model.
  • Rapid Application Development.
  • Rational Unified Process.
  • Agile Approaches.
  • Business Analysis Life Cycle.
  • Strategy Analysis
  • Definition of Strategy.
  • PESTLE Analysis.
  • Porter's Five Forces Model.
  • MOST Analysis.
  • Boston Box.
  • SWOT Analysis.
  • Preliminary Investigation
  • Gathering Information – Prior Research, Interviews.
  • Ishikawa Diagrams.
  • Rich Pictures.
  • Mind Maps.
  • Feasibility Study.
  • Initial Business Case.
  • Requirements Elicitation
  • Requirements Engineering.
  • Fact Finding.
  • Interviews.
  • Facilitated Workshops.
  • Brainstorming.
  • Prototyping.
  • Formal Observation, Protocol Analysis, Shadowing, Ethnographic Studies.
  • Quantitative Approaches:
  • Questionnaires.
  • Special-purpose Records.
  • Activity Sampling.

Document Analysis.

  • Requirements Engineering
  • Building the Requirements List.
  • Requirements Analysis.
  • Requirements Filters.
  • Confirming Quality.
  • SMART Requirements.
  • Validating Requirements.
  • The Requirements Document.
  • The Requirements Catalogue.
  • Types of Requirements.
  • Managing Requirements.
  • Use Case Modelling
  • Use Case Diagram Notation.
  • Use Case Documentation.
  • Include.
  • Extend.
  • Process Modelling
  • Data Flow Diagrams.
  • Context Diagrams.
  • Lower Level DFD Notation.
  • Data Dictionary.
  • Process Description Techniques.
  • Modular Design.
  • Structured English.
  • Data Modelling
  • Entity-Relationship Diagrams.
  • Entities and Attributes.
  • Primary Key Types.
  • Relationships and Cardinality.
  • Many-To-Many Relationships.
  • Relationship Names.
  • Foreign Keys.
  • Null Value Attributes.
  • Mutually Exclusive Relationships.
  • Data Model Development.
  • Development Options
  • Requirements Document.
  • Web-Based Software Trends.
  • Software Outsourcing Options.
  • In-House Software Development.
  • Software Packages.
  • Defining Options.
  • Impact Assessment.
  • Risk Assessment.
  • Financial Analysis
  • Classifying Costs and Benefits.
  • Payback Period.
  • Return on Investment.
  • Net Present Value.
  • Internal Rate of Return.
  • Benefits Realisation.
  • Communication
  • Guidelines for Successful Communication.
  • Written Communication.
  • Readability.
  • Reports.
  • Meetings.
  • Oral Presentations.
  • Effective Speaking Techniques.

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Thinking about Onsite?

If you need training for 3 or more people, you should ask us about onsite training. Putting aside the obvious location benefit, content can be customised to better meet your business objectives and more can be covered than in a public classroom. Its a cost effective option. One on one training can be delivered too, at reasonable rates.

Submit an enquiry from any page on this site, and let us know you are interested in the requirements box, or simply mention it when we contact you.

All $ prices are in USD unless it’s a NZ or AU date

SPVC = Self Paced Virtual Class

LVC = Live Virtual Class

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