Business Analysis Essentials

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Business Analysis Essentials

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• Business Analysis Essentials

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Business Analysis Essentials – Introduction.

☺ Look into the role and responsibilities of the Business Analyst (BA), being the communication link between all business areas and a critical player in project success.

☺ Discover the techniques for ensuring project success every step of the process, from identifying and analyzing potential projects to making sure that the final project product meets the requirements identified.

☺ Learn to define the scope of work and master requirements gathering techniques that work for a variety of projects.

☺ Consider unique needs of customers, stakeholders, as you work toward building, documenting, communicating, and managing requirements.

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Business Analysis Essentials - Aim of publication.

To bring to the reader or the learner core concepts and knowledge associated with business analysis.





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Business Analysis Essentials – Summary.

☺ Business analysis is a set of knowledge, tasks, and techniques used to identify business needs and determine solutions to business problems.

☺ This in turn will allow redesigning of a process or organizational structure.

☺ Therefore, it’s worth examining the role of the BA, the core concepts and leadership skills needed as a BA.




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Business Analysis Essentials - Learning Objectives.

☺ After developing the KeyPoints outlined in this publication, you should mainly be familiar with: role and importance of the BA. vocabulary standards and business analysis practices. plan BA requirements activities. elicit requirements from stakeholders, with an emphasis on

interviews. analyze stated requirements, with an overview of modeling

techniques. document requirements for different types of projects. verify and validate requirements. elements of requirements management and communication and

the BA's role in them. elements of solution verification and validation and possible BA

roles. enterprise analysis: choosing appropriate projects. necessary competencies and best practices of Business

Analysis.




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*** About the Structure and Flow of our Presentations ***




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Business Analysis Essentials - Sections List. (Section 1) Business Analysis Core Concepts. (Section 2) Introduction to Requirements Planning. (Section 3) Eliciting Requirements. (Section 4) Requirements Planning and Management. (Section 5) Analyzing Requirements. (Section 6) Validating Requirements (Section 7) Enterprise Analysis and Business Case. (Section 8) Communicating and Implementing Requirements





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(Section 1) Business Analysis Core Concepts – Summary.

☺ Business analysis is a set of knowledge, tasks, and techniques used to identify business needs and determine solutions to business problems.

☺ Such solutions can be the specific development of a new system component or, more significantly, the redesign of a process or organizational structure.

☺ BAs practice business analysis.☺ Therefore, one needs to examine the role of the BA, the

core concepts of business analysis, and the associated knowledge areas.

☺ It’s also recommended to grasp the knowledge, collaboration, and leadership skills needed as a BA.




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(Section 1) Business Analysis Core Concepts – HighPoints. Introduction to Business Analysis. Skills in Business Analysis.





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(Section 1) HighPoints: Introduction to Business Analysis.

☺ recognize the value of knowing about the core concepts and knowledge areas associated with the business analysis profession.

☺ describe the role of a BA.☺ discover the requirement types, the knowledge areas

of business analysis and their associated activities.☺ identify how the knowledge areas of business analysis

relate to one another.




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(Section 1) HighPoints: Skills in Business Analysis.

☺ recognize the value of knowing about knowledge, collaboration, and leadership skills in business analysis.

☺ distinguish the knowledge skill sets of business analysis and their associated skills.

☺ identify the skills associated with the collaboration skill sets of business analysis

☺ acknowledge the leadership skill sets and their associated skills.




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(Section 2) Introduction to Requirements Planning – Summary.

☺ BAs must plan and closely manage requirements for projects in accordance with existing standards in their organizations.

☺ They must identify key roles and stakeholders, decide on a work division strategy, identify requirements activities and requirements risk, and manage project scope.

☺ To perform the above, you will first need to learn to examine the requirements planning and management knowledge area of business analysis.

☺ As it outlines the fundamental tasks of planning and managing requirements and also outlines the general considerations that the BA should make when planning requirements.

☺ Also, there is a need to know to examine how to classify roles within a project, and then outline the techniques used to draw up a list of stakeholders, and finally demonstrate the different work division strategies that can be applied to a project.




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(Section 2) Introduction to Requirements Planning – HighPoints Requirements Planning and Management. Project Planning and Organization.





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(Section 2) HighPoints: Requirements Planning and Management.

☺ recognize benefits of knowing about the fundamentals of requirements planning and management.

☺ identify the purpose of each key tasks involved in planning and managing requirements in a business analysis.

☺ see the methodology-related best practices for planning and managing requirements for a project

☺ consider the general considerations for planning and managing requirements for a project.




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(Section 2) HighPoints: Project Planning and Organization.

☺ recognize the benefits of knowing about the techniques used to plan and organize a project.

☺ use the criteria of the RACI matrix to determine the responsibilities of various roles during requirements planning and management.

☺ evaluate the techniques for drafting a stakeholder summary.

☺ determine most appropriate work division strategies to apply to a project.

☺ identify strategies used to divide work to their examples

☺ appreciate key concepts associated with the techniques used to implement a work division strategy for a project.




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(Section 3) Eliciting Requirements – Summary.

☺ Requirements elicitation is the gathering or – "drawing out" – of system requirements.

☺ This is achieve by communicating with users, customers, and stakeholders in the development of a system.

☺ It is a pivotal knowledge area of business analysis and, as such, the BA must be able to elicit requirements that are complete, clear, correct, and consistent.

☺ For this reason, readers and learners need to grasp preparation tasks, recommended practices, and proven techniques associated with eliciting requirements.




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(Section 3) Eliciting Requirements – Summary.




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(Section 3) Eliciting Requirements – HighPoints. Introduction to Eliciting Requirements. System and Document Elicitation Techniques. Individual and Group Elicitation Techniques.





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(Section 3) HighPoints: Introduction to Eliciting Requirements.

☺ recognize the benefits of knowing about the recommended practices for eliciting requirements.

☺ consider key tasks for preparing requirements elicitation.

☺ identify key tasks associated with conducting requirements elicitation.

☺ evaluate a description of a requirements-elicitation process for its use of recommended practices.

☺ pair requirements-elicitation best practices to challenges that they overcome.




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(Section 3) HighPoints: System and Document Elicitation Techniques.

☺ recognize the benefits of knowing about elicitation techniques system and documentation.

☺ appreciate situations in which document analysis is appropriate.

☺ link the task items to the stages of interface analysis that they are associated with.

☺ select the appropriate prototyping strategies for a situation.

☺ distinguish situations where it would be appropriate to use reverse engineering to elicit requirements.




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(Section 3) HighPoints: Individual and Group Elicitation Techniques.

☺ acknowledge the benefits of knowing about individual and group elicitation techniques.

☺ analyze the use of the observation technique to elicit requirements for a project.

☺ distinguish between the two basic approaches for observation.

☺ recognize key concepts associated with conducting surveys as a means of eliciting requirements.

☺ identify key concepts associated with stages of requirements-elicitation interviews.

☺ acknowledge situations of each of the tasks associated with stages of brainstorming.

☺ consider best practices for running and reporting on focus group sessions.

☺ list cases of best practices for running a requirements workshop.




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(Section 4) Requirements Planning and Management – Summary.

☺ BAs must be able to plan and closely manage requirements for a project, in accordance with existing standards in the organization.

☺ They must first identify key roles and stakeholders and decide on a work division strategy.

☺ Then, they are ready to handle a key aspect of the BA role - that is working with requirements.

☺ Working with requirements involves: identifying the activities to be undertaken in order to identify requirements, identifying the risks associated with various project requirements, and managing project scope as it relates to requirements.

☺ Therefore, one has to learn examining how to identify and manage requirements risk, identify and estimate requirements activities, control requirements scope, track metrics for projects and products, and manage requirements change.




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(Section 4) Requirements Planning and Management – HighPoints. Requirements Risk and Activities. Requirements Scope Management.





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(Section 4) HighPoints: Requirements Risk and Activities.

☺ recognize the benefits of knowing the risks and activities associated with planning requirements for a project.

☺ identify requirements that appear to be a risk from the requirements list.

☺ discern the processes associated with techniques used to define a risk response strategy.

☺ regard cases of activities associated with requirement-selection tasks.




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(Section 4) HighPoints: Requirements Scope Management.

☺ distinguish benefits of knowing about the key tasks for managing requirements scope for a project.

☺ refer the tasks for the maintenance of requirements scope to their purpose.

☺ identify cases of requirements problems in a traceability matrix.

☺ differentiate between product and project metrics.☺ align tasks for tracking metrics for projects to their

corresponding activities.☺ name key activities linked with tracking metrics for

products.☺ denote key tasks associated with the four stages of

managing requirements change.




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(Section 5) Analyzing Requirements – Summary.

☺ There are various types of solution development methodologies that BAs ought to consider, when modeling software or business systems.

☺ Such approaches include business process, object-oriented, and structured analysis methodologies.

☺ Although the decision of which methodology to use depends on culture and standards of the organization, BAs will only properly represent the solution by first understanding each of the modeling techniques.

☺ It’s therefore worth understanding how to use process and flow, data and behavior, and usage models to analyze requirements.




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(Section 5) Analyzing Requirements – HighPoints. Analyzing Requirements’ Prerequisites. Process and Flow Models. Data and Behavior Models. Using Models.





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(Section 5) HighPoints: Analyzing Requirements’ Prerequisites.

☺ pinpoint the benefits of knowing about the business domain, solution development methodologies, and business rules.

☺ link each analysis technique to the solution development methodology with which it is likely associated.

☺ differentiate between the different types of business rules.




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(Section 5) HighPoints: Process and Flow Models.

☺ know the benefits of knowing about process and flow modeling techniques.

☺ distinguish between different types of process and flow modeling techniques.

☺ interpret key relationships in data flow diagrams.

☺ determine the appropriate depiction of components in an activity diagram.




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(Section 5) HighPoints: Data and Behavior Models.

☺ recognize the benefits of knowing about data and behavior modeling techniques.

☺ distinguish between different types of data and behavior modeling techniques.

☺ perform key data modeling tasks.☺ sequence examples of ERD (Entity

Relationship Diagram) modeling by stage.☺ identify the components of a class diagram.




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(Section 5) HighPoints: Using Models.

☺ recognize the benefits of knowing about usage modeling techniques.

☺ distinguish between the different types of usage modeling techniques.

☺ discern between user stories and use case descriptions.

☺ interpret the relationships among the elements depicted in a use case diagram.




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(Section 6) Validating Requirements – Summary.

☺ Once BAs model the behavior, processes, and usage of a solution to a business problem, they must analyze and document the requirements.

☺ To do so, they must compile accurate definitions and descriptions of the solution to allow the project team to correctly implement it.

☺ Thus, examine how to refine user and functional requirements, quality of service requirements, assumptions, and constraints for analysis.

☺ Also, look at the attributes that can be assigned to requirements, the different types of requirements documents available, and the processes of validating and verifying requirements.




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(Section 6) Validating Requirements – HighPoints. Requirements Refinement. Requirements Documentation.





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(Section 6) HighPoints: Requirements Refinement.

☺ recognize the benefits of knowing how to refine requirements.

☺ identify key concepts associated with decomposition techniques.

☺ consider the functional requirements documentation techniques with the situations in which they are typically selected.

☺ classify quality of service requirements according to type.

☺ distinguish between the assumptions and constraints typically documented by a BA.




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(Section 6) HighPoints: Requirements Documentation.

☺ recognize the benefits of knowing about the key concepts and techniques associated with requirements documentation.

☺ determine the most appropriate attributes to attach to a requirement.

☺ differentiate between the most common types of requirements documents.

☺ identify the characteristics of each of the three techniques for validating requirements.

☺ distinguish between valid and invalid requirements.




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(Section 7) Enterprise Analysis and the Business Case – Summary.

☺ Enterprise analysis is a key knowledge area in the practice of business analysis.

☺ During enterprise analysis, the BA identifies business opportunities, builds a business architecture framework, and determines the best project investment path for the enterprise.

☺ From this point, the BA puts forward a business case, which provides an overall justification for the project.

☺ It’s therefore right to examine the collection of pre-project, early project activities and approaches for capturing the necessary view of the business; to provide context to requirements and functional design work for an initiative and/or for long-term planning.

☺ This involves creating and maintaining the business architecture, conducting feasibility studies, identifying new business opportunities, scoping and defining the new business opportunity, preparing the business case and conducting the risk assessment, and preparing the decision package.




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(Section 7) Enterprise Analysis and Business Case – HighPoints. Enterprise Analysis. Making a Business Case.





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(Section 7) HighPoints: Enterprise Analysis.

☺ recognize the benefits of knowing about effective enterprise analysis practices.

☺ appreciate the strategic responsibilities of the BA and their associated activities.

☺ acknowledge the enterprise analysis activities performed by the BA and their descriptions.

☺ know apart between the frameworks used to create and maintain the business architecture.

☺ discern among the techniques used to create and maintain the business architecture.

☺ determine which techniques to use at various stages of a feasibility study.

☺ appreciate the tasks involved in defining the scope of a project and their associated activities.




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(Section 7) HighPoints: Making a Business Case.

☺ recognize the value of knowing about steps and techniques associated with making a business case.

☺ identify types of activities undertaken during each stage of business case development.

☺ know business case development techniques and the situations in which they are used.

☺ acknowledge steps involved in an initial risk assessment and their activities.

☺ identify activities associated with preparing a decision package.

☺ consider how BAs facilitate the project decision-making criteria of executive management.

☺ discover how BAs fulfil their responsibilities throughout the life of a project.




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(Section 8) Communicating and Implementing Requirements – Summary.

☺ BAs express output of a requirements analysis and documentation phase by presenting, communicating, and gaining approval of the requirements from project stakeholders.

☺ Once this solution design is agreed upon, the BA assists with detailed design work, testing and quality assurance activities, and supporting solution implementation.

☺ Therefore, it’s important to explore methods of creating a requirements communication plan, developing and presenting a requirements package, and conducting a formal review and sign-off of documented requirements.

☺ All the same, look at how to review and revise solutions, assess and select a final solution, support the implementation of that solution, and perform post-implementation activities.




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(Section 8) Communicating and Implementing Requirements – HighPoints.

Requirements Communication. Solution Assessment and Validation.





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(Section 8) HighPoints: Requirements Communication.

☺ recognize the benefits of knowing about key concepts associated with communicating requirements.

☺ identify the considerations for developing a requirements communication plan.

☺ recognize how to manage conflicting requirements accordingly.

☺ determine the appropriate format for a requirements package.

☺ make key decisions when creating a requirements package.

☺ differentiate between situations that require formal and informal requirements presentations.

☺ sequence the steps for conducting a formal requirements review.




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(Section 8) HighPoints: Solution Assessment and Validation.

☺ appreciate the benefits of knowing how to assess and validate solutions.

☺ recognize tasks associated with the steps involved in reviewing and revising solutions.

☺ identify situations that typically call for a certain type of solution.

☺ evaluate a test strategy for a solution.☺ distinguish key concepts associated with best practices for

implementing a solution.☺ single out best practices for closing a project☺ denote best practices associated with the stages of a post-

implementation review.




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Business Analysis Essentials – Conclusion.

☺ At this point you should be familiar with the following: identifying business analysis concepts and

activities in an organization. reviewing a vision and scope document. planning requirements activities for a project. conducting an interview. choosing elicitation techniques. analyzing a location model. analyzing a workflow model. analyzing a use case model. analyzing a CRUD matrix. considering models that answer key questions. reviewing a requirements document. assessing the impact of a proposed change to a

requirements set.




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