BCS Business Analysis Diploma
3 separate linked courses, carried out over a total of 9 days.
Description
BCS Certificate in Business Analysis Practice - 3 days
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this course you will be able to:
- Describe the rationale for Business Analysis
- Use strategic analysis techniques to understand the strategic context
- Explain techniques to investigate an organisation's current situation
- Explain the importance of stakeholder management and use a stakeholder analysis technique
- Use techniques for the analysis and modelling of business systems
- Describe how recommendations for business improvement may be identified
- Describe the contents of a rigorous business case for the development and implementation of business changes
- Identify costs, benefits, impacts, and risks for an option in a business case including investment appraisal
Course Outline
Rationale: A lifecycle for business change; The role of the Business Analyst within the lifecycle for business change; Other roles within the lifecycle for business change; Purpose of analysing and modelling business systems; The framework business analysis activities
Understanding the strategic context: Internal environment analysis; External environment analysis; SWOT analysis; Critical Success Factors, Key Performance Indicators, and Performance Targets; The Balanced Business Scorecard as a framework for identifying CSFs and KPIs
Understanding the situation/issues: Stakeholder identification; Overview of investigative techniques; Representing a holistic view of the business situation
Stakeholder analysis and management: Stakeholder analysis; Identifying different perspectives; Defining perspectives
Analysing and modelling business activities: Developing a conceptual business activity model from a perspective; Identifying business events; Analysing business rules; Building consensus by resolving conflicts
Identifying potential solutions: Gap analysis - comparing the ideal and existing systems; Defining a new business model; Identifying IS/IT requirements to support the new business model
Building the business case: Structure of a business case; Identifying options for business change; Identifying and categorising costs and benefits; Identifying and categorising risks, Identifying impacts; The lifecycle for the business case
Case Study: A case study allows the delegates to undertake a simulated business analysis assignment
BCS Certificate in Requirements Engineering - 3 days
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this course you will be able to:
- Describe the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders in the requirements engineering process
- Demonstrate the application of a range requirements elicitation techniques
- Explain the use of requirements elicitation techniques and the relevance of the techniques to given situations
- Document and prioritise user requirements for an information system
- Identify problems with requirements and explain how requirements documentation may be improved
- Create a process/function model of requirements for an information system
- Interpret a model of the data requirements for an information system
- Explain the importance of linking project objectives and requirements to the Business Case
- Describe the principles of Requirements Management and explain the importance of managing requirements
- Describe the use of CASE tools to support Requirements Engineering
- Explain the principles of Requirements Validation and define an approach to validating requirements
Course Outline
The Requirements Engineering Process
Lifecycle for business change; Business plans and objectives; Problems with requirements; The stakeholders involved in RE; RE process overview
Requirements and the Business Context
Hierarchy of requirements; TOR/PID; Functional requirements; Non-Functional requirements; General/Technical requirements; Service level requirements
Eliciting and Documenting Requirements
Problems with elicitation; Different stakeholders viewpoints; Elicitation techniques; Facilitated workshops in detail; Prioritisation of requirements; The structure and contents of a requirement
Interviewing for Requirements
Interviewing for RE; The interviewing lifecycle; Planning, preparing, conducting and following up the interview; Questioning strategies
Use of Models in Requirements Engineering
Developing a process/functional model; Reading a static (data) model
Analysing and Negotiating Requirements
Iterating requirements; Congruence with business objectives; Analysing requirements against: Classification, Priority, Ambiguity, Testability, Risk, Granularity, Omissions, Conflicts, Overlaps, and Achievability; Resolving conflicts
Validating Requirements
Requirements validation; Requirements reviews; Validation checklist; Validation by prototyping
Managing Requirements
The principles of requirements management (RM); How the '4 pillars' support RM; The baseline mechanism; The role of the Change Control Board
Benefits Confirmation
Requirements testing/user acceptance testing; Post-implementation review; Roles of requirements actors
Case Study
A case study allows the delegates to undertake a simulated requirements engineering assignment to practice the new skills.
BCS Certificate in Modelling Business Processes - 3 days
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this course you will be able to:
- Identify and model core business processes at an organisational level
- Identify and model business processes at the process level identify the events that trigger the business processes identify the outcomes from the business processes
- Model the actors, tasks, and process flows that comprise a business process analyse the tasks within a business process
- Identify the business rules applied within tasks analyse the performance issues of individual tasks
- Identify the performance measures applied within a business process analyse and improve business processes
Course Outline
The context for business process modelling
Purpose of business process modelling; Process for business process modelling; Approaches to business process modelling; The hierarchy of business processes -organisation, process, and task levels; Differences between the process view and the functional view of an organisation; Advantages of the process view Organisational model of processes Strategic context for business processes; Relationships between processes, including those at the same level and between levels of hierarchy; Building an organisational view of processes; Delivering value to customers and the value proposition
Modelling the business processes
Using activity diagrams to model business processes - actors, tasks, process flows, decisions; Modelling as-is business processes; Events that trigger business processes -external, internal, time-based; The outcomes from business processes; Timelines for business processes; Business process measures
Documenting tasks
Identifying tasks - one person, one place, one time; Documenting steps to complete the tasks; Documenting business rules; Task performance measures
Evaluating and improving business processes
Identifying problems with the as-is business processes; Analysing the process flow; Analysing the handoffs; Analysing the tasks; Staff performance issues; Challenging the business rules; Modelling the to-be business processes; Approaches to business process improvement
Transition
Integration of business process modelling and requirements definition; Implementation issues (Approaches - pilot run, direct changeover, parallel; Organisational design; Role definition; Staff development; Managing change implementation
Exam preparation
Practice exam questions
Throughout the course, case studies are used to reinforce and practice the topics discussed