Going through this program will prepare you to become a strong business analyst who will be able to practice in different capacity to ensure quality of output and effective and timely delivery of your project.
You will also be able to complete the Scrum certification at one sitting on the completion of this course or go for the BCS diploma in Stakeholder Management and communication certification.
The curriculum includes the following and will continue to be updated:
1. Business Analysis definition
2. Project Management Lifecycle
3. Software Development Lifecycle
4. Business Analysis methodology
5. Requirement Engineering
6. Stakeholder Management and Communication
7. Business Analysis Tools and Techniques
8. Agile Scrum Framework
9. Data Analysis
As a business analyst, it is your responsibility to ensure that you understand the context and scope of the analysis work that will be required. To help you achieve this, some of the techniques to use include; BOSCARD
Requirement definition according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
It is the Business Analyst’s job to help the stakeholders to communicate and clarify their understanding of the requirements as efficiently as possible.
Solutions define how the requirements will be met, and requirements should be solution agnostic as there may be many solutions available for a given requirement
"There are known knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know.”
—Former United States Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld
Interviewing is a good elicitation technique and a key analysis skill to develop, it is a structured discussion between the analyst and a stakeholder to elicit information about the business situation and the stakeholder's role or involvement.
This is a team-based information gathering and decision-making technique designed to accelerate business planning and development. It is an interactive communication technique involving experienced and empowered personnel working in one or more sessions run by an independent facilitator.
The requirement hierarchy defines the different levels of requirements at different phases of the project lifecycle. The Business objectives drive the need for change and give rise to new business requirements which helps to set the scope and understanding for the reasons why the project is required.
It is important to organise requirements in order of priority, and analyse them to ensure they are complete, consistent, and unambiguous. At this point the business analyst can then negotiate with the stakeholders to seek agreement, and resolve any conflicts that may have been observed in the analysis.
SCAMPER, is an acronym that provides a framework of challenging questions. It helps you to take a structured approach to developing ideas, and can be used to develop new solutions, or refine existing ones. It provides a checklist, that can be used to improve upon an existing design, product, or service, or to develop new ideas and solutions.
Developing agreed assessment criteria is the first step in selecting the best solution for a project.
Assessment criteria, provide a constant basis of comparison, within the solution selection techniques that are used next, and so it is important to get them right!
The Paired Comparisons, also known as Pairwise Ranking, is a team-based approach, for ranking different options against each other. It is a particularly useful technique, when there is little objective data to base a decision on. It is mostly used to rank potential solutions, or weight assessment criteria against each other. You need a team of people with knowledge of the process, and effective facilitation skills!
A Prioritisation Matrix, is a structured technique, for selecting a solution from several alternatives. It combines the weighted criteria, and list of possible solutions, that the team, have already developed. It helps to weigh up the pros, and cons, of each possible solution, using the weighted criteria, and consensus of the team, and so provides, a good chance of selecting, the most appropriate solution.
A pilot study is a localised controlled trial of a solution, It could be as a prototype, or designed as a minimum viable product, with just enough features in order to test its effectiveness before full implementation, so that customers can then provide feedback for future product development.
User journey map as a tool, is used to map individual User’s experience with the business, or product, or the steps that Users go through, when engaging with a process, or company.
Roles and responsibilities of The Scrum Master