Business Analysis 101

Over the last 10 to 15 years, the inception of new products and services has steered corporations to manage this development in a much more efficient manner in order to meet customer demand. This introspection within the business community was comprised of two elements:

1.) Can one identify the deficiencies in previous workings in order to overcome the shortcomings?
2.) What is the employee skillset required in order to ensure proper deployment of these new customer needs?

The inception of the Business Analysis profession was a result of this changed situation as well as an overall classification of those competencies that were already being practiced in the enterprise.
This course takes a look at the competencies required of a Business Analysis. In addition, you will be exposed to the following elements tied to the subject matter:

• The typical business analysis path, starting with a problem statement, the requirements tied to the need to be addressed and a definition of the most robust solution possible.
• The tie between the enterprise strategy and business analysis activities.
• The relationship between needs and current processes
• Document analysis and the importance of historical data
• The means by which elicitation is performed
• Solutions, business cases and decisions
• Business Analysis and quality
• System thinking and estimations

This course is intended to give you a general overview of what this discipline entails and can act as a springboard into more detailed study at a future date.

What do I learn?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a 19% job growth rate for Business Analysts is expected till 2022, and the outlook for the rest of the world should be higher still.

• What are the underlying competencies of a Business Analyst?
• The importance of stakeholder management within the business analysis domain.
• Where within the enterprise can a business analyst be found?
• In which sectors are business analyst competencies being practiced?
• What is the importance of processes within the business analysis domain?
• Why business transformation starts with an understanding of the current processes deployed within an organization.
• What are some of the tools and techniques used to create, evaluate, modify and analyze processes?
• What are organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors?
• What tools and techniques are used to create and analyze enterprise artifacts?
• What is elicitation, and what techniques does a BA have at her disposal?
• The importance of traceability within an organization.
• What is the relationship between solutions and risks?
• What elements should one consider when evaluating numerous solution possibilities?
• What is the cost of quality?
• Why is quality management important to a Business Analyst?
• What quality management tools and techniques can a Business Analyst use?
• What is the Deming Cycle?
• How are the 7 Basic Quality Tools deployed?
• What means of estimation does a BA have at her disposal?
• Business Analysis, data and forecasting.
• What is the theory of constraints?
• Game theory, crowdsourcing and the Business Analyst.

The first week, we look at what makes a Business Analyst; what are the underlying competencies, how a BA fits in the organization, the concept of stakeholders and organizational readiness, and lastly in which sectors those BA competencies can be found.

In week #2, we look at process analysis; the importance of process documentation, the relationship between processes and business transformation, process diagramming and process modeling.

Week 3 takes us to document analysis. We look at Organizational Process Assets and Enterprise Environmental Factors, Impact Analysis, business rules, traceability and other elements that prepare you to move on in your BA path.

Our fourth week takes us to the world of requirements gathering; what elicitation is, the different ways of performing the exercise and what steps need to be followed within requirements analysis. So that’s week 4, requirements gathering.

Week # 5 concerns all things tied to solutions; the relationship between a problem statement and a solution, the evaluation of multiple solutions, and how we pick the best one.

Our sixth week views the subject of quality management. What cost does quality have? What are the seven basic quality tools and of course what this all has to do with Business Analysis?

Our last week takes us into the realm of system thinking and estimation. How important is probability within our BA activities? What is the theory of constraints? We will perform a walkthrough on subject such as crowdsourcing and game theory, and that pretty much covers our last week.