Description

As a business analyst, you are the link between the business and its customers. This certification training course explores tools and techniques for maximising the value delivered to your customer, and covers fundamental aspects of business analysis, as outlined by The Chartered Institute for IT, to prepare for the BCS Foundation Exam — a first step toward the BCS International Diploma in Business Analysis.

Learning Objectives

• Prepare for and pass the BCS Foundation Exam
• Analyse development of a business strategy
• Perform business system modelling
• Identify costs, benefits, impacts, and risks for change in a business case

Course Outline

The Business Change Life Cycle

The role of the Business Analyst in the business change life cycle

• Producing the business case
• Other roles in the business change life cycle

The framework for business analysis activities

• Relating business analysis to strategic analysis, definition, and IT systems analysis
• The holistic approach to business analysis

Understanding the Strategic Context

Analysing the business environment

• Internal and external environments
• Analysing the business with SWOT analysis

Developing business metrics

• Identifying your Critical Success Factors (CSF)
• Creating Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
• Identifying critical success with the Balanced Business Scorecard

Project Discipline for Business Analysis Studies

• Reading the Terms of Reference or Project Initiation Document
• OSCAR (objectives, scope, constraints, authority and resources)
• What does the business wish to achieve and deliver?
• Creating SMART objectives

Understanding the Business Situation

Stakeholder identification

• Using the Stakeholder wheel
• Overview of investigative techniques

Representing a holistic view of the business situation

• Generating Rich pictures
• Making Mind Maps

Analysing Stakeholder Perspectives

Stakeholder analysis and management

• Power/Interest Grid
• Stakeholder management strategies

Identifying and defining different perspectives

• Contrasting different stakeholder perspectives
• Analysing the root cause with CATWOE

Analysing and Modelling Business Activities

Developing a Business Activity Model

• Depicting business perspectives with a Business Activity Model (BAM)
• Describing the BAM process and notation
• Identifying business events

Analysing business rules

• Distinguishing between business rule types
• Recognising business rules levels of constraint

Building the consensus Business Activity Model

• Identifying differences between business activity models
• Negotiating to resolve conflicts

Identifying Potential Solutions

Gap analysis – comparing the ideal and existing systems

• Outlining the gap analysis process
• Identifying inputs to, and outputs from, gap analysis

Defining a new business model

• Exploiting areas for change – processes, people, technology and organisation

Identifying requirements using business activity and business process models

• Classifying models that document and analyse requirements
• Recognising data/processing requirements

Making the Business Case

The Business Case life cycle

• Structuring the business case
• Identifying and shortlisting options for business change

Identifying and categorising costs and benefits

• Classifying tangible and intangible costs and benefits
• Investment appraisal techniques

Risk and impact identification, categorisation, and management

• Identifying and assessing risk impact and probability
• Risk management approaches