BA Fundamentals of Business Analysis – including BCS Requirements Engineering

The course covers a number of different modules. The course is run in the style of a project taking delegates from start-up through to delivery with elements of each module being covered when relevant, and also contrasting agile and formal approaches at each stage. Exam based topics are covered in more depth towards the end of the course.

Module 1- Introduction to the Business Analyst Role

The first section of the course introduces the role of the business analyst and positions them within agile and waterfall projects.

• What is a business analyst?
• The role of the business analyst.
• The key principles and rules of business analysis.
• Project approaches- Waterfall, Agile, Incremental.

Exercise 1.1- Delegates work in teams to define requirements for a 'simple' project.

Module 2- Starting a Project

The second section of the course introduces pre-project concepts of objectives, vision, scope and development of a business case. the different internal and external stakeholders involved in project work are introduced.

• The importance of understanding and defining objectives, vision and scope.
• Project stakeholders- scrum master, product owner, project sponsor, end-user, developer, UX (User Experience) expert.
• Business case basics.
• Sprint Zero in agile.

Exercise 2.1- Delegates define a list of measurable project objectives and initial scoping questions

Module 3- Agile Principles and Terminology

This section starts to explore the principle of agile in more depth. In particular, it attempts to create an agile mindset, introduces important terminology and techniques used, and starts to produce agile deliverables.

• Agile manifesto.
• Agile methods- overview of Scrum, XP.
• Reviews and retrospectives.
• MVP- Minimum Viable Product.
• Architectural and Functional Risk.
• Technical Debt.
• User role modellingand Personas.

Module 4- Requirements, User Stories and Features

This section looks at the need for capturing and documenting requirements and the different formats that can be used. Delegates develop an understanding of the different levels of requirement and techniques used to identify them.

• What are requirements and why they need to be defined?
• Writing epics, user stories and features.
• Defining acceptance criteria.
• Requirements catalogues.
• Functional and Non-Functional requirements.
• Requirements quality criteria.

Exercise 4.1- delegates review a set of user statements to categorise them into different types of requirement.

Exercise 4.2- delegates are asked to identify and define a set of functional requirements and non-functional requirements using different techniques including user stories.

Exercise 4.3- delegates review a set of user stories against the INVEST criteria.

Module 5- Interviewing, Workshops and Elicitation Techniques

This section looks at techniques for effective stakeholder interviewing. Additional elicitation techniques are introduced and related to knowledge types and how different techniques might be used at different stages of the project.

• Interviewing tips and techniques.
• Knowledge types.
• Other elicitation techniques (including workshops, scenarios, prototyping and protocol analysis)

Exercise 5.1- delegates decide on the elicitation techniques to use in a number of business situations.

Exercise 5.2- elicitation techniques (exam practice exercise)

Module 6- Delivering the Requirements

This section of the course explores how the requirements eventually become part of a solution and how the BA is involved in supporting this transition.

• Getting to solutions- the role of the BA beyond defining the requirements.
• Defining detailed requirements- how much detail do you need?
• Identifying business impact.
• Supporting business implementation.
• Estimating using planning poker.
• Prioritising features- based on business value, functional and architectural risk.
• Defining the MVP.
• Drawing a burn-up chart.

Exercise 6.1- delegates perform poker planning on user stories/requirements.

Exercise 6.2- delegates develop some detailed requirements using different formats/styles.

Exercise 6.3- delegates evaluate requirement priorities and discuss potential MVP.

Module 7- Business Analysis Tools and Techniques

This section of the course is explored at relevant points during the course when specific techniques that can support the business analyst come into play.

• Seeing the bigger picture- the importance of process modelling.
• Documenting a process using BPMN.
• Understanding and documenting data requirements using entity/class diagrams.
• Prototyping.
• Use cases.

Exercise 7.1- delegates practise BPMN techniques using a simple scenario.

Exercise 7.2- delegates work in teams to produce an 'as-is' swim-lane diagram from the case study.

Exercise 7.3- delegates work in teams to prototype screens from the case study.

Exercise 7.4- delegates work with the instructor to develop a data model for the case study.

Exercise 7.5- delegates identify and define attributes for the case study entities/classes.

Module 8- Requirements Engineering Techniques

This section formalises the components of requirements engineering and prepares delegates for the BCS Requirements Engineering exam.

• Production of a Requirements Catalogue.
• Requirements management- traceability and change control.
• Requirements management tools- CASE and packages that support agile development (e.g. Jira).
• Exam based revision exercises.