How to Gather and Document User Requirements

4 Days – Course No. BA20

 

Target audience:

◦     Business Analysts who need to update or formalize their implicit understanding of their role, accountabilities and activities.

◦     Project Managers who incorporate the business analysis role within their functional activity sets.

◦     Business Managers who work within a project environment, and who interface with Business Analysts and Project Managers

 

Prerequisites:

In order to derive full benefit from this course, it is recommended that students take BA10: Introduction to Business Analysis OR have practical professional experience in all of topics covered in the BA10 course, including:

◦     System development life cycle,

◦     Project management methodologies,

◦     User requirements analysis and

◦     Requirements management

 

Learn How to:

◦     Define the role of the business analyst in the requirements process

◦     Effectively document a solution's vision and scope

◦     Develop a Requirements Analysis Work Plan

◦     Elicit, structure, analyze, validate and document business requirements

◦     Structure a Business Requirements Document

 

course synopsis:

Incomplete requirements are often cited as the number-one reason projects or systems fail. Accurately identifying the requirements and staying on course from the beginning is key to success in today’s business world.

 

This “how-to” course introduces the roles of the business analyst as they relate to the analysis and documentation of requirements. It familiarizes participants with the core knowledge and skills required to identify and document user requirements. It also addresses how these requirements are identified and managed throughout the life cycle.

 

Recommendation: The material presented in this course provides the foundation necessary for building additional business analysis skills. If you plan to take additional courses in the Business Analysis Professional Development Program, you will need this foundation.

 

course topics:

Roles, Definitions and Key Principles

◦     Critical role of business analyst

◦     Creating and adopting a formal documentation strategy

◦     Key requirements documents

◦     Roles and mutual expectations among team members

 

Types of Requirements

◦     Attributes and types of effective requirements

◦     What is an effective requirement?

 

Vision, Scope and Quality

◦     Defining problem, vision, and scope

◦     Importance of a solution’s scope statement

◦     Documenting project vision and scope

◦     Including quality measures

◦     Managing change

 

Introduction to Modeling

◦     Documenting and tracking business rules

◦     Why use models?

◦     Modeling techniques

 

Creating a Requirement Work Plan

◦     The value of planning

◦     Elements of a requirements work plan

◦     Planning the analysis

◦     Identifying business analysis tasks

◦     Stakeholder identification and prioritization

◦     User identification and profiling

◦     Managing risk

 

Elicitation Techniques

◦     Dealing with barrier to elicitation

◦     Elicitation strategy

◦     Elicitation techniques

◦     Advantages and challenges of elicitation techniques

 

Documenting Requirements

◦     The purpose of documenting requirements

◦     Elements of a Business Requirements Document

◦     Technical writing guidelines

◦     Requirements analysis

◦     The role of modeling in requirements documentation

◦     Use case and activity diagrams

◦     Presenting requirements

 

Managing Consensus

◦     Communicating effectively

◦     Effective consensus building

 

Validating Requirements

◦     Validation techniques

◦     Decision making and approvals

◦     Managing change and risk post-validation

◦     What happens next?

 

Other Information:

Professional Development Units (PDUs): 28.0