Writing and Managing Effective Requirements Training

Certificate: N/A
Duration: 3 Days
Course Delivery: Classroom or Virtual Live

Accreditor: None
Language: English
Credits: 21 PDUs

Course Description:
Successful projects are built on the foundation of well-written requirements. This course provides the techniques to help Business Analysts write well-formed, testable, verifiable user requirements that translate client needs into clear and testable solutions. These requirements ensure the business and stakeholder needs are implemented correctly in the final product.
This course is fully-compliant with the IIBA’s Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (v2.0) and enforces the industries best practices and techniques for eliciting, analyzing, documenting, validating, and communicating requirements. You’ll learn the technical writing techniques that apply directly to writing requirements documents and you’ll learn to apply proper techniques for writing-correct, clear, concise, comprehensive, and cohesive requirements.

Learning Objectives:
By taking this course, the students will learn how to:
● Describe the business need by writing a problem statement
● Perform Stakeholder Analysis while utilizing a Stakeholder Map
● Define system boundaries by using a Context Diagram
● Write Business and Stakeholder requirements
● Use a Decision Table to capture business rules
● Utilize a Business Process Model to describe a workflow
● Plan for and elicit requirements using several elicitation techniques
● Draw a Use Case Diagram to help scope the project
● Write main, alternate, and exception scenarios
● Organize and sequence requirements into a user requirements document
● Develop a User Interface prototype

Prerequisites:
No prerequisites – This course is suitable for both intermediate and experienced Business Analysts who would like to increase their skills with eliciting, writing and managing effective requirements for projects.

Course Materials:
You will receive the following as part of this course:
▪ Full Student Guide
▪ Requirements templates

Course Outline:
Section 1: Introduction to Business Analysis
▪ What is Business Analysis
▪ Benefits and Challenges
▪ Project Success Factors
Section 2: The IIBA and the CBAP Certification
▪ BA role and responsibilities
▪ The IIBA mission and history
▪ CBAP Overview
▪ BABOK guide and purpose
▪ Overview of knowledge areas
▪ Exercise – Ball Toss Challenge
▪ BA role vs. PM role
▪ Importance of requirements communication
▪ Exercise – Choose Your Project
Section 3: Supporting the Project Portfolio
▪ The purpose of Enterprise Analysis
▪ The executive paradox
▪ Defining the business need
▪ Exercise – Defining the Business Need
▪ Goals and objectives
▪ Business requirements
▪ Exercise – Writing Business Requirements
▪ The importance of stakeholders
▪ Stakeholder identification
▪ Keeping track of stakeholders
▪ Exercise – Identifying Stakeholders
Section 4: Developing the Solution Vision and Scope
▪ Purpose of defining the vision and scope of a project
▪ Conducting brainstorming sessions
▪ Brainstorming usage considerations
▪ Finding system boundaries
▪ The Context Diagram
▪ Actors and key information
▪ Exercise: Draw a Context Diagram
Section 5: Understanding Requirements and Business Rules
▪ What is a requirement?
▪ Requirement types
▪ Business, Stakeholder, Solution, and Transition requirements
▪ Assumptions and constraints
▪ Business rules
▪ Taxonomy of business rules
▪ Decision tables
▪ How to write simple calculations
▪ Requirements vs. business rules
▪ Exercise – Writing Requirements
Section 6: Business Process Modeling
▪ Why do we model processes?
▪ What is Business Process Management?
▪ Basic BPM notation
▪ Developing a Business Process Model
▪ Business Process Modeling – A case study
▪ Exercise – Create a Business Process Model
Section 7: Planning and Eliciting Requirements
▪ What is requirements elicitation?
▪ Interviewing – what and why?
▪ Preparing for an effective interview
▪ Types of questions to ask
▪ Sequencing questions
▪ Active listening techniques
▪ Exercise – Planning for Elicitation
▪ Conducting the interview
▪ Establishing rapport
▪ Feedback techniques
▪ Exercise – Conducting an Elicitation Session
▪ Other elicitation techniques
Section 8: Writing Testable Requirements using Use Case Analysis
▪ What is an Actor?
▪ Types of Actors
▪ How to “find” Use Cases?
▪ Diagramming Use Cases
▪ Tips on naming Use Cases
▪ Exercise – Drawing a Use Case Diagram
▪ What are scenarios?
▪ The Use Case template
▪ Scenario examples
▪ Best practices for writing Use Cases
▪ Exercise – Writing the Main Success Scenario
▪ Scenarios and flows
▪ Alternate and exception flows
▪ Exercise – Writing Alternate and Exception Scenarios
Section 9: Analyzing and Documenting Requirements
▪ Requirements and Use Cases
▪ Non-Functional requirements
▪ User Interface Requirements
▪ Exercise – Develop a User Interface
▪ UI Data Table
▪ Reporting requirements
▪ Data requirements
▪ Data accessibility requirements
▪ Preparing the requirements package
▪ Business Analysis deliverables
▪ Exercise – Analyzing Requirements
Section 10: Additional Information
▪ Useful books and links on writing effective requirements

Audience:
This course is intended for intermediate to advanced Business Analysts who are looking to improve their skills by learning best practices and techniques for eliciting, analyzing, documenting, validating, and communicating requirements.

Examination:
● Exam Format: N/A
● Questions: N/A
● Passing Score: N/A
● Exam Duration: N/A
● Proctoring: N/A