Introduction to Business Analysis
We will find out what Business Analysis is and what a BA does in IT. We will understand what knowledge and tools a BA needs.
What the development process consists of.
Assigning roles in the project.
Objectives and goals of a BA.
What “the demands” are.
After the lecture, you will know the tasks and powers of a business analyst and what qualities a BA must possess to be effective. For your homework, you will choose a project you want to work on during the course.
Market Analysis
We will understand why it is critically important for a BA to be able to analyze the market and what steps you need to make to be fully ready for a customer interview.
Kano model.
Jobs to be Done approach.
Marketing Personas.
Canvas: VP, Business Model, Lean Model.
Competitor and SWOT analysis.
At the lecture, we will learn how to conduct competitive analysis and how to use the most popular Canvas in the work of a BA. For your homework, you will have to make a Value Proposition and describe the personas of your course or work project.
Requirements Lifecycle
We will analyze the role of a BA in each phase of the project, study the methodology of project management, and consider the requirements' management lifecycle.
Main phases of the project.
Development lifecycle.
Values and principles of the Agile methodology.
The role of a BA in Agile.
Working with requirements: from identifying to testing.
After the lecture, you will understand what a BA should do at each stage of development and work with requirements.
Process of identifying, collecting, and analyzing requirements
We will learn to understand requirements and their types, how to identify requirements, and what tools to use for this.
Requirements classification.
The general process of identifying and analyzing requirements.
Requirements identification techniques: interview, workshop, brainstorming.
Monitoring and Reverse Engineering.
Impact Analysis.
At the lecture, we will analyze the requirements using examples and practice conducting interviews and brainstorming. For your homework, you will learn how to write interview questions that will help you identify the requirements in the least number of meetings.
Designing solutions, prototyping
We will understand what a prototype is and why it is needed, learn to distinguish different types of prototypes, and develop a prototype from scratch.
Types: Sketch, Wireframe, Mockup.
Tool selection.
Prototype testing.
Interaction with the designer.
During the video lecture, the speaker will create a prototype page for an online store. For your homework, you will solidify the skill by creating a prototype for your course or work project.
Q&A session on “Market Analysis, Requirements Lifecycle, Prototyping”
Techniques for recording requirements with the User Story method
We’ll understand how to decompose and record requirements Learn to work with User Stories.
Requirements hierarchy: System, Epic, User Story, Task.
User stories: structure, quality criteria, tracking, and prioritization.
Decompose through SPIDR.
Acceptance criteria: definition, analysis of examples, and compilation.
Requirement change management.
During the video lecture, you will see examples of User Stories, learn to work with the Given/When/Then template, and decompose Epic. For your homework, you will describe your own User Stories and Acceptance Criteria to them.
Techniques for recording requirements with the Use Case method
Understand how to determine where the requirements begin and where they end. Learn to deal with recording requirements.
Requirements Value
Business documentation: BRD, MRD, PRD.
Technical documentation: SRS, PSD, FSD.
Use Cases: definition, compilation, and examples.
Prioritizing backlog through WSJF.
Definition of Ready and Definition of Done.
During the video lecture, you will see examples of PRD and Use Cases, learn to prioritize the backlog, understand the difference between DoD, DoR, and AC, and describe them.
Working with non-functional requirements: basics
We will learn to distinguish non-functional requirements from functional ones, break up NFRs into groups, and understand what requirements are applied to requirements.
Availability and reliability.
Speed and scalability.
Support and maintenance.
Certification and compliance.
Localization and compatibility.
Functionality and extensibility.
Usability and safety.
During the video lecture, you will learn to do a pairwise analysis of non-functional requirements. For your homework, you will form a checklist to identify non-functional requirements.
Working with non-functional requirements: what to do in practice
We will understand how to interview the client correctly to immediately identify the necessary restrictions on non-functional requirements.
Analysis of cases and features of requirement identification.
Interviewing the customer.
Distribution of claims by category.
Solution Presentation.
During the video lecture, students will practice 4 business cases in a game form. Together we’ll recreate the process of identifying non-functional requirements with the client.
Q&A session on “Techniques of recording requirements, work with non-functional requirements”
Business Process Modeling: BPMN Diagrams
We will see why modeling is important, consider what the business process and BPMN diagrams are, get to know the modeling tools.
Where to apply BPMN diagrams.
BPMN Notation of Diagrams.
The difference between BPMN and Activity diagram.
Alternative Diagrams.
During the video lecture, we will do a practical assignment on BPMN diagrams. For your homework, you will describe the business processes applicable to your case.
Business Process Modeling: UML diagrams
We will know what UML is, where it is applied, and what it solves. We will study the main types of UML diagrams that a BA needs and analyze each type with an example.
Use Case Diagram.
Activity Diagram.
Sequence Diagram.
Entity Relationship Diagram.
State Machine Diagram.
During the video lecture, we will draw a Use Case Diagram and do tests to determine the type of diagrams. For your homework, you will practice describing a Use Case and doing an Entity Relationship Diagram.
How to Work with the Discovery Phase
Learning to deal with Discovery Phase and its significance. We’ll work with one of the possible templates of the Vision and Scope document that a BA prepares after the Discovery Phase.
Difference between Discovery Phase and Requirements Specification Phase.
Importance of the Discovery Phase.
Discovery Phase value to the customer.
Discovery stages and components.
During the video lecture, we will analyze an example of a job search system development.
Q&A session on “Business Processes Modeling”
Tools to work with requirements
We will get to know the organization and management of requirements, consider the requirement workflow, and learn to work with changes.
Criteria for well-organized requirements.
Requirements in Jira.
Requirements in Confluence.
Requirements in Google Docs.
Baseline.
During the video lecture, we will learn to track changes in Jira and Confluence, analyze examples on the process of requirements management.
Testing and validation of requirements
We will deal with the validation and verification of requirements, learn to understand requirements, and test requirements in Scrum.
Dependencies Invest VS PMBoK.
Planning Poker.
Regression.
Acceptance Testing.
During the video lecture, we will see the example of quality requirements criteria and the example of non-optimal requirements, learn to work with Planning Poker and interact with QA.
Q&A session on “Tools, Testing and Validation of Requirements”
The career in business analytics
We will see how to search for a BA position and what requirements to the position exist on the market. We’ll find out what a BA’s career growth looks like in terms of salary and project complexity.
Where to look for vacancies.
Wage Statistics.
Top 5 BA skills.
How to not get fired.
During the video lecture, we will learn to compose the most correct resume and prepare for your first interview for a BA position.
Business Analyst’s lifecycle
We will understand how to choose the approach to business analysis depending on the project and how not to fail your first project. We’ll learn to build an effective BA workday and interact with key stakeholders on the project.
Correct work with expectations at the start of the project.
What a BA is responsible for.
Correct handling of assumptions and limitations.
How to measure a BA’s performance.
After this lecture and from all previous ones, you will have a complete picture of the BA responsibilities and what a BA needs to do at each stage.
Final Q&A session on the whole course