Programme overview
Introduction:
Projects and change initiatives often deliver solutions that meet the specification but miss the business need, because requirements were gathered from the wrong people, written vaguely or lost track of as scope changed. This Core Concept course builds practical business analysis capability: analysing stakeholders, eliciting requirements with structured techniques, documenting them as user stories, use cases and a business requirements document, modelling processes, and tracing every requirement through change to solution evaluation. Working through case material, each participant produces a Requirements Package with a traceability matrix for a change of their own.
Course Objectives:
- Define the business analyst role, its responsibilities and its working relationships with sponsors, project managers, product owners and delivery teams
- Identify and analyse stakeholders, then plan elicitation activities suited to their influence, interest and availability
- Elicit business, stakeholder and solution requirements using interviews, workshops, observation, document analysis and prototyping
- Document and prioritise requirements as user stories with acceptance criteria, use cases and a business requirements document
- Model current-state and future-state processes to expose gaps and derive requirements from them
- Trace requirements from business objectives to solution components, control requirement changes and evaluate whether the delivered solution meets the need
Target Audience:
- Staff responsible for gathering and documenting requirements on projects and change initiatives
- Product and backlog owners who write and prioritise user stories for delivery teams
- Project and programme team members who manage scope and requirement changes
- Process and operations staff who describe how work is done and how it should change
- IT and systems staff moving into analysis responsibilities between business units and developers
- Quality and testing staff who validate that delivered solutions meet agreed requirements
Course Outline:
Day 1: The Business Analyst Role and Analysis Foundations
- BABOK Guide Knowledge Areas and the Scope of Business Analysis
- Business Analyst Responsibilities and RACI with Project and Product Roles
- Requirement Types: Business, Stakeholder, Solution and Transition
- Problem Statement and Business Need Definition Template
- Current Requirements Practice Self-Assessment Checklist
Day 2: Stakeholder Analysis and Elicitation Planning
- Stakeholder Register and Power-Interest Grid
- Onion Diagram for Stakeholder Proximity to the Solution
- Elicitation and Collaboration Plan: Prepare for Elicitation Tasks
- Technique Selection Matrix for Interviews, Workshops and Observation
- Business Analysis Communication and Approval Plan
Day 3: Eliciting, Documenting and Modelling Requirements
- Structured Interview Guide and Facilitated Requirements Workshop Agenda
- Document Analysis, Job Shadowing and Low-Fidelity Prototyping
- User Stories with INVEST Checks and Given-When-Then Acceptance Criteria
- Use Case Specification and Business Requirements Document Structure
- BPMN Basics for Current-State and Future-State Process Diagrams
Day 4: Prioritisation, Traceability, Change and Solution Evaluation
- MoSCoW and Value-Versus-Effort Requirement Prioritisation
- Requirements Traceability Matrix from Objective to Test Case
- Requirement Change Request Log and Impact Assessment
- Requirements Review, Walkthrough and Sign-Off Checklist
- Solution Evaluation Measures and Post-Implementation Gap Review
Day 5: Case Work and the Requirements Package
- Customer Onboarding Case Study: Conflicting Stakeholder Needs
- Healthcare Scheduling Case Study: Ambiguous and Missing Requirements
- Stakeholder Map and Process Models for an Own Change Initiative
- User Stories, BRD Extract and Traceability Matrix Drafting
- Requirements Package Peer Review and Sign-Off Presentation
Skills You Will Gain:
- Stakeholder Analysis
- Requirements Elicitation
- Workshop Facilitation
- User Story Writing
- Use Case Modelling
- Process Modelling
- Requirements Traceability
- Solution Evaluation
Why Attend This Course:
- Leave with a peer-reviewed Requirements Package and traceability matrix for a real change in your organisation
- Turn vague requests from business owners into clear, testable requirements that delivery teams can build from
- Practise running interviews and workshops with case stakeholders who hold conflicting views
- Compare requirements practice with analysts, product owners and project staff from other sectors and countries
Conclusion:
Good solutions start with requirements that reflect the real business need and stay under control as work progresses. This course moves from the role and scope of business analysis, through stakeholder analysis and elicitation planning, to the techniques that capture, document and model requirements. It then covers prioritisation, traceability, change control and evaluation of the delivered solution. On the final day participants apply every step to case material and to their own initiative, completing a Requirements Package ready for review and sign-off.