My name is hello, my name is May Dietz. I'm the practice leader for Orion development group. We're strategic partner with the University of Delaware. I'm here today to share with you information about the business analysis certificate program that is offered by the University of Delaware. In this session, we're going to talk a little bit about what business analysis is. Look at the series overall, provide you information on the individual classes and sort of the intended outcomes of the overall series. Talk a little bit about who should attend and then answer any, maybe provide some answers to some questions that you might have. So let's start off with the definition of what business analysis is. According to the IBA, which is the International Institute of Business Analysis. They have defined business analysis as enabling change in an enterprise by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders within a context. Gosh, that's a lot of words, but they would also tell you is that there are six key words that you see highlighted in here. And some of those are the core concepts that they believed by the sort of the foundation of business analysis. I actually have something called the core concepts model. And I should say just for a second about the IBA that they created a book called The Business Analysis body of knowledge, the BA buck. It is a great reference tool for us to understand some of the principles and the concepts and the practices around business analysis. The classes that we offer as part of the certificate program, in fact, align with the BA buck. They are not intended to teach you the BA buck though I have used it as a foundation for creating classes that will help you be a better business analyst. So in the BA buck the version three of that, they talk about business analysis and a recognition that it is more than just what a person does on a project to write requirements, it's provide, it's performed on a variety of levels, as you can see here, strategically BAs and the business analysis function is an integral part of understanding the business needs and creating strategic initiatives that fulfill gaps. More tactically. They may be part of the project again and writing requirements around that. So it's sometimes associated with a project, but more often today, a BA and business analyst is involved in helping a business truly understand where it's trying to go, where it's potential gaps are, and how do we find solutions for those gaps to optimize the operational performance? I like to think about the role of a BA, particularly on a project as this bridge scenario. So my background is I'm a scuba diver, so I like to think about things that involve water. So if we think about in our, many of our organizations, we have the IT or service, solution provider organization, and then we have the business area. And unfortunately historically in many organizations there's this wide chasm between them. And in these waters we might actually find that there are sharks lurking about. So our job really in the business analysis function is threefold in my mind. The first one is to help the business understand what its needs are, identify those needs, prioritize those needs so that we have a clear understanding of what we're trying to accomplish. That can be irrespective of a project or that could be an important part of a project. But we're defining the business needs. We're going to translate those into requirements. And then the next important role that a BA place is to collaborate throughout the project with the business unit and the solution provider to make sure that we can refine those needs and help to optimize whatever the solution design is going to be to fulfill those needs. And I would say that in traditional senses, that's often where the business analysis role would finish up. But what the IBA has suggested and I have seen in my own practices is that there's another really important role that the business analyst plays in a particular project and an ongoing operations for the business. And that is that once we implement a solution, it's really important to help the business figure out how to optimize that technology or that solution to achieve the expected value. So just because we implement a technology doesn't mean we have accomplished everything we set out to achieve. So a BA is responsible for helping the business take a look at what the pre-performance standards were, what the post performance expectations were, and are there any gaps associated with that? And how do we close those through process optimization people optimization, even the technology optimization as well. So this business analysis roll the BA role is so important in organizations today, there is a concept that's bantered about regularly these days and it's called the digital transformation. And it is a recognition that as we implement the latest technology and the latest use of our data, that those are only going to be effective if we can also integrate. Our process optimization and also look at how our organization should be designed and operated to get the maximum out of that. So implementing new technology really involves all of those pieces working collaboratively. So the reason why the BA role becomes so important is that they're the, they're the linchpin that it's going to help to create the alignment between the business needs and the technology solutions to ensure that what we're offering, our businesses actually are offering the business as a solution will actually fulfill their business needs. It also the BA role helps us ensure that we have a business centric approach to solving problems and embracing opportunities. So our technology solutions, Howard data acquisition and analysis, should be around how do we solve the business problems in the business needs. The BA really fulfills that function as part of, part of their job. And again, it helps us think about that value. So if I'm putting the system in, why are we putting the system in? How will we measure success? How will we know we've achieved a return on investment that it's appropriate for the investment that we're making. And again, that's where the BA comes in to help us make sure that we connect that implementation to the business, need to ensure that we achieve that expected value. So as I mentioned, we have the business analysis body of knowledge. And one of the things that's included in there or something they call knowledge areas. So these are the business analysis knowledge areas. And those include strategy analysis, solution evaluation, requirements analysis and design, elicitation and collaboration, business analysis planning and monitoring and requirements life-cycle management. So I'm going to talk about our different classes that we offer in the certificate program. But what I can tell you is they're pretty generally aligned with these knowledge areas. So solution evaluation, strategy analysis is such an important part of making sure that we think about the why, why are we doing these projects? So our initial course will focus on strategy analysis and business analysis, planning and monitoring. So once we know we have a project, how are we going to structure our work throughout that? And then we'll move into elicitation and collaboration. And then we'll look at requirements analysis and design definition. And that's really making sure we understand really the details coming out of our elicitation activities to understand. So I mentioned the business analysis body of knowledge included in the BA buck or something they referred to as the knowledge areas. Knowledge areas are what I would call core competencies and they happen throughout the projects. But they are really an important part of what a BA needs to be able to accomplish and what they need to be at which they need to be proficient in order to be successful. So our classes actually align pretty closely with these knowledge here. So I'm going to talk about each of them just real briefly. Strategy analysis is the looking at our organization and understandings strategically, where do we want to go and where our gaps. So that really and the tone for identifying projects and then determining what success looks like. So high level business requirements, our project objectives, if you will. And then we can also use that as a means to validate throughout the project whether or not we're making the right decisions to help us move the strategic needle forward, if you will. We move on to the business analysis, planning and monitoring. Once we know we have a project, then we know what we're trying to accomplish. Then the business analysis, planning and monitoring, knowledge area or a core competency is about how do we build our plan? How do we figure out what resources we need, what's our approach going to be, and how do we manage our work throughout the project? Elicitation and collaboration is pretty much what you hear. It's, it is the harvesting of information from the business area. And we use that knowledge to develop our requirements. So then we move on into requirements analysis and design definition. And in that knowledge area, we're taking what we learned in our last station and collaboration, making sure we have complete and robust requirements that are achievable, that are testable. And we use those then to help drive what the design for the solution might be. We're also going to be throughout all of this, we're managing our requirements. Lots of things happen. We have change. We have issues that surface, we need to prioritize our requirements. Those are the kinds of things that are going to happen with the requirements life-cycle management knowledge area. And then finally, solution evaluation is referred to in the past, is this competency that says, as we evaluate our requirements that we finish, as we evaluate the design and as we ultimately evaluate an optimize our solution that we've implemented, making sure that we're achieving the expected business value. And business value, it's a common thing that you'll hear throughout the entire series to be sure. So if we sort of step back and look at the entire certificate program, which is comprised of four classes. We've identified a series of learning. So our certificate program is comprised of four courses. But if we step back for just a second, let's think about the overall learning objectives for the certificate program. The first one is to really introduce the business analysis fundamentals, all of the framework, the tools, the concepts that are important to being an effective business analyst. So we're going to talk about the knowledge areas. We're going to develop skills in practicing tools and techniques that are associated with business analysis. And I will tell you by the way, as an aside, that the, the whole series is very hands-on. Lots of practical applications and workshops associated with understanding these tasks and techniques and applying the knowledge areas. So we will get a chance to skills. We also work on, if you think about the role of a BA, if you remember that one of the knowledge areas was elicitation and collaboration, fostering collaboration. So when I think about business analysis, it is really both an art and a science. So while it's very important to understand the science, the tools and the techniques, the art side is how do you build business ownership? How do you build collaboration across silos in your organizations to achieve the best enterprise and cross-functional results. Really important that we understand what the deliverables are from a business analysis perspective. How, why do we exist in a project? How do we help contribute to the overall success? So as I said, there are four courses, the foundations of business analysis, eliciting and documenting requirements. Requirements analysis and design definition and solution deployment and evaluation. So we're going to talk about each one of those individually, the foundations of business analysis. And by the way, the order in which I presented those are, and we'll talk about them would be my recommended order of sequence for taking the classes. Can you take it out of order? Yes, you can. They all fit together? Most folks would say that they benefited best by taking them in the order in which they are presented. But we all know that life happens. And sometimes we need to miss a class because we've got something important going on at the office. So we do offer that you can you can take them in any order. Just recommended. We take them in the order that I'm going to talk through year. So the first one is the foundations of business analysis. And in this one, we really want to understand those knowledge areas. I talked earlier about the core concepts model and other framework concepts. So that's really why I think this one is an important one to have at the beginning so that we start off with a common vocabulary, a common understanding of the building blocks, if you will, of business analysis. The next part of this class is to again apply the strategy and organizational tools that are part of our overall business analysis toolkit to help us understand what our business needs are. So this is that strategic piece that precedes the project overall, but it helps us understand what are we trying to accomplish. It will establish our high level business requirements. And then we'll figure out based on those high level requirements, what are going to be the best solutions for us? And how do we decide the best route to go fulfill our business needs that we've identified. As we get to this point, then we've created a business case that says, This is the project that we want to launch. We're solving this business need. We're going to take this approach. Once we know this, then that's really establishing the foundation for the projects. So the very first thing we're going to do as a project manager and as a business analyst, is to make sure we understand who are the stakeholders for this project. So we want to get a good handle on that. What's the role they're going to play? How do I engage them? How are they a part of the work that we're going to be doing going forward. And then given all of that knowledge as a business analyst, our job is to figure out what our business analysis activities are going to be, how we're going to go about doing those. So that sets the stage then for the second class. But it gives us foundations in terms of concepts and foundations in terms of we are starting a project and do we have the right framework in place for that? Our second class then builds on bad and that is the illicit and documenting requirements. And in this class we're going to develop a framework that will help us with the, with, with our stakeholder. For collaboration with our stakeholders. We want to make sure that we get people engaged. We talked about the difference between elicitation and collaboration. It's really important that we have folks participating, engaged, and owning the work that's being done. We also want to strengthen the outcomes. We want to make sure one of the things that we find as a key to success for a, for a project is that we ultimately get all the requirements we can as early as we can. So that means, are we asking the right questions of the right people collecting the right information that will help us build the requirements, prioritize those requirements, and then ultimately go find the appropriate solution to go along with those. An important part of that is understanding an organization's business processes. That's really where the heart of understanding tactically what we need for from the business will come into play. So we spend a fair amount of time in this class doing so. Foundational process management work and really harvesting business needs out of that effort. We will also talk in this class about user stories and use cases. Those are two popular tools that are used to understand what the stakeholder needs are and say, Well, we'll create both of those in the class. And then we will actually write some requirements and take a look at what makes a good requirements. So as we move on, we have a foundation of harvesting the information, having a clear understanding of what the requirements are. All throughout the classes. As I mentioned earlier, I said the phrase business value. We're always looking at what's the way we can best deliver business value throughout this project. As we identify the strategic objectives in the, in the last class in our strategy analysis where we're always checking to make sure that as we identify requirements, do they in fact aligned with what we identified as our expected business value? So the third class then as the requirements analysis and design definition. And here's where we're going to evaluate the requirements that we have drafted. We're going to refine those, want to make sure they are complete. We have all the supporting documentation are correct. And again, they continue to align with the strategic business needs that were defined earlier on. Oftentimes requirements are a bunch of words on a piece of paper. What we also want to integrate into those are models, diagrams, things that will help make sure that as we go across the bridge to the solution providers that they can receive and have a clear understanding of the business need and help craft what the best solutions might be. We're also at this point in time, we're starting to hand off the work for the solution design team, but there's still a lot of work to be done to manage those requirements. We'll talk about the aspects of that. And then we'll work with the design team and the business team to figure out what are the right solutions going to best solve the business need. And then helped put together the recommendations for the, the path forward. Again, you'll see that we've talked about value delivery. We will also continue to look at collaboration. And sometimes a role that it plays at this stage is helping the business think about what the solutions could be. And therefore, we bring in some creativity tools because sometimes if you've been mired and doing the same work for many years, it's difficult to think about what the future should look like or could look like. So the BA plays an important role thereof starting to get beyond what we always have done. The final class, a solution deployment and evaluation. And in this module, we are going to again do a checkpoint on where we are. Take us from the beginning of defining the business need all the way through the operational application of those business needs, coming up with what the solution should be, and then ultimately through to the implementation and validation of success. So we're going to think about the implementation. Part of the role of the BA is to help the business area understand their readiness. Have they done all the things they need to do? Are we ready for a successful implementation from a technology perspective, from an operational perspective, from a data perspective, from an organizational view as well. Then as we implement and we evaluate and look at our performance. Then we identify those barriers that may be inhibiting actual fulfillment of our business objectives. And we look at the measures that are going to help us evaluate that. We look at those barriers and we hope to find solutions that are going to help us close the gap between where we are pre-implementation, post implementation, and where our ultimate desired state is. And we look at opportunity, try to go and solve for that. So one of the questions that I get given those classes that we've just talked about is who typically could or should attend our business analysis certificate program. And I've put him into a couple of different buckets. One of them is obviously BH, people who are performing business analysis work. And I would say that not everybody has it be a title, but they are the people who are harvesting the business need creating requirements, helping to design what the solution should be, and then helping the business be successful implementation. So if you do any or all of those functions, you're performing business analysis work and he'd be a great candidate for this series. I also get a lot of folks who have alternate careers and they're thinking about getting into business analysis. And I've found many times they bring skills from their prior disciplines that are very interesting, but they're really focused on understanding the foundations. So those folks are also, they, they derive great benefit from going through the series. We see teams who are looking to come. So we have multiple folks from an organization that will come together to the series so that they can not only work on their individual skills that they can think about as an organization, what are some business analysis best practices that we can bring back into our organization? So I often have groups of 348 that come together to take this series to enhance not only their individual performance, but their organizational practices as well. And then the other group that I get and occasionally are the leaders of folks who are performing business analysis work. That could be project managers, it could be other organizational leaders. And they're trying to get a better understanding of what is this business analysis thing and what should I be expecting of my employees and what do they need to be successful? What is my role to help them? So it often creates some great conversations when we have all of these folks represented in a series. But I've had every every one of these, almost in every certificate group that we've had any cohort. And everybody comes in with a little bit different objective for what they're trying to accomplish. But I think they all come away with achieving those and better understanding. Both what business analysis is, what our keys to success, what are some of the attributes of a great Ba? And how do we deliver better business value for our organizations individually and collectively. So that's information we have for our business analysis certificate program. If you have more questions, I've included Meg and valence information here, please reach out to her. We look forward to seeing you in class soon. Thank you.
UD PCS Business Analysis Information Session
From Meghan Abel July 22, 2022
5 plays
5
0 comments
0
You unliked the media.
Learn more about the Business Analysis Certificate from UD’s Division of Professional
and Continuing Studies.
…Read more
Less…
- Tags
Link to Media Page
Loading
Add a comment