Business Analysis Curriculum
- Introduction to Business Analysis
- This course is designed to provide foundational understanding of the skills and knowledge areas of Business Analysis. This introductory course exposes the student to the concepts of Business Analysis at a high level. The course includes discussions of the multi-faceted role of the Business Analyst and examines the fundamental skills required. It explores such critical skills as communication techniques, risk analysis, visual modeling, and the gathering, documenting, managing and transmitting of requirements.
- Business Requirements Workshop
- This course introduces the student to requirements management and requirements development concepts. The Business Analyst will gain in-depth insights into the responsibilities and processes of requirements management. Beginning with an overview of project phases and software development lifecycle, the audience is taken through the essential process of requirements management such as requirements documentation, change management, requirements traceability, and the role of the BA in the process. In the requirements development process, students gain understanding of requirement levels and types, requirements flow, characteristics of good requirements, writing good requirements, and requirements elicitation techniques. In a combined lecture and workshop format, students will study these concepts and techniques. They will apply them by creating the relevant artifacts, with emphasis on customizing the approach and artifacts to fit their organization’s needs.
- Business Process Modeling
- This course is designed to provide students with the key fundamental concepts of Business Process Modeling. The course provides an initial foundation of knowledge, which prepares the student for advanced Business Process Modeling topics. This course includes discussions on the value of modeling systems, the process of building models, Business Process modeling notation, context diagramming, functional decomposition with data flow modeling, and model verification and validation. This course is designed to be 50% to 75% exercises and discussions depending on the needs and experience of the class participants, and on the number of class days being taught.
- Fundamentals of Testing for Business Analysts
- This course will introduce the Business Analyst to the fundamentals and principles of software testing. It emphasizes those features of testing that are of primary concern to the BA. Specifically this course explores the basics of quality and quality management. It examines test types that are generally the responsibility of the BA, such as regression testing and user acceptance testing.
- Object Oriented Software Development for the Business Analyst
- This course gives an overview of the object-oriented approach to software development with emphasis on the responsibilities and expectations of the Business Analyst. It introduces the concepts of OO development and emphasizes the usage of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to develop and document software design. Special emphasis is placed on those aspects of OO development where Business Analysts are involved.
- Use Case Workshop
- This workshop provides students with a hands-on introduction to creating a use case model consisting of use case diagrams and specifications. The workshop focuses on creating an initial use case model that will evolve and adapt as the workshop progresses. The student will be introduced to the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and visual modeling. Students will first learn how to discover, define, and document actors and use cases and then how to develop the all-important specification. The workshop will build on these concepts by providing practical techniques to writing subsequently more detailed use cases. Students will also be invited to come to class prepared to build use cases to manage client specific requirements. This will assure that participants will be able to apply training to everyday projects immediately upon returning to work. This portion of the class can be customized based on client needs.