Developing a Business Analysis Work Plan

Introduction

•  Business analysis planning.
  • Overview of business analysis planning activities.
  • Discuss the relationship of the project manager and the business analyst in planning.
• Use of the BA Planning Framework^™ approach to planning.
  • Project - Understanding the project characteristics.
  • People - Identifying stakeholders and planning for communications.
  • Process - Planning the analysis activities.
• The business analysis work plan.

Planning for Different Types of Projects

• Planning for a large development project.
• Planning for enhancement or maintenance projects.
• Planning for a COTS (commercial of the shelf software) project.
• Planning for an outsourced or off-shore development project.
• Planning for a project using a RUP style/iterative style development methodology.
• Planning for an agile style development process.
• Planning for a reporting or data warehouse project.
• Planning for a process improvement effort.
• Planning for an infrastructure upgrade (getting a new email system or operating system like VISTA).
• Group workshop: Discuss planning considerations for case study projects

Project - Understanding the Project Characteristics

• Let's get started - a checklist to assess the current state of the project and to help get started
• The Project Overview Worksheet - Is the project clearly defined?
  • Business objectives
  • Problems/opportunities
  • Requirements scope
  • High-level business processes

• The Business Impact Worksheet - What is the relative importance of the project to the organization?

  • Size (number of stakeholders, number of business processes involved, number of business rules).
  • Importance (estimated cost, potential benefits, criticality of business area, level of key stakeholders).
  • Risk (project, business, technology).
• Enterprise analysis - understanding how this project fits into the organization's overall strategy.
• Group workshop - assess the project and score the business impact of a sample project.

People - Stakeholder Analysis and the Communication Plan

• Why plan for stakeholder interactions?
• Assess the project sponsor
• Identify both primary and secondary stakeholders:
  • Searching for all stakeholders, not just the obvious ones
  • Understanding each stakeholder's area of concern
  • Documenting stakeholder's needs
  • Consider the characteristics of each stakeholder group
• Determine effective communication practices for each stakeholder group:
  • Is this group providing requirements, using requirements, or supporting the project work?
  • Which elicitation technique(s) will be most effective?
  • What requirement presentation format will be most comfortable for this group?
• The Stakeholder Analysis Worksheet
  • When and where will communications with each stakeholder be most effective?
  • What are the best communication techniques for each stakeholder?
• Group workshop - identify and analyze the stakeholder groups for an example project and identify the appropriate communication techniques 

Process - Planning the Analysis Activities

• Plan the analysis activities
  • Step one - Assess which requirements components are needed?
  • Step two - Determine which deliverables are needed using the Deliverable List Worksheet
  • Step three - Develop an approach for creating each deliverable using The Deliverable Worksheet
• Consult with organizational standards/methodologies for required deliverables.

Creating the Business Analysis Work Plan

• Step one - Create the business analysis task list
• Step two - Estimate analysis time
• Using historical data to estimate
• Tracking actual time to estimate 
• Step three - Finalize the business analysis work plan 
• Group workshop - develop a task list of analysis and requirements activities for a sample project.
• Intelligent negotiation skills.
• Getting signoff on the plan.
• Base lining the plan and initiating change control.

Course Summary

• Final thoughts
• Planning Worksheet Map
• Optional Exercises

Appendix - Ongoing Requirements Management

• What is Requirments Management?
  • Using a requirements repository
  • Develop a requirements management plan
  • Reusing existing requirements
  • Reusing existing data
  • Identifying requirements attributes
• Plan for requirements traceability.
  • Learn about traceability matrices and requirements links.
  • Understand the purpose of forward and backward traceability.
  • Determine which requirements should be "traced."
  • Determine the appropriate approach for managing traceability.
  • Exercise: Perform impact analysis using traceability.

Appendix - Project Cost/Benefit Analysis

• Learn the purpose of cost/benefit analysis
• Learn to use the requirements package to estimate project costs and benefits 

Appendix - Enterprise Analysis

• Learn to use root cause analysis.
• Learn to use SWOT analysis.
• Learn to create a high-level Six Sigma SIPOC process map.

Appendix - Advanced Project Initiation Requirements

Course Length:
3 days

PDUs:
Earn 21 IIBA CDUs

Public Pricing:
$1795.00 per student