Introduction to Business Analysis

Course Description

Business analysis is the discipline of identifying business needs and requirements and designing and executing solutions to business problems. This introductory course provides a wide-ranging overview of the principles and concepts of business analysis, with a focus on the following six areas: needs assessment, stakeholder engagement, requirements elicitation, requirements analysis, requirements tracing and monitoring, and solution evaluation. This course covers the common stages of a business analysis project and describes common terminology and tools and techniques utilized by a business analyst. It provides subject matter expert testimony by business analysis practitioners on important topics related to successfully completing business analysis activities. This course also considers the place of business analysis and product development life cycles within the greater scheme of project life cycle management. While this course is not officially or directly aligned as an exam prep course, it contains sufficient content that can be used as a resource for individuals preparing for the PMI-PBA® or IIBA-CBAP® certification exams, containing over 170 questions.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this course, the learner should be able to:

• Explain the general concepts of business analysis and its strategic importance
• Discuss the role of the business analyst in different organizations and identify skills needed
• Describe the concept of requirements and identify the various types of analysis
• Create a needs assessment and roadmap to the future state
• Analyze current capabilities, design future state options, and recommend the best option for implementation
• Identify and engage with stakeholders to prepare them for the transition to the future state
• Define requirements elicitation and outline the elicitation process
• Employ analysis tools and techniques to refine requirements in order to validate, verify, and prioritize requirements and essential product information
• Manage changes, linkages, and dependencies related to requirements
• Evaluate the solution to determine business value and the product's fitness for release