Reshaping the Approach to Business Analysis

Today's conventional approach to requirements analysis and engineering is limited in its value as organizations attempt to address demands for increased innovation, rapid product and service rollout, outsourcing and new technology enablers such as BPMS, business rules engines and SOA. 

Additionally, the agile development movement and IT-centric methods for analyzing and designing software solutions don't accurately represent how business processes, rules, events, knowledge and human to system interaction fit together. This prevents the creation of a cohesive business solution design that can be understood by the business analysts and their stakeholders.

The inability to preserve business concepts throughout the business/IT change lifecycle leaves the business community to continually rely on their IT counterparts to understand the details of how their business operates, resulting in a cycle of rework that is incompatible with agility.

This one-day course provides students with an introduction to defining requirements and representing business behavior scenarios at a level above technical software designs. It provides business analysts a way to make a transition from their "go-between" role for business and IT to a valued advocate for the business that has an instrumental role in designing key aspects of a business solution with a service-based product mindset.

This new perspective for the business analyst results in the creation of higher quality requirements and specifications that can be validated for completeness and consistency. Which results in reduced downstream risk, change requests and production defects in the business and software change lifecycle.

Through the integrated case study within the course, students are introduced to techniques and tools that elevate the role of the business analyst. Exercises are used to walk through the inception of business needs, requirements and business specifications that can map to executable workflows, business rules, user interfaces and software services .

In addition to business analysts, the course is ideal for business process and business architecture professionals interested in understanding how strategic and analytical deliverables within their organization can translate into operational models. This allows them to:

• Influence IT to make better decisions
• Help break the cycle of dysfunction that exists between business and IT
• Facilitate the mapping of business behavior directly to BPMSs, business rules engines and software services