The Business Analysis Handbook: Techniques and Questions to Deliver Better Business Outcomes

Cover
Contents
List of figures and tables
About the author
Acknowledgements
1 Preparation for business analysis
	Introduction
	What is business analysis?
	How did I become a business analyst?
	What are some tips on becoming a business analyst?
	What skills are needed for business analysis?
	What are the reasons for having business analysis?
	What are the different project methodologies and when is best to use each one?
	What are the different types of roles in business analysis?
	What are the different business analysis artefacts
	What are the main challenges facing someone who does business analysis?
2 Effective working relationships
	Introduction
	What types of stakeholders will you need to engage with?
	How do you build effective working relationships with your different stakeholders?
	How do you change your communication approach to meet the needs of your stakeholders?
	What do you do when stakeholders go straight to the solution without explaining the context or vision?
	Why is getting requirements/information from stakeholders so difficult and how do you overcome it?
	How do you run a workshop/meeting effectively?
3 Business context and vision
	Introduction
	How do you know you are solving the right problem?
	How do you gain consensus for the direction of the project and its scope with all stakeholders?
	How do you go about identifying all your stakeholders?
	How do you identify constraints that might influence the solution?
	How do you identify the needs that might influence the solution?
	How do you ensure the overall solution agreed will meet the business needs?
	How do you justify the benefits and estimated costs?
4 Business context and business processes
	Introduction
	What is process modelling?
	How do you work out what level of detail to use for mapping processes?
	What are the benefits of process modelling?
	How do you go about identifying the processes in the first place?
	How do you put a process map together?
	What standard and symbols should you use?
	How do you analyse process maps for improvement?
5 Business context/understanding requirements
	Introduction
	Why is there a hierarchy of requirements and why does it matter?
	What are the different methods for requirements elicitation?
	How do you formulate a good requirement?
	What goes into a business requirements document?
	What are assumptions, dependencies, risks and issues?
	What are the implications of mixing up business requirements, assumptions, dependencies, risks and issues?
6 System context/understanding requirements
	Introduction
	What are the techniques for understanding and documenting functional requirements (use case models, use cases, user stories, storyboarding and traditional table format)?
	How do you deal with global non-functional requirements?
	How do you adapt requirements for commercial off the shelf packages?
	What is involved in the procurement process and how can business analysis help?
	How do you evaluate responses from software providers?
	What are the approaches for agile projects?
7 Managing requirements
	Introduction
	How do you get stakeholders to read your documentation?
	How to handle stakeholders’ feedback when they have reviewed your documentation
	How do you get your documentation signed off?
	How do you prioritize requirements?
	What is traceability and why is it important?
	How do you conduct traceability?
	How do you manage changes to requirements?
8 Enterprise business analysis
	Introduction
	What is enterprise business analysis?
	How do you identify new or transformational enterprise initiatives?
	How do you prepare a company for business agility?
9 Templates
	Introduction
	What are the best practice guidelines when documenting?
	What are the benefits and drawbacks of having templates?
	Vision document template
	Business process document template
	Business requirements document template
	Solution requirements document template (UML)
	Solution requirements document template (non-functional)
	Solutions requirements document template (business solutions)
Index