A business analyst is responsible for assessing the business impact of change, capturing, analysing and documenting requirements and supporting the communication and delivery of requirements with relevant stakeholders. You will create detailed analysis of systems and make recommendations for improvement. You will produce specifications of user requirements that enable software engineers to develop the right software solutions. You will require a broad foundation of skills and knowledge to be able to be effective at your work and incorporate all aspects of digital technology systems.

Pre-requisite ECM3434 Business Analysis 1

The aim of this module is to further develop your knowledge of business analysis methods and your expertise in their application to the business context, addressing techniques for exploring complex problem situations with a range of stakeholders and more advanced skills in the use of data and process modelling and requirements analysis techniques.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

Module Specific Skills and Knowledge

1. Apply structured processes for identifying, defining and analysing unstructured business problems, their root cause and impact

2. Develop and apply modelling and analysis techniques to describe business problem scenarios and to help select solutions using a range of industry standard analysis techniques

3. Elicit and prioritise business requirements for an IT system using ‘industry best practice’ methods

4. Develop a clear, complete, unambiguous and testable requirements specification, including functional, non-functional, data, user interface and security requirements.

5. Model the ‘as is’ and future state for a business process using industry standard approaches and notation.

6. Evaluate selected models against business objectives and system requirements

7. Use ‘industry’ standard tools to facilitate the analysis, documentation and traceability of requirements

8. Develop and maintain models of system functionality using industry standard approaches such as use case diagrams with supporting use case descriptions

9. Use techniques to document, analyse and redesign business processes

10. Develop models of system data, such as entity relationship models or analysis class models, with supporting descriptions

Discipline Specific Skills and Knowledge

11. Adapt business analysis tools and techniques to real world scenarios

12. Use of requirements elicitation techniques and their relevance to given situations

13. Understand The principles of requirements engineering and the importance of managing requirements

14. Conduct a range of business/organisational analyses

15. Use of tools to support modelling and requirements engineering

16. Understand how selected models inter-relate with each other

17. Understand products of analysis feed into the design and development of a system

18. Troubleshoot the problems that can arise with requirements and how these can be mitigated

19. Develop The principles of requirements validation and approaches to validating requirements

20. Develop, document and prioritise a set of functional and non-functional requirements

Personal and Key Transferable / Employment Skills and Knowledge

21. Communicate orally and in writing

22. Solve problems creatively

23. Think analytically and critically

24. Organise your own work

25. Work to a deadline

26.Collaborate and negotiate

27. Make decisions

Analysis of business scenarios/problems (2 weeks)

•          Overview of business analysis techniques

•          Identifying, defining and analysing unstructured business problems and problem situations

           o          Describing business problem scenarios

           o          Identifying root causes

           o          Assessing impact of problems

•          Selecting solutions

Advanced business process modelling and analysis (2 weeks)

•          Overview of modelling techniques and tools

•          Modelling ‘as is’ and ‘to be’ processes; redesigning processes

•          Evaluating process models against business objectives and system requirements

Advanced data modelling and analysis (2 weeks)

•          Advanced use of entity relationship diagrams

•          Supporting descriptions

•          Use of UML class diagrams for data modelling

Advanced requirements gathering (2 weeks)

•          Overview of requirements techniques and tools

•          Eliciting and prioritising business requirements for IT systems

           o          Using elicitation techniques

           o          User stories and scenarios

           o          Prioritising requirements

•          Documenting clear, complete, unambiguous and testable requirements specifications

           o          Functional and non-functional requirements

           o          Data, user interface and security requirements

•          Validating requirements

Working with designers and developers (2 weeks)

•          Developing and maintaining models of system functionality

           o          Use case diagrams and supporting descriptions

Advanced topics in business analysis (2 weeks)

•          Using business analysis tools and techniques in the real world

           o          Selecting appropriate tools for business/organisational analyses

•          Problems that can arise with requirements

           o          Traceability of requirements

           o          Relating models with one another

           o          Requirements engineering as a potential solution

           o          Other best practices

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be deferred in the assessment. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you may be required to sit a referral. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will be capped at 40%.

ELE: http://vle.exeter.ac.uk

Reading list for this module: