Business Analysis Essentials

Basic Windows knowledge, OO technology knowledge may be useful.

Audience:

Business consultants, Business analysts, Project Managers, IT professionals.

Introduction

• Why do you need business models?
• Modeling skills

Defining the Scope of Modeling

• What is a business model?
• Separating textual and diagrammatic elements
• Contrasting scope with level of detail

Crafting a process to develop a business model

• Applying the steps: elicit, analyze, document, validate
• Iterating the steps
• Facilitating requirements workshops
• Mapping models to deliverables

Charting the multidimensional aspects of a business model

• Applying the five Ws approach: who, what, where, when, why and how
• Selecting the right modeling approach
• Employing CASE tools and simulation

Mapping the Business Landscape

• Analyzing the enterprise
• Exploring the enterprise architecture
• Decomposing the architecture into its components
• Usage of a Component Business Model

Applying business rules

• Documenting the constraints: operative and structural
• Representing rules with decision tables
• Scoping Business Functions

Initiating the process with functional decomposition

• Determining the functional hierarchies
• Distinguishing between functions and processes

Drawing UML use case diagrams

• Defining scope and boundary
• Identifying the actors
• Refining the use cases

Documenting business use cases

• Selecting the appropriate level of detail
• Specifying preconditions and post-conditions
• Modeling Business Processes

Applying process modeling techniques

• Workflows
• Events
• Activities
• Decisions
• Sequencing
• Messaging
• Roles

Leveraging Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)

• Benefits from a standardized approach
• Sequencing and classifying activities
• Categorizing events
• Emulating a Business Process

Refining business process diagrams

• Choosing the right gateway: decisions, forks and joins
• Mapping the processes to swim lanes and pools
• Supplementing the model with artifacts

Analyzing the Enterprise Structure

• Establishing the business domain
• Documenting the workers and organization units
• Modeling systems, documents, information and tools

Structuring the enterprise with UML class diagrams

• Determining object attributes
• Generalizing and specializing relationships
• Constructing associations between the classes
• Packaging for domains and functional units

Finalizing the Business Model

• Achieving complete coverage with matrices
• Prioritizing features
• Cross-referencing requirements
• Correlating behavior with roles

Contextualizing the model with perspectives

• Documenting business interfaces
• Mapping from means into ends
• Capturing time parameters

Communicating the Model to Key Stakeholders

• Knowing your audience
• Selecting the right level of detail
• Choosing the right model for your audience
• Converting business models into user requirements
• Delivering your models