Business Analyst & Applied Communications Diploma

Business analysis enables change within organizations by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value. Gain an excellent understanding of what business analysis is and why it is so vital to today’s organizations. Learn about the role of the business analyst and how to perform key tasks and techniques. Discover A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK Guide) from International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). Learn how these concepts and techniques are applied to real world situations.

Requirements are rarely obvious or clearly defined up front. Business analysts perform the art of elicitation to draw out requirements and develop a clear shared vision. Learn how to perform elicitation, communicate results, and manage collaboration with all stakeholders. Discover how to use a combination of interpersonal and object-based techniques to develop the appropriate approach to performing business analysis for your particular situation.

Once requirements are identified, they need to be modelled so that everyone understands what they are and can ensure they are relevant to the change being performed, then evaluated for potential options. Learn how to evaluate the quality of requirements and how to validate them against the needs to be addressed. Discover the relationship between business analysis and solution design, and how to develop evaluation criteria to determine which option is the best fit for the organization.

Once solutions are in place, organizations need to ensure they are actually meeting business needs and are operating correctly. Learn how to measure the performance of a solution and recommend actions to increase the solution’s value. Solution and enterprise limitations will be assessed to identify opportunities to expand organizational capabilities. Techniques such as benchmarking, decision analysis and root cause analysis will be used to determine whether to continue with an existing solution or look for an alternative.

Requirements can change at any time. Priorities, market factors, new information or solution offerings can all affect requirements. Business analysts need to be able to properly manage changes to requirements and designs. Learn how to assess changes to requirements as they occur. Discover how tracing requirements helps understand the impact of changes, and how to facilitate the prioritization and approval of requirements. Tools and techniques that can be used to manage requirements throughout their entire life cycle will also be examined.

Business analysts need to develop approaches and plans that are tailored to the change being considered. Learn how to create appropriate business analysis plans based on the unique combination of people, organizational structure and capabilities, and the proposed change. Develop business analysis governance and information strategies, and assess business analysis performance. Discover how to estimate business analysis activity effort and durations and ensure all stakeholders are engaged in the business analysis approach

Gain an understanding of the project characteristics, along with the five Project Management Process Groups: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing to enhance overall performance and the success of projects in any organization or industry. Discover how to integrate the ten Knowledge Area processes, tools, techniques and templates in a manner that can be readily applied in the workplace. Learn how to apply various techniques such as stakeholder analysis, work breakdown structure, scheduling, estimating, risk assessments, evaluation criteria, change control and lessons learned

In today’s increasingly complex and fast-changing world, collaborations is a necessity for organizations of all types and sizes. Getting and staying on the same page, and working together while leveraging individual and group creativity may not come automatically. Effective group facilitation can help maximize the synergy in collaboration. An effective facilitator can serve as an enabler to help accelerate the process of gaining clarity, solving problems, and building consensus.