Course Overview

This course prepares participants to sit the one-hour, multiple-choice examination leading to the Foundation Certificate in Business Analysis which is part of the BCS Professional Certification portfolio (ISEB). This certificate is a specialist module for the Diploma in Business Analysis.

SFIA Mapping

This course supports skill REQM, level 3.

Course Content

1. What is Business Analysis?
   • The rationale for business analysis
   • The development of business analysis
   • The scope of business analysis
   • The role and responsibilities of a business analyst
2. The Competencies of a Business Analyst
   • The Business Analysis Maturity Model
   • The responsibilities of a business analyst
   • The competencies of a business analyst
   • The Skills Framework for the Information Age
3. Strategy analysis
   • The strategic context
   • Developing business strategies
   • Strategic analysis techniques
   • SWOT analysis
   • Implementing strategy
4. The Business Analysis Process Model
   • The lifecycle for business analysis
   • Creative problem-solving approach
   • Stages of the lifecycle
   • Deliverables and activities for each stage
5. Investigation techniques
   • Interviewing and workshops
   • Observation approaches
   • Scenarios and prototyping
   • Quantitative investigation techniques
   • Documenting business situations
6. Stakeholder analysis and management
   • Categorising stakeholders
   • Analysing stakeholders
   • Stakeholder management
7. Modelling business systems
   • Soft systems methodology
   • Documenting business situations
   • Business perspectives
   • Business activity models
   • Business events and business rules
   • Performance measures
   • Gap analysis
8. Modelling business processes
   • The organisational view of business processes
   • Business process modelling techniques
   • Business process improvement
9. Gathering the Requirements
   • The requirements engineering process
   • Actors in requirements engineering
   • Requirements elicitation
   • Requirements analysis
   • Requirements validation
10. Documenting and managing requirements
    • The importance of documentation
    • The requirements document
    • The requirements catalogue
    • Managing requirements
11. Modelling requirements
    • Modelling system functions
    • Modelling system data
12. Delivering the requirements
    • The context for the delivery approach
    • The waterfall lifecycle
    • The ‘V’ model lifecycle
    • Incremental delivery
    • Iterative or evolutionary systems development lifecycle
13. Making a business and financial case
    • The business case in the project lifecycle
    • Identifying options
    • Assessing feasibility
    • Structure of a business case
    • Investment appraisal techniques
    • Presenting the business case
    • Realising the benefits
14. Implementing business change
    • Introducing a new business system
    • The environment for change
    • Emotions and the change process