BCS Foundation Certificate in Business Analysis + Exam

The certificate is relevant to anyone requiring an understanding of Business Analysis

Including

• Business analysts
• Business managers and their staff
• Business change managers
• Project managers

Candidates should be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of business analysis principles and techniques.

Key areas are:

• the role and competencies of a business analyst
• strategy analysis
• business system and business process modelling
• stakeholder analysis
• investigation and modelling techniques
• requirements engineering
• business case development

1. What is Business Analysis

• The origins of business analysis
• The development of business analysis

- The impact of outsourcing
- Competitive advantage of using IT
- Successful business change
- The importance of the business analyst
- Business analysts as internal consultants

• The scope of business analysis work

- The range of analysis activities
- Strategic analysis and definition
- IT systems analysis
- Business analysis

• Taking a holistic approach
• The role and responsibilities of a business analyst
  

- Definition of the business analyst role
- Further aspects of the business analyst role

2. The Competencies of a Business Analyst

• Personal qualities
• Business knowledge
• Professional techniques
• The development of competencies

3. Strategy Analysis

• The context for strategy
• The definition of strategy (Johnson, Scholes and Whittington 2008)
• Strategy development
• External environment analysis

- PESTLE analysis
- Porter’s five forces model

• Internal environment analysis

- MOST analysis
- Resource Audit
- Boston Box

• SWOT analysis
• Executing strategy

- The McKinsey 7-S model
- The Balanced Business Scorecard
- Critical Success Factors and Key Performance Indicators

4. The Business Analysis Process Model

• An approach to problem-solving
• Stages of the business analysis process model

- Investigate the situation
- Consider the perspectives
- Analyse the needs
- Evaluate the options
- Define the requirements

• Objectives of the process model stages
• Procedure for each process model stage
• Techniques used within each process model stage

5. Investigation techniques

• Interviews

- Advantages and disadvantages of interviewing
- Preparing for interviewing
- Conducting the interview
- Following up the interview

• Observation

- Advantages and disadvantages of observation
- Formal observation
- Protocol analysis
- Shadowing
- Ethnographic studies

• Workshops

- Advantages and disadvantages of workshops
- Preparing for the workshop
- Facilitating the workshop
- Techniques
- Following the workshop

• Scenarios

- Advantages and disadvantages of scenarios
- Process for developing scenarios
- Documenting scenarios

• Prototyping

- Advantages and disadvantages of prototyping

• Quantitative approaches

- Surveys or Questionnaires
- Special Purpose Records
- Activity Sampling
- Document Analysis

• Documenting the current situation

- Rich Pictures
- Mind Maps

6. Stakeholder Analysis and Management

• Stakeholder categories and identification

- Customers
- Partners
- Suppliers
- Competitors
- Regulators
- Owners
- Employees
- Managers

• Analysing stakeholders

- The Power/Interest Grid

• Stakeholder management strategies

- No or low interest and no or low power/influence
- Some or high interest but no or low power/influence
- No or low to high interest but some power/influence
- No or low interest but high power/influence
- Some interest and high power/influence
- High interest and high power/influence

• Managing stakeholders

- Stakeholder plan/assessment

• Understanding stakeholder perspectives

- Soft Systems Methodology
- Analysing the perspectives
- CATWOE

• Business activity models

- Creating a business activity model
- Types of activities – Plan, Enable, Do, Monitor, Control
- Developing a consensus model

7. Modelling Business Processes

• Organisational context

- Functional view of an organisation

• An alternative view of an organisation
• The organisational view of business processes
• Value propositions
• Process models

- Business events
- Developing the business process model

• Analysing the as-is process model
• Improving business processes (to-be business process)

- Business rules
- Simplify the process
- Remove bottlenecks
- Change the sequence of tasks
- Redefine process boundary
- Automate the processing
- Redesign the process

8. Defining the solution

• Gap analysis

- Identifying areas of concern
- Framework for gap analysis (elements of POPIT model)
- Formulating options

• Introduction to Business Architecture
• Definition of Business Architecture
• Business Architecture techniques

- Definition of a capability model
- Definition of a value stream

9. Making a Business and Financial Case

• The business case in the project lifecycle
• Identifying options
• Assessing project feasibility

- Business feasibility
- Technical feasibility
- Financial feasibility

• Structure of a business case

- Contents of a business case
- Categories of costs and benefits
- Impact assessment
- Risk assessment

• Investment appraisal

- Payback
- Discounted cash flow and Internal rate of return

10. Establishing the Requirements

• A framework for requirements engineering
• Actors in requirements engineering

- The business representatives
- The project team

• Requirements elicitation

- Tacit and explicit knowledge
- Requirements elicitation techniques

• Requirements analysis

- Requirements filters
- SMART requirements

• Requirements validation

11. Documenting and Managing Requirements

• The requirements document

- Structure
- Content of the requirements document

• The requirements catalogue

- Types of requirements; general, technical, functional and non-functional
- Hierarchy of requirements
- Documenting a requirement

• Managing requirements

- Elements of requirements management

12. Modelling Requirements

• Modelling system functions

- Use case diagrams

• Modelling system data

- Entity Relationship Diagrams
o Entities, attributes and relationships
o Types of relationships
- Class Models
o Objects and classes
o Attributes
o Associations

13. Delivering the Requirements

• Delivering the solution
•  Context
• Lifecycles

- The waterfall lifecycle
- The ‘V’ model lifecycle
- Incremental lifecycle
- Iterative systems development lifecycle

14. Delivering the Business Solution

• BA role in the business change lifecycle
• Design stage

- Information and Technology
o Development
o Testing
o Design

• Implementation stage

- SARAH model

• Realisation stage

- Contents of the benefits plan

None

Examination Details

• Examination type: Multiple-choice
• Questions Number of questions: 40
• Pass mark: 65%
• Open book/notes: No
• Electronic equipment/aides permitted: No
• Exam duration: 60 minutes

The Rules and Regulations for EXIN’s examinations apply to this exam.

  The following are recommended for further study:

• BCS-BAP - BCS Practitioner Certificate in Business Analysis Practice + Exam
• BCS-MBP - BCS Practitioner Certificate in Modelling Business Processes + Exam
• BCS-RE - BCS Practitioner Certificate in Requirements Engineering + Exam