Course Summary
The business analyst spends a significant amount of time
facilitating requirements. Yet, many business analysts
lack formal training on this vital skill.
A successful facilitation session results in requirements
that you can begin to analyze and work with. Facilitation
Techniques for Requirements Development focuses on teaching
the facilitation skills necessary to elicit and analyze
requirements on a project.
In this highly interactive course, you will learn how to
effectively help stakeholders define their needs and form
these needs into quantifiable requirements through facilitation.
As a facilitator, you will learn how to prepare for and
conduct both face-to-face and remote group sessions.
You will be exposed not only to several facilitator techniques
such as brainstorming, JAD and focus groups, but you will
also learn how to manage conflict in a session. Most importantly,
you will have the opportunity to practice these skills
in a safe environment with a trained facilitator to guide
you through various activities.
You will leave the class with the confidence to prepare
for a session, including creating a facilitation plan,
motivating a group's participation, building consensus,
managing conflict, maintaining session focus and evaluating
results for lessons learned.
Topics Covered In This Course
What is Facilitation?
- Facilitation techniques and practices
- The facilitation process
What is Business Analysis?
Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK)
- BABOK knowledge areas
- The business analysis process
Facilitating in Business Analysis
- The role of the business analysis facilitator
- The responsibilities of the business analysis facilitator
Facilitation Session Preparation
Considerations for Remote Sessions
- Environmental
- Preparation
- During the session
- Wrapping up
Facilitation in Business Analysis is Iterative
- Evoke Group Creativity
- The creative process
- Overcoming blocks to group creativity
- Creativity in context
- New products, services, and system features
- Improving products and services
- Recognizing problems
- Solving problems of different kinds
- Analyzing the environment
- Sample tools for generating & evaluating ideas
- Brainstorming
- Checklists
- Ask Questions
- Affinity Diagrams
- Future Scenarios
- Mind Mapping
- Storyboarding
- Case Study: tools and techniques for generating ideas for
defining high level business requirements and system features
- Vision—enterprise analysis
- Brainstorming
- 5 Whys?
- Brainwriting/Crawford Slip
- Definition—requirement elicitation
- Focus group
- Joint Application Design (JAD)
- Analysis—requirements analysis and documentation
- Gap analysis
- Root-cause analysis
- Force-field analysis
- Decision—solution assessment and validation
- Multi-voting
- SWOT analysis
- Criteria-based grid
- Impact/effort grid
Support Decision Making
- The group decision making process
- Consensus vs. majority vs. individual
- Choosing the appropriate approach
- Sample tools for making decisions
- Rating Alternatives
- Nominal Group Technique
- Brainstorming Filtering
- Consensus Card Method
- Paired Choice Matrix
- Case Study: applying practical tools and techniques for
deciding system features
Verification of the Facilitation Session Plan
Facilitation Practices
- Generating participation
- Neutrality
- Active listening
- Questioning
- Paraphrasing
- Using flip charts
- Maintain focus
- Intervention
- Feedback
- Summarizing
- Synthesizing ideas
Executing a Facilitation Session
- Prior to the session
- Starting the session
- Conducting the session
- Ending the session
Facilitation Conflict Techniques
- Argument vs. debate
- How to intervene
- Choices in resolving issues
- Working toward consensus
BA Facilitation Opportunities
- Assessing your growing edge
- Setting-up a plan for growth
- Keeping track of progress
- Tools for continuous growth
- Breaking through self-imposed ceilings
What You Can Expect
At the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Identify the use of facilitation in business analysis.
- Explain the role and responsibilities of a business analysis
facilitator.
- Plan a facilitation session.
- Use the appropriate facilitation techniques for a given
session.
- Conduct a facilitation session using best practices .
- Manage conflict during a session.
- Identify facilitation opportunities in business analysis.
- Facilitate using proven techniques for business requirements
gathering.
- Identify when and how to use each technique.
- Develop confidence and a skill set to conduct facilitated
sessions.
- Actively practice learned skills and techniques.
- Use a requirements planning session template.
- Prepare the participants for the requirements gathering
session.
- Perform each facilitation role through role playing each
session.
- Conduct the session to stay focused on the core requirement
that was planned as a deliverable.
- Select which facilitation technique to use for each core
requirement being gathered.
- Complete checklists for managing and conducting the session.
- Facilitate a requirements gathering session.
Who Should Take This Course
This workshop is intended for project managers, project
team members, software managers, business and systems
analysts, quality assurance analysts, developers, and
consultants, and other software professionals who are
or will be involved in specifying requirements for software
systems and who want to learn how to successfully incorporate
facilitation techniques and other methodologies into the
requirements process.
This seminar is intended for anyone involved in managing
or undertaking software development projects. No level
of technical expertise is required for this course.
Recommended Prerequisites
Prior to taking this course, you should have acquired the
background as taught in How to Gather and Document
User Requirements.
Training Style
Instructor-led, group-paced, classroom-delivery learning
model with structured hands-on activities, group discussions
and case studies.
The seminar can be tailored to your specific needs. Actual
organization examples may be used throughout the presentation
as examples or the instructor will use generic examples.
In addition, we further customize by going through the course
agenda with you and have you tell us which items you want
stressed and emphasized. There is no extra charge for
this customization.
Related Courses
Code |
Course Title |
Duration |
Level |
|
TTVREQ |
Testing Techniques for Tracing and Validating Requirements |
3 Days |
I |
Details |
WEREQ |
Writing Effective Requirements |
2 Days |
I |
Details |
BAREQ |
Eliciting and Managing Requirements for Successful Software Development |
3 Days |
I |
Details |
Every student attending a Verhoef Training class will receive
a certificate good for $100 toward their next public class taken
within a year.
You can also buy "Verhoef Vouchers" to get a discounted rate for a
single student in any of our public or web-based classes.
Contact your account manager or our sales office for details.