Planning for Business Analysis

Course Overview
Hi, I'm Casey Ayers, and welcome to my course Planning For Business Analysis. I'm a project manager and strategic consultant with experience in a variety of fields. I'm also the author of Pluralsight's series of PMP Prep courses, and now it's my pleasure to explore the world of business analysis with you. Business analysis is increasingly vital to today's business environment by identifying problems and opportunities, discovering and recommending solutions, and fostering a comprehensive understanding of stakeholder requirements. Business analysts can help organizations choose and structure projects and initiatives more effectively. This course is the second in a five course series on business analysis. Some of the major topics that we will cover include identifying and analyzing stakeholders, the relationship between project management and business analysis, creating a comprehensive business analysis plan that sets your team up for success, and earning approval to move ahead with the important work of business analysis. By the end of this course, you'll know what questions to ask and what topics to consider in creating a plan for successful business analysis. Before beginning the course, you should have an interest in business analysis, and at least a bit of exposure to project management or business analysis within your organization. This course and others in the series can help you not only learn more about business analysis, but also prepare for business analysis certifications like the CBAP or PMI-PBA, or to earn continuing education credit towards certifications like the PMP. I hope you'll join me on this journey to learn more about business analysis with the Planning for Business Analysis course at Pluralsight.

Analyzing Stakeholders
Welcome back. In business analysis, just as in project management, understanding the role of stakeholders is key. There are many different stakeholders that are going to involved in business analysis, each of which bringing their own perspective and viewpoint, their own priorities and objectives to the table when we try and work with them to understand their preferences and the requirements that we need to compile for the project to come. In this module we're going to take a closer look at how we deal with and analyze these stakeholders in order to maximize the value of the opinions that we get from them and the discussions that we can have. First we'll look at identifying stakeholders, helping to determine who it is that should be involved in these conversations in the first place, how and to what extent. Then we'll look at considering stakeholder traits and characteristics. How we can put in the context what we hear from stakeholders based on our perspective of where they fit within the project, what their objectives and incentives might be, and so on. Then we'll look at grouping stakeholders for planning purposes. Often times there are too many stakeholders to count individually for larger projects, and indeed we can often group them in ways that help us to categorize the types of needs that might apply to each different constituency. By doing so we can come up with a more effective analysis. Then we'll look at how to compile results of analysis, taking that information from stakeholders, taking those traits and characteristics that provide some perspective, and taking the groups that we've been able to make composed of stakeholders, and turn that into something meaningful that we can work with when developing requirements. Let's get started.

Business Analysis & Project Management
Welcome back. In this module we're going to focus on the relationship between business analysis and project management. To begin, we're going to compare and contrast business analysis with requirements management, which you may be more familiar with if you're coming from a project management background. We'll talk about what sort of traits they share and how they differ. Then we'll look at business analysis in project environments, and the lifecycle of a project's impact on how business analysis is most effectively conducted. After that we'll look at lessons learned in retrospectives, the roles that each play, and the value that they can have within the business analysis process. Let's get started.

Specifying Business Analysis Plans
Welcome back. In this module we're going to begin adding more details to the structure for our business analysis plan that we've set up. First we'll look at how we define our analysis deliverables, then we'll look at determining what analysis activities we should actually accomplish, and how we should sequence them so that they're most effective. Then we'll look at assigning responsibilities, followed by estimating analysis work. Let's get started.

Moving Business Analysis Plans Forward
Welcome back. In this module we're going to look at moving business analysis plans forward. Once we know what we are seeking to accomplish, how we think we're going to go about it, in what order, and with what roles for which stakeholders, we need to gain final approval before we can begin the actual work of business analysis. First we're going to look at contextualizing analysis plans. What do business analysis plans mean to you as an analyst, to the project manager, to stakeholders, or to the project sponsor? Then we're going to look at reviewing plans with stakeholders, how we can gain that necessary buy-in, and what that buy-in might look like in order for us to move ahead. Then we'll look at earning plan approval, how we can get the formal sign-off so that we can get to the important work ahead of us. Let's get started.