1. business and industrial
2. business operations
3. management
4. project management

training & development
COURSE CATALOGUE
Capability Development
Redvespa provides a full range of BA Capability
Services in both New Zealand and offshore. If you are
looking to improve your BA team, Redvespa can help.
We will develop, mentor and support your people, in
line with your organisation’s needs.
Individual BA assessment
assess
BA capability assessment
B2T provide the highest quality business analysis
training and support for ongoing development of
business analysis professionals. B2T characteristics
include:
•
Development of the first comprehensive business
analysis training program in North America.
•
Instructors, mentors, and course developers that
are business analysis experts.
•
Founding members of the International Institute of
Business Analysis (IIBA®).
•
IIBA Endorsed Education Provider.
Capability improvement roadmap
develop
mentor
support
BA training &
development plans
BA manager backfill
BA frameworks &
methodologies
BA courses
BA mentorship
BA capability
roadmap execution
enable
Coaching and leadership
Redvespa can offer coaching, mentorship and
leadership for your team. Whether you need to reinvigorate your team or set the foundation for
developing a good practice, we’ll work with you (in line
with your business needs and current level of maturity)
to make things happen.
Requirements
management
BA supply
BABOK
IIBA
B2T Training
Kathleen Hass & Associates
BPMN
Training and development for your team
We specialise in business analysis and Business
Analysts and our approach to training and
development is specialised too. So, whether you need
to lift your game in business analysis or support
individual BAs in developing their skills, we have
offerings to suit BA Leaders, Managers and their
teams.
We also bring in other experts when we need to: our
partnership with US-based Kathleen Hass &
Associates, provides our clients access to the most
comprehensive and far-reaching assessment services
available to the BA community. Our US-based training
partner, B2T Training, allows us to leverage their
comprehensive training and development curriculum.
Redvespa’s approach leads your organisation to your
desired level of business analysis expertise. With the
right level of investment and commitment you can
fundamentally transform your organisation’s business
analysis practice in order to meet your company’s
goals. Our goal is to ensure your staff have the
necessary skills to be confident and credible to provide
positive impact to your business. The programme
begins with an assessment of your needs by
understanding the gap between where you are today
and your end goal.
The transformation does not stop in the classroom. To
support students in their transition from the classroom
to their projects we provide individualised mentoring,
business analysis consulting, requirements
management and methodology support.
Our relationship with you is a long-term partnership.
Together, we can ensure you capitalise on your
development investment and take your performance to
the next level.
www.redvespa.com
Courses
Our training programme is appropriate for new or experienced business analysts. These courses are written for
organisations looking to define the business analyst role in their companies and for individuals seeking a solid
foundational skill set.











Requirements Elicitation & Review – 1 day
Requirements Analysis Techniques – 1 day
Scope Your Area of Analysis – 1 day
Requirements Management – 1 day
Practical Process Modelling with BPMN – 2 days
Agile Requirements & Fundamentals – 2 days
Facilitating Requirements for Business Analysis – 3 days
Develop an Effective Business Case – 1 day (NEW)
Developing Use Cases – 3 days (NEW)
Develop a Business Analysis Workplan – 3 days (NEW)
Beyond Brainstorming (Creative Thinking Made Simple) – 0.5 day (NEW)
Configuration
All our training courses are configurable. We can, and often do, configure courses to match a client budget, time or
project-specific needs. Configuration includes selecting course topics from the catalogue, combining them into one or
shortening available courses.
BABOK Alignment
The table below shows the alignment of Redvespa Training courses with the IIBA Business Analysis Body of
Knowledge (BABOK). The IIBA Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) is a collection of business analysis
tasks categorised into like groupings called knowledge areas. The BABOK is not a methodology and does not infer
any particular order of performing the activities.
Course Coverage
Level 1 ● Knowledge and Comprehension
Level 2 ● Practical Application
IIBA® BABOK® Knowledge Areas
BA Planning &
Monitoring
Elicitation
Requirements
Management
and Comm
●
●
●
●
●
Enterprise
Analysis
Requirements
Analysis
Solution
Assess and
Validation
Underlying
Competencies
Essential Skills for Business Analysis
Requirements Elicitation & Review
Requirements Analysis Techniques
Scope Your Area of Analysis
●
Requirements Management
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Agile Requirements & Fundamentals
●
●
●
●
●
Facilitating Requirements for Business Analysis
●
●
●
Developing Use Cases
●
●
●
Develop a Business Analysis Workplan
●
Practical Process Modelling with BPMN
●
●
●
●
●
Develop an Effective Business Case
Beyond Brainstorming
●
●
●
●
●
Requirements Elicitation & Review
1 day
Overview
Essential Skills for Business Analysis: Part 1
Requirements Gathering. It’s not enough to merely take
orders from business stakeholders. Getting the requirements
right means not just documenting what stakeholders say, but
digging into their statements (or eliciting) to understand what
they mean. This course supports those efforts by providing
students the essential elicitation and review skills they need
to identify the right solutions and drive significant value on
their projects. Students learn repeatable steps and practice
techniques to begin elicitation, stay organised, enable critical
thinking, and confirm requirements. Students leave knowing
how to plan their elicitation within the scope of their analysis
and which requirements elicitation techniques are
appropriate based on stakeholders, project type,
methodology and complexity.
Students will learn to






Define business analysis and requirements.
Elicit requirement from stakeholders using a variety of
effective techniques.
Select the most appropriate elicitation technique for the
desired results.
Use active listening skills to ensure you hear and verify
what stakeholders are really trying to say.
Learn techniques to review and validate requirements.
Practice creative thinking skills to engage stakeholders,
uncover needs, and identify new approaches and ideas.
Interactive workshops allow students to practice the
techniques as they learn. It supports the standards outlined
in the IIBA BABOK® Guide V2.0. This course can be taken
either stand-alone or as part of the 4-day Essential Skills for
Business Analysis course.
Intended audience
Prerequisites
This course is designed for business analysts, project
managers, business systems analysts, system architects or
any other project team member involved with analysis. New
practitioners will learn the tasks they are expected to
perform and why each task is important. Experienced
practitioners will learn new techniques and more structured
approaches to improve their requirements activities. This
course may also be appropriate for individuals who manage
analysis activities and business stakeholders who need a
more in-depth understanding of the requirements process
and deliverables.
None.
IIBA Continuing Development Units: 7 hours
Pricing
Standard course cost is $900 per attendee.
For a configured option to meet your specific needs, costs may
vary. Please contact us for more information.
Course Outline
Introduction - 1 hour
Getting the Most Out of Elicitation – 2.5 hours
 Define business analysis.
 Discuss what requirements are and how they are utilised in
analysis.
 Describe requirements elicitation and techniques available.





Putting Requirements Elicitation into Practice – 3 hours
 Describe how to use 11 different elicitation techniques to
understand stakeholder requirements:
o Document Analysis
o Observation
o Interviews
o Surveys, Questionnaires
o Requirements Workshops
o Brainstorming
o Focus Groups
o Interface Analysis
o Prototyping
o Reverse Engineering
o Competitive Analysis.
 Improve your elicitation skills by
o Practicing several elicitation techniques
o Utilising active listening techniques
o Enhancing critical thinking skills
o Using various techniques for increased brainstorming
results.
 Choose the appropriate technique(s) for your project.
3
Describe the considerations for planning elicitation.
Choose the most appropriate elicitation technique(s).
Ensure the right people are involved in elicitation activities.
Validate your elicitation results.
Confirm stakeholders have a shared understanding of
requirements.
Course Summary – 30 minutes
 Bringing it all together.
 Develop an Action Plan with next steps on the student’s
current project.
www.redvespa.com
Requirements Analysis Techniques
1 day
Overview
Essential Skills for Business Analysis: Part 2
Requirements Analysis is the process of breaking down
complex topics into lower-level components to expose the
details and gain a better understanding of the parts that
make up the whole. By breaking it down, you are better able
to analyse and discuss different aspects of a topic with your
stakeholders, confirm your understanding, and communicate
the needs to others in a more logical and thorough manner.
Team members need to look at the requirements from
different perspectives as well as with varying levels of detail,
therefore it’s critical to have strong requirements analysis
skills within the team.
Poor requirements analysis results in solving the wrong
problem, missing requirements, or ineffective communication
with critical stakeholders. Excellent requirements analysis
provides an effective communication vehicle and allows for
collaboration among stakeholders to find and fill-in gaps,
clarify requirements, examine alternative solutions, and
ultimately develop an excellent product or solution.
Interactive workshops allow students to practice the
techniques as they learn. It supports the standards outlined
in the IIBA BABOK® Guide V2.0. This course can be taken
either stand-alone or as part of the 4-day Essential Skills for
Business Analysis course.
Students will learn to



Simplify your requirements into four core components
that are easier to “consume”.
Still writing requirements? Instead, identify the most
effective diagramming techniques and modelling
options to support your software development approach
(waterfall, iterative, and agile) and project type.
Compare and contrast analysis techniques in order to
select the technique(s) that will most appropriately:
 support your understanding, critical thinking and
problem solving.
 communicate information to stakeholders to
enable review and their understanding of
requirements.


Reduce confusion and development errors by creating
excellent requirements that can be easily understood by
outsourced or distributed teams.
Get the most out of your models and diagrams by
asking the right questions during analysis.
Intended audience
Prerequisites
This course is designed for business analysts, project
managers, business systems analysts, system architects or
any other project team member involved with analysis. New
practitioners will learn the tasks they are expected to
perform and why each task is important. Experienced
practitioners will learn new techniques and more structured
approaches to improve their requirements activities. This
course may also be appropriate for individuals who manage
analysis activities and business stakeholders who need a
more in-depth understanding of the requirements process
and deliverables.
None.
IIBA Continuing Development Units: 7 hours
Pricing
Standard course cost is $900 per attendee.
For a configured option to meet your specific needs, costs may
vary. Please contact us for more information.
Course Outline
Introduction – 30 minutes
 Describe requirements and the importance of requirements
analysis.
 Provide guidance on how requirements analysis techniques
are applicable within any methodology.
 Compare and contrast the requirements analysis
perspectives: what vs how and AS IS vs TO BE.
Breaking Down Requirements into Core
Components – 1 hour
 Define the four core components that make up all
requirements
o Data
o Process
o External Agent/Actor
o Business Rules.
 Describe what the core components describe.
 Identify the importance of core components to your
requirements audience.
o Context Data Flow Diagram
o Entity Relationship Diagram
o Glossary
o Process Decomposition Diagram
o Decision Tables
o Workflow Diagramming
o Use Case Modelling
o User Stories
o Prototyping.
 Confirm the analysed requirements with stakeholders.
Excellence in Requirements Analysis – 30 minutes
 Define the seven excellent requirements characteristics
that make requirements complete, verifiable,
necessary, etc.
 Work with stakeholders to prioritise requirements based on
success factors.
Course Summary – 30 minutes
Overview of Requirements Analysis Techniques – 1 hour
 Go beyond documenting requirements solely with text –
describe how diagrams and models can also be used for
analysis.
 Apply the right analysis technique and level of detail to the
right situation.
 Create the right analysis approach based on your
stakeholder’s learning style.
 Combine analysis techniques to create effective models.
 Bringing it all together.
 Develop an Action Plan with next steps on the student’s
current project.
Using Analysis Techniques to Your Advantage – 3.5
hours
 Describe how particular analysis techniques
o drive quality analysis
o communicate requirements perspectives effectively.
 Compare and contrast the different requirements analysis
techniques when preparing to communicate with your
audience.
5
www.redvespa.com
Scope Your Area of Analysis
1 day
Overview
Essential Skills for Business Analysis: Part 3
Scoping is the process of defining the boundaries of a
product, programme, project, or iteration. Depending on your
viewpoint and your involvement in the project, the
components within the scope you’re analysing may be
slightly different; i.e. budget, time, resource, quality or
features and functions; or stakeholders, interfaces, data
flows, and processes. For purposes of this class, the
viewpoint considered is from the business analysis
perspective to identify the stakeholders (external agents or
actors), interfaces, data flows, and high-level processes of
concern in order to effectively determine the area for which
analysis needs to be performed.
This course covers scoping techniques and best practices to
ensure that you are eliciting and analysing the right
requirements based on the problem statement and that you
have a framework for staying within the boundaries of the
project. It also provides a technique to facilitate enough
analysis so that requirements aren’t missed, but aren’t
overdone either. The scope diagram provides a baseline and
a primary reference for measuring all future project changes
and project performance.
Students will learn to





Identify why the project is being done (business drivers)
in order to ensure the right analysis effort is being
performed and so that requirements efforts can be
appropriately prioritised.
Practice an approach to ensure that the problem your
project is supposed to address is clearly understood.
Analyse and scope the area of analysis, collaboratively
with project managers and business stakeholders, to
clarify the level and complexity of the business analysis
effort needed for the project.
Get an introduction to enterprise analysis in order to
understand the project in the context of the greater
organisation’s strategic goals.
Create a context level diagram to identify interfaces,
data flows, and high-level processes associated with
the project, that is valuable both for planning and
communications purposes.
Interactive workshops allow students to practice the
techniques as they learn. It supports the standards outlined
in the IIBA BABOK® Guide V2.0. This course can be taken
either stand-alone or as part of the 4-day Essential Skills for
Business Analysis course.
Intended audience
Prerequisites
This course is designed for business analysts, project
managers, business systems analysts, system architects or
any other project team member involved with analysis. New
practitioners will learn the tasks they are expected to
perform and why each task is important. Experienced
practitioners will learn new techniques and more structured
approaches to improve their requirements activities. This
course may also be appropriate for individuals who manage
analysis activities and business stakeholders who need a
more in-depth understanding of the requirements process
and deliverables.
None.
IIBA Continuing Development Units: 7 hours
Pricing
Standard course cost is $900 per attendee.
For a configured option to meet your specific needs, costs may
vary. Please contact us for more information.
Course Outline
Introduction – 30 minutes
Depict Other Key Scope Areas – 30 minutes
 Define solution scope and explain its applicability and
purpose.
 Differentiate between solution scope and project scope.
 Identify the components of scope and explain the purpose
of a project initiation document.
 Describe the value of scoping your area of analysis.
 Outline risks constraints and assumptions.
 Contemplate project impacts.
 Prepare to detail scope.
Define Project Context and Purpose – 1.5 hours
 Survey the Project
o Explain how to assess a project within the larger context
of the enterprise
o Identify the documents and information valuable to
summarising project objectives.
 Create a Statement of Purpose
o Differentiate business drivers from the problem to solve
o Compose a well-defined problem statement.
 Formulate a project statement of purpose
o Define Project Objectives
o Define project approach and clearly state business
objectives.
 Construct a project glossary and illustrate its value.
Scope Your Area of Analysis – 2.5 hours
 Express scope with graphical representation
o Illustrate components of graphical scope & order of
definition
- Identify external agents
- Analyse and Identify data flows
- Distinguish project boundary
- Formulate purpose-driven name.
 Complete scope with text documentation
o Detect stakeholders from scope context
o Analyse scope parameters for impacts on analysis
planning.
Prepare to Communicate Scope – 1.5 hours
 Evaluate and prepare scoping results
o Indicate newly identified project information
o Identify important actions performing a final quality check
o Produce formal context DFD (scope diagram).
 Validate Scope with Stakeholders
o Explain process of validating your area of analysis
o Describe considerations when planning communications
about scope and impacts
o Explain the importance and describe an approach to
gaining stakeholder agreement on scope.
Course Summary – 30 minutes
 Define a baseline.
 Describe the value and purpose of baselining the results of
the scoping effort.
 Describe next steps for business analysis after scoping.
 Identify the transition to requirements management.
 Identify options for requirements analysis and elicitation.
 Explain how scope is used throughout the project.
 Develop an Action Plan with next steps, based on the
student’s current project.
7
www.redvespa.com
1 day
Requirements Management
Overview
Essential Skills for Business Analysis: Part 4
Requirements management provides organisation and
transparency to requirements in order to support
communication, collaboration and appropriately manage
stakeholder expectations. Effective requirements
management includes using the right tools and techniques,
and having proper traceability, clear prioritisation, and a
shared process for change control. Effective expectation
management includes proactively communicating the current
status of the requirements and their delivery efforts, providing
information about requests or decisions to change
requirements, and transparently providing access to the
latest requirements content and related information whenever
it’s needed. With distributed teams come additional levels of
complexity in managing these types of efforts, therefore,
those unique challenges will be addressed in this course.
Participants will learn techniques and tips for categorising
requirements and managing requirements decisions. They
will also learn the importance of validating and verifying
requirements to ensure that the right solution to the right
problem was (or is being) successfully delivered.
Suggestions for developing clear acceptance criteria and an
acceptance process will also be discussed.
Students will learn to







Define the different roles involved with a project and
their impact on requirements.
Apply an approach to manage and record requirements
decisions.
Recognise the different levels of requirements and
understand why you categorise them.
Describe why the requirements need to be managed for
traceability, impact analysis, and reusability.
Describe the difference between validating that you’ve
built the right solution and verifying that you’ve built the
solution right.
Practice various communication techniques to facilitate
productivity and workflow.
Discuss strategies for content organisation and storage,
and describe why being more organised increases team
agility.
Interactive workshops allow students to practice the
techniques as they learn. It supports the standards outlined
in the IIBA BABOK® Guide V2.0. This course can be taken
either stand-alone or as part of the 4-day Essential Skills for
Business Analysis course.
Intended audience
Prerequisites
This course is designed for business analysts, project
managers, business systems analysts, system architects or
any other project team member involved with analysis. New
practitioners will learn the tasks they are expected to
perform and why each task is important. Experienced
practitioners will learn new techniques and more structured
approaches to improve their requirements activities. This
course may also be appropriate for individuals who manage
analysis activities and business stakeholders who need a
more in-depth understanding of the requirements process
and deliverables.
None.
IIBA Continuing Development Units: 7 hours
Pricing
Standard course cost is $900 per attendee.
For a configured option to meet your specific needs, costs may
vary. Please contact us for more information.
Course Outline
Introduction – 30 minutes
 Describe requirements management.
 Explain why it’s important to manage requirements.
 Identify the business analysis tasks and information
relevant to requirements management.
Prepare for Requirements Management – 1 hour
 Explain how to Prepare for Requirements Management
o Assess stakeholder roles
o Explain the process of identifying project stakeholders
o Distinguish the different roles involved in a project and
identify their typical involvement in business analysis
activities
o Describe the different stakeholder roles in requirements
definition and decision making.
 Assess information needs
o Explain key considerations when analysing stakeholder
information needs
o Recognise the information presented in a high-level
model of Scope (the Context Data Flow Diagram).
 Point out potential stakeholders from a project’s high-level
scoping information, and hypothesise possible information
needs.
Capture and Organise Requirements Information – 2.5
hours
 Organise and capture requirements
o Describe why being more organised increases team
agility
o Describe the different kinds of requirements information
that needs to be included in your requirements
repository.
 Categorise requirements
o Compare and contrast approaches for effectively
organising, filtering and reporting your requirementsrelated content
o Distinguish the different levels of requirements
categories and explain their area of focus.
 Enable access and reuse of requirements
o Identify key considerations for deciding how to design
and implement your requirements repository
o Summarise the value of requirements traceability
o Explain how requirements can be reused and why it’s
an important aspect of requirements management.
9
Manage Requirements and Expectations – 2.5 hours
 Track and manage progress
o Develop a change control process
o Analyse impacts to requirements when changes come
into the project.
 Manage issues and conflict
o Define the decision making process
o Remove obstacles and identify how to move forward on
your project
o Discuss conflict resolution strategies.
 Manage communications
o Develop approaches for facilitating decisions,
consensus building, and communication of decision
outcomes
o Define requirements management communication plan
components
o Identify communication messages; verbal and nonverbal
o Facilitate productivity and workflow through effective
communication.
 Validate deliverables
o Make sure you not only built the right solution, but you
also built the solution right
o Examine requirements to ensure they are testable and
verifiable
o Set expectations and criteria for users and stakeholders
involved in the acceptance process, and develop a plan
for defect management.
Course Summary – 30 minutes
 Bringing it all together.
 Develop an Action Plan with next steps on the student’s
current project.
www.redvespa.com
Practical Process Modelling with BPMN
2 days
Overview
Students will learn to
Business process mapping is a crucial element to
understanding an organisation’s current business process
operations. This understanding can then be used to monitor
and optimise processes and suggest areas of improvement
and innovation for the organisation.
This 2-day course focuses on the practical application of
Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). The course
provides techniques for scoping and modelling business
processes using best practice and advanced techniques from
the BPMN 2.0 specification and other valued resources such
as Bruce Silver’s book ‘BPMN Method and Style’.







Apply Business Process Model & Notation (BPMN) 2.0
in the context of project.
Scope and plan business process modelling activities.
Maintain hierarchical integrity between process models.
Model typical business scenarios and external events
that impact business processes.
Model business rules, exceptions and escalations.
Model data and systems that enable processes.
De-clutter your process models without losing meaning.
Intended audience
Prerequisites
This course is designed for business analysts, process
analysts, software designers and business subject matter
experts involved in process-enabled information technology
projects.
We recommend that students who are not experienced
Business Analysts first attend our ‘Essential Skills for
Business Analysis: Scoping your Area of Analysis’ course.
Pricing
IIBA Continuing Development Units: 14 hours
Standard 2-day course is $1,800 per attendee.
For a configured option to meet your specific needs, costs
may vary. Please contact us for more information.
Course Outline
Business Process Essentials – 30 minutes
 Define a business process.
BPMN Method Goals – 10 minutes




Completeness.
Clarity.
Shareability.
Structural Consistency.
The BPMN Style Goal – 10 minutes
 Understand the difference between a BPMN model that is
valid and one that is useful.
 BPMN Style Rules.
BMPN Method – 30 minutes
 Understand Hierarchical Modelling and End States.
 Appreciate Traceability via End States.
 Overview of the six steps of the BPMN Method.
Step 1: Determine Process Scope – 1 hour
 Understand the attributes all processes have.
 Use process attributes to define process scope.
 Process scoping exercise.
Step 4: Child Level Expansion – 3 hours
 Learn the rules for child level expansion.
 Match sub process end states to parent process gateways.
 Learn about Additional Start and End Events.
 Learn about Intermediate Events.
 Understand catching and throwing.
 Learn how to model Call Activities.
 Learn how to model Event Handlers.
 Apply additional Gateways for child level BPMN processes.
 Add Data to child level BPMN processes.
 Child level process exercise.
Step 5: Add Message Flows – 2 hours
 Learn about external participants as Pools.
 Join Pools with Messages.
 Maintain consistency of messages between Parent and
Child BPMN diagrams.
 Learn about Event Based Gateways.
 Maintain instance alignment with multi-instance subprocesses.
 Message Flow exercise.
Step 6: Repeat 4 & 5 for Nested Levels – 30 minutes
 Review relationship between Parent and Child processes.
Step 2: High Level Process Map – 1.5 hour
Process Documentation – 1 hour
 Learn the guidelines for a High-level Map.
 High Level Map exercise.
 Learn how to structure process documentation.
Step 3: Top Level Process Diagram – 2.5 hours
BPMN Compliant Modelling Tools – 30 minutes
 Learn the appropriate Start and End Events applicable for a
Top Level Process BPMN diagram.
 Understand the appropriate Tasks applicable for a Top
Level Process BPMN diagram.
 Identify the appropriate Connecting objects for a Top Level
Process BPMN diagram.
 Learn the appropriate Gateways for a Top Level Process
BPMN diagram.
 Apply Swim Lanes and process Pools to BPMN models.
 Use Artefacts in a Top Level Process BPMN diagram.
 Top Level Process exercise.
 Compare and contrast BPMN-compliant modelling tools.
Recap Day One – 30 minutes
11
www.redvespa.com
Agile Requirements & Fundamentals
2 days
Overview
An increasing number of organizations have found agile
software development approaches help them develop
products or systems much more effectively than in the past.
The values, principles, and techniques of agile approaches
certainly help teams build things right. However, projects will
still fail if team members such as Product Owners and
Business Analysts don’t properly understand and
communicate requirements to ensure that the right solution is
being delivered. The approach to analysis and
documentation may differ, but the need to use excellent
requirements to define the right solution remains essential to
the agile approach.
This course is designed to introduce students to the agile
values, principles, and techniques and takes an in-depth look
into the skills necessary to ensure that the team is identifying
and delivering the right thing. Whether you’re an existing
agile team or new to an agile approach, everyone involved
with an agile project needs to understand the needs they are
trying to satisfy and the approach they are using to satisfy
those needs.
Students will learn







Students will gain knowledge and skills by practicing
techniques and soft skills needed to operate effectively in an
agile environment.
How the entire team gets engaged with requirements to
understand and describe the right thing to deliver
To develop user stories and specify acceptance criteria
to assist the product owner, domain stakeholders, and
the team to build a quality product or system
How to elicit the appropriate level of requirements detail
prior to and during an iteration
Agile approaches, key principles, practices and
terminology.
The importance of planning in an agile environment and
how to perform each of the levels of agile planning
How to develop and prioritize the product backlog and
how changes are managed.
New techniques that are useful for agile environments
such as, impact mapping, product visioning, discovery
sessions, estimating with story points, specification by
example, and more
.
Intended audience
Prerequisites
.
This course is designed for business analysts, systems
analysts, product owners, project managers or any other
project team member involved with requirements on an
agile project. This course may also be appropriate for
individuals who manage business analysts and need a more
in-depth understanding of the process and skill set a
business analyst can bring to an agile project.
This is an advanced class. We recommend students first do
one of our Essential Skills for Business Analysis courses, or
have equivalent experience.
IIBA Continuing Development Units: 14 hours
Pricing
Standard course is $1,800 per attendee.
For a configured option to meet your specific needs, costs
may vary. Please contact us for more information.
Course Outline
The Agile Environment - 2 hours
 Overview of agile values, principles, approaches and
terminology.
 Describe the characteristics of an agile environment
 Determine the appropriate approach for a particular project.
 Implement agile in an organization using a pilot approach.
 Workshops:
o Create list of benefits moving from a traditional
environment to an agile environment.
o Create list of challenges moving from a traditional
environment to an agile environment and identify
corresponding solutions.
Roles and Approaches in an Agile Environment- 2 hours
Backlog Management – 4 hours
 Define the various roles in an agile environment.
 Describe what activities are performed by the roles used in
an agile environment.
 Explain agile approaches impacts on how teams work and
the techniques and processes they use.
 Identify techniques teams working in an agile environment
use to aid their collaboration and effectiveness
 Describe levels of agile planning
 Transfer traditional analysis skills to an agile environment.
 Workshops:
o Identify the people filling the four key roles on student's
current project.
o Identify definitions of ready and definitions of done for
student's current project.
o Design team visualization boards for student's current
project.
 Define and write user stories.
 Write stories at the appropriate level of detail following
INVEST techniques.
 Model users and create personas.
 Identify non-functional requirements in an agile
environment.
 Estimate on agile projects using story points.
 Workshops:
o Writing stories.
o User modeling for student's current project.
o Story splitting
o Release planning.
o Planning poker session to estimate size of user stories.
Business Discovery – 4 hours






Use decision filters to guide project decisions.
Apply SMART Goals to define value for a project.
Define the product vision and project purpose.
Develop an Impact Map to guide project actions.
Develop and maintain a product backlog.
Utilize face-to-face communication to replace formal
requirements documents where appropriate.
 Use informal models to communicate requirements.
 Workshops:
o Identify decision filters for student's current project.
o Create a product vision for student's current project.
o Create an impact map for student's current project.
o Deriving stories from traditional models.
Iteration Planning & Analysis - 1.5 hours
 Describe stories in an agile environment using acceptance
criteria, examples, and informal models.
 Conduct iteration planning.
 Describe how system documentation can provide just
enough documentation.
 Workshops:
o Use examples to elaborate stories.
o Iteration planning.
o Develop an Action Plan with next steps on the student's
current project.
Course Summary – 0.5 hour
 Develop an Action Plan with next steps, based on the
student’s current project.
.
13
www.redvespa.com
2 DAYS + 1 DAY
Facilitating Requirements for Business Analysis*
3 days
Overview
Bringing people together to elicit requirements and gain
consensus on solutions is a critical success factor for all
business analysis professionals. This course teaches
facilitation techniques that can be used for structured
sessions and “facilitation-on-the-fly.” This course goes
beyond traditional facilitation training by focusing on
facilitation techniques specific to gathering business and
functional requirements.
This allows each student the opportunity to practice
facilitating multiple requirements sessions in a “safe”
environment with personalised feedback. Students will spend
60% of class time participating in interactive, real-world
business case studies and performing each key role in at
least one session.
The workshops in this course require students to plan the
requirements workshop, develop the correct questions to ask
the group, and facilitate the group to a consensus on the
requirements using one of the learned techniques. Students
will conduct a requirements workshop for at least one
requirement deliverable (i.e., context level dataflow diagram,
workflow diagram). This course supports and expands on the
techniques in the IIBA BABOK® Guide V2.0.
Students will learn to











Facilitate using proven techniques for eliciting detailed
business, functional and non-functional requirements.
Identify when and how to use each technique.
Develop confidence and a skill set to conduct
requirements workshops.
Actively practice learned skills and techniques.
Use a requirements planning session template.
Prepare the participants for the requirements 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 workshop.
* Optional Practical Workshop (1 day)
Intended audience
Prerequisites
This course is designed for experienced, knowledgeable
business analysts involved with requirements elicitation and
analysis. Students are expected to understand the purpose
of business and functional requirements.
This is an advanced class. We recommend students first do
one of our Essential Skills for Business Analysis courses, or
have experience in project scope definition, eliciting
requirements from subject matter experts, and
understanding how business requirements fit into the entire
systems development effort.
IIBA Continuing Development Units:14 or 21 hours
Pricing
Standard 3-day course is $2,700 per attendee. For 2-day
option course is $1,800 per attendee.
For a configured option to meet your specific needs, costs
may vary. Please contact us for more information.
Course Outline
Introduction - 1 hour
 Learn guidelines for requirements facilitators.
 Set session rules and manage the session.
 Learn reactive techniques to use during the session:
o Encourage participation
o Manage group focus
o Manage group conflict
o Consider remote facilitation techniques.
Student Workshop - 1.5 hours
 Conduct a mini-requirements workshop.
 Practice techniques used for requirements workshops.
Session Feasibility - 1 hour
 Determine when requirements workshops are appropriate
o Determine need/requirements deliverable desired
o Determine commitment level
o Determine risks.
 Practice determining session need using real-world
scenarios.
 Review the core requirements components and discuss
how they are best gathered.
 Learn when not to use requirements workshops.
Planning and Preparing for a Facilitated
Session - 4 hours
 Plan the session
o Determine the number of session(s) needed and the
length of the session(s)
o Document the purpose of the session
o Identify potential participants
o Define session requirements deliverables
o Document the plan using session planning templates.
 Prepare for a session
o Outline the goals and requirements deliverables
o Select session participants and determine if pre-session
interviews are appropriate.
 Learn facilitation techniques
o Brainstorming
o Consensus building
o Flowcharting
o Force field analysis
o Hip pocket techniques
o Nominal group
o Root cause analysis
o Storyboarding
o Facilitating across distance.
 Develop focused questions to gather requirements
o Direct, Open-ended, Clarifying, Leading, Re-focusing.
 Create a detailed agenda for the facilitation team.
15




Learn group-oriented facilitation techniques.
Create a formal agenda for the session participant.
Orient the facilitation team.
Prepare the facilities.
Student Workshop - 3.5 hours
 Each student will practice elicitation techniques in a
requirements workshop.
 Personal feedback will be provided to drive skill
development.
Conducting the Session - 1 hour
 Learn the stages of group development / productivity.
 Facilitate decision making – work toward consensus.
 Conducting the session
o Introducing the session
o Managing the session
o Creating a follow-up action plan.
 Review/approve requirements deliverables.
Student Workshop - 8 hours
 Plan and conduct a requirements workshop.
 Use one or more of the learned facilitation techniques.
 Produce the requirements deliverable using one of the
facilitation techniques.
 Personal feedback will be provided to drive skill
development.
Session Follow-Up - 1 hour
 Produce the final requirements document.
 Share session feedback.
 Determine the next steps.
www.redvespa.com
New Course
Develop an Effective Business Case
1 day
Overview
Writing an effective business case includes presenting a
compelling case for a particular audience in order to achieve
approval to embark on a particular course of action. They are
developed with the intent to present or sell a viable solution
for a clearly defined business problem or new product. This
course provides a framework and techniques that are
appropriate for any type of project or program requiring
funding or management approval.
Students will learn



A framework for an effective business case.
How to write a compelling business case.
How to perform Cost/Benefit Analysis.
Students will gain knowledge and skills by practicing writing
and analysis techniques that will help them write a
compelling business plan, identify appropriate approaches,
and communicate and manage information that should
ensure the approval to move forward with the project.
Intended audience
Prerequisites
This course is designed for business analysts, product
owners, project managers, program or portfolio managers or
any other business partner or project team member involved
with developing and writing a business case. This course
may also be appropriate for individuals who manage
business analysts and need a more in-depth understanding
of the process and skill set that would be helpful for effective
business analysis.
None.
IIBA Continuing Development Units: 7 hours
Pricing
Standard 1-day course is $900 per attendee.
For a configured option to meet your specific needs, costs may
vary. Please contact us for more information.
Course Outline
Introduction - 1 hour
 What is a business case?
 Understanding your audience.
 Where does the business case fit into a product / project
life cycle.
 Learn an effective framework for a business case.
Defining and Presenting the Case - 1.5 hours





Learn how to write an effective executive summary.
Learn the components of a detailed mission statement.
Project initiative.
Strategic Alignment.
One project vs multiple projects or program to achieve
mission.
 SMART objectives and key performance indicators.
 Define approach used for analysis.
Justifying the Case - 3 hours








Terminology and financial metrics.
Estimating techniques.
Process-related impacts.
People-related impacts.
System-related impacts.
Quantifying Implementation costs.
Quantifying Ongoing/operating costs.
Quantifying Benefits.
Documenting the Case - 1 hour
 How much detailed is required?
 Which assumptions should be documented?
 Documenting known Risks.
Develop Your Action Plan / Course Summary – 0.5 hours
 Develop your action plan to improve your business case.
 Student questions/discussion topics.
 Identification and prioritization of alternative solutions.
 Cost / benefit analysis.
17
www.redvespa.com
New Course
3 days
Developing Use Cases
Overview
Use case modelling is a commonly used analysis technique
which results in functional requirements and a framework for
test case development. When the solution to a business
problem or opportunity involves a software component, the
solution team must determine how software will best support
the business. A use case diagram clearly depicts the scope
of the solution to be designed which can help set
expectations for stakeholders as to the complexity and
interactions with the system.
This class focuses on the business analysis work of defining
functional, non-functional, and transition requirements which
describe the solution and roll out needs. In addition to use
case diagrams and descriptions, this course provides
guidelines for developing system and user interfaces, a
checklist for non-functional requirements, and strategies for
developing an implementation plan. These are critical
components in fully defining your solution requirements.
This course supports and expands on the techniques in the
®
IIBA BABOK Guide V2.0. Specific techniques for
communicating the business requirements to the solution
team, tracing each business requirement to the supporting
solution component, assessing the solution applicability and
planning for a smooth transition to the solution are explored
in detail in this course.
Students will learn to









Use business requirements to identify, evaluate and
present alternative design solutions which meet
customer needs.
Prioritize requirements for inclusion in the software
development phase using plan-driven (traditional)
and change-driven (iterative and agile) techniques.
Elicit, analyse, and communicate functional
requirements that specify how users will interact
with the software and how the software will respond.
Create a use case diagram to clarify solution scope.
Deliver consistent, detailed use case descriptions.
Incorporate usability principals when developing
prototypes.
Determine the impact of interfaces and develop
interface requirements.
Identify non-functional requirements appropriate for
each project.
Learn to assess organizational readiness and build
a transition or rollout plan to smooth the
implementation of new software for the business.
Mentor-led workshops require students to practice the
techniques as they learn. Students are encouraged to bring
their own projects to class.
Intended audience
Prerequisites
This course is designed for business analysts, systems
analysts, or any other project team members responsible for
developing functional, non-functional, and transition
requirements. Students are encouraged to bring examples
of their requirements documents to the class for review and
feedback. This course may also be appropriate for
individuals who manage business analysts. Developers and
solution implementers will benefit from an understanding of
how functional and non-functional requirements are elicited
and analysed.
This is an advanced class. We recommend students first do one
of our Essential Skills for Business Analysis courses, or have
experience in project scope definition, eliciting requirements
from stakeholders, and understanding how business
requirements fit into the entire systems development effort.
IIBA Continuing Development Units: 21 hours
Pricing
Standard 3-day course is $2,700 per attendee.
For a configured option to meet your specific needs, costs may
vary. Please contact us for more information.
Course Outline
Introduction - 1 hour
 Define solution and transition requirements.
 Review requirements categories and classifications.
 Discuss the differences between business and functional
requirements.
 Discuss requirements implications based on the type of
solution being developed (COTS, in house development,
maintenance, BI).
 Learn about the software development approaches used by
the team (change driven vs. plan driven) as it relates to
solution requirements.
Determine the Solution Scope - 4 hours
 Define the solution scope model. Use approved business
requirements to define a solution and allocate the solution
components to each requirement (traceability).
 Learn a five-step approach to bringing the business domain
stakeholders and implementation stakeholders to
consensus about the definition of the solution scope:
o Determine the functionality desired.
o Elicit the business priority of each function.
o Assess technical priority and estimated cost of the
desired functionality.
o Break project into phases or iterations.
o Obtain approval.
 Create a scope model using a use case diagram:
o Define actors involved with the application.
o Identify actor interactions.
o Determine use cases within each phase or iteration.
Determine Functional Requirements - 4 hours
 Learn to identify use cases.
 Outline each use case for a high-level understanding of
broad behaviour.
 Identify primary path, alternate path, and exception paths.
 Decompose large use cases into smaller sub-sets,
identifying reusable use cases where possible.
 Learn how and where to document system user messages.
 Learn to create detailed use case descriptions.
Designing User Interfaces – 2 hours
 Learn to identify where prototypes are necessary.
 Create and document prototypes.
 Learn to document report requirements, including ad-hoc
and predefined. Learn the definition of business
intelligence.
 Learn to document field edits and screen functionality.
 Incorporate usability principals into user interfaces.
Analyse Interface Requirements – 3 hours
 Identify required interfaces based on the phase/iteration
plan.
 Understand the most effective interface strategy for each
design solution.
 Write interface requirements for each interface.
Identify Non-Functional Requirements- 2 hour
 Identify requirements not previously addressed by
business, functional, or technical requirement categories:
o Performance requirements
o Security requirements
o Quality requirements
o Scalability.
 Consider which non-functional requirement types are
important for your project.
 Discuss the business analyst role in the development of
these requirements.
Develop Transition Requirements - 3 hours
 Identify requirements for a smooth rollout of the solution to
the business
o Consider scheduling and timing issues
o Determine the timing of interface transition and data
conversion
o Consider parallel operations vs. cutover
o Develop an implementation plan.
Develop Action Plan / Course Summary Workshop – 2
hours
 Review Business Analysis tasks and skills learned.
 Workshop: What would you do? Determine analysis
approach based on case study.
 Develop an Action Plan with next steps on the student's
current project.
19
www.redvespa.com
New Course
Develop a Business Analysis Workplan
3 days
Overview
Having trouble getting started with your business analysis
work? Unsure about how much time to request from your
project manager?
Developing a business analysis work plan will prevent major
problems by ensuring that all of the appropriate stakeholders
are involved and the requirements will be analyzed and
presented using the most effective communication
approaches. This class teaches students to consider all of
the project and stakeholder characteristics before deciding
on appropriate deliverables and producing a time estimate.
The work plan also helps the business analyst develop
realistic time estimates based on the chosen deliverables.
These estimates provide detailed justification for negotiation
with project managers and project sponsors. During class
students are presented the Business Analysis Planning
™
Framework and are given worksheets to guide their
planning efforts.
Students will learn to




Use project characteristics, people, and process to
determine what business analysis tasks are needed for
a project.
Create a business analysis work plan which includes
tasks and time estimates for the business analysts and
other stakeholders.
Determine the appropriate level and formality for a plan.
Use the business analysis work plan as a negotiation
tool to get approval for business analysis work on a
project.
Students are encouraged to bring their own project initiation
documentation for a current or past project to the class.
During the workshops, students will develop their business
analysis work plan. If students do not have a project, a class
case study is available and should be reviewed prior to the
first day of class.
Regardless of when the BA joins a project or the project type,
this class will guide planners to deliver an intelligent business
analysis work plan to the project manager and have a
detailed roadmap upon which they can immediately begin to
execute. The business analysis work plan may be a single
sheet of brief notes on a small project or a more formal
document on larger projects. Regardless of the output
produced, an excellent business analyst thinks through the
plan before starting work.
This course supports and extends the techniques in the
IIBA’s BABOK® Guide V2.0.
Intended audience
Prerequisites
This course is intended for anyone who is interested in learning
a practical approach to planning the necessary business
analysis tasks for their project.
This is an advanced class. We recommend students first do one
of our Essential Skills for Business Analysis courses, or have at
least 2 years of experience in requirements elicitation, analysis,
and documentation using structured techniques.
IIBA Continuing Development Units: 21 hours
Pricing
Standard 3-day course is $2,700 per attendee.
For a configured option to meet your specific needs, costs may
vary. Please contact us for more information.
Course Outline
Introduction - 1 hour
 Business analysis planning.
o Overview of business analysis planning activities.
o Discuss the relationship of the project manager and the
business analyst in planning.
™
 Use of the BA Planning Framework approach to planning.
o Project - Understanding the project characteristics.
o People - Identifying stakeholders and planning
for communications.
o Process - Planning the analysis activities.
 Root cause analysis and the fishbone diagram.
 The business analysis work plan.
Planning for Different Types of Projects - 4 hours
 Introduce the concepts of plan driven vs. change driven
approaches to projects.
o Planning around unique project characteristics:
o A large development project.
o Enhancement or maintenance projects.
o A COTS (commercial off-the-shelf software) project.
o A reporting or data warehouse project.
o A process improvement or re-engineering effort.
o An infrastructure upgrade (getting a new e-mail or
operating system).
 Planning around methodology and process characteristics:
o An outsourced or off-shore development project.
o Iterative style development methodology.
o Agile style development process.
 Group workshop: Discuss planning considerations for case
study projects.
Project – Understanding the Characteristics – 4 hours
 Let's get started - A checklist to assess the current state of
the project and to help get started.
 The Project Overview Worksheet - Is the project clearly
defined?
o Business objectives
o Problems/opportunities
o Requirements scope
o High-level business processes.
 The Business Impact Worksheet - What is the relative
importance of the project to the organization?
o Size (number of stakeholders, number of business
processes involved, number of business rules).
o Importance (estimated cost, potential benefits, criticality
of business area, level of key stakeholders).
o Risk analysis (project, business, technology).
 Enterprise analysis - Understanding how this project fits
into the organization's overall strategy.
 Group workshop - Assess the project and score the
business impact of a sample project.
21
People – Stakeholder Analysis and the Communication
Plan – 4 hours
 Why plan for stakeholder interactions?
 Assess the project sponsor.
 Identify both primary and secondary stakeholders:
o Searching for all stakeholders, not just the obvious ones
o Understanding each stakeholder's area of concern
o Documenting stakeholder's needs
o Consider the characteristics of each stakeholder group.
 Determine effective communication practices for each
stakeholder group:
o Is this group providing requirements, using
requirements, or supporting the project work?
o Which elicitation technique(s) will be most effective?
o What requirement presentation format will be most
comfortable for this group?
 The Stakeholder Analysis Worksheet
o When and where will communications with each
stakeholder be most effective?
o What are the best communication techniques for each
stakeholder?
 Group workshop - Identify and analyse the stakeholder
groups for an example project and identify the appropriate
communication techniques.
Process – Planning the Analysis Activities - 3.5 hours
 Plan the analysis activities
o Step one - Assess which requirements components are
needed?
o Step two - Determine which deliverables are needed
using the Deliverable List Worksheet
o Step three - Develop an approach for creating each
deliverable using The Deliverable Worksheet.
 Consult with organizational standards/methodologies for
required deliverables.
www.redvespa.com
Course Outline Continued
Creating the Business Analysis Work Plan - 3 hours
Appendix - Advanced Project Initiation Requirements






 Advanced project initiation requirements.
 Learn techniques to identify strong project objectives.
 Learn a technique to help subject matter experts scope a
project with unclear boundaries.
 Group workshop - scope an unclear project.
Step one - Create the business analysis task list.
Step two - Estimate analysis time.
Using historical and expert data to estimate.
Tracking actual time to estimate.
Step three - Finalize the business analysis work plan.
Group workshop - develop a task list of analysis and
requirements activities for a sample project.
 Intelligent negotiation skills.
 Getting signoff on the plan.
 Base lining the plan and initiating change control.
Ongoing Requirements Management - 1 hour









What is Requirements Management?
Using a requirements repository.
Develop a requirements management plan.
Reusing existing requirements.
Reusing existing data.
Identifying requirements attributes.
Plan for requirements traceability.
Learn about traceability matrices and requirements links.
Understand the purpose of forward and backward
traceability.
 Determine which requirements should be "traced".
 Determine the appropriate approach for managing
traceability.
 Exercise: Perform impact analysis using traceability.
Course Summary – 0.5 hour
 Final thoughts.
 Planning Worksheet Map.
 Optional Exercises.
Appendix - Advanced Topics
 Developing a cost/benefit analysis for a business case.
 Evaluating software applications for purchase (COTS).
New Course
0.5 day
Beyond Brainstorming
Overview
Unleash the creative potential in the minds of BAs and
workshop participants through the Beyond Brainstorming
workshop.
Students will learn to




This workshop goes beyond the traditional brainstorming
session by using techniques that generate multiple creative
ideas, and then provides ways to evaluate those ideas.
This 3-hour hands-on workshop teaches tools and
techniques designed to stimulate the creative part of our
brains and help us see things from a different angle.

View a business challenge through different lenses.
Generate multiple solutions to a business challenge.
Collaborate and build on each other’s’ ideas
Identify when and how to use different creativity
tools and techniques
Actively practice learned skills and techniques to
generate ideas and solutions.
You’ll experience a two hour hands-on problem solving
session, applying creative thinking tools. Following that, the
final hour will allow you to examine the tools, to understand
how they helped participants to generate and build on their
ideas.
Course Outline
Introduction – 15 minutes
 Why organisations need creative thinking.
Explore the Business Challenge – 45 minutes
 Mission Impossible.
 Empathy Map.
 Show and Tell.
Idea Generation – 1 hour
Examine Creativity Tools – 45 minutes
 Food for Thought.
 Think Share Build.
 Show and Tell.
 Group optimisation tools.
 Idea generation tools.
 Individual use tools.
Intended audience
Prerequisites
This course is designed for experienced BAs, Business
Leaders, Business Process Professionals, Customer
Experience Professionals. In fact anyone who has a
problem to solve.
None.
Pricing
The standard 3-hour workshop is $400 per attendee.
Business Analysis Coaching
Our classes include one hour of after class business
analysis coaching for each student (via phone and
email). Students love having the opportunity to work
with an industry expert to apply techniques learned in
class to their unique situations.
Effective business analysis training and coaching can
help companies raise employee results. Proper
business analysis coaching can give access to new
ideas, tips and strategies that will help you build upon
the team’s current skills and strengths to give you a
competitive edge. Learn how to drive more revenue by
leveraging your business analysts.
Coaching is available additionally as an on-demand
service to jump start a new project, a new skill
development effort, and to reinforce concepts or
techniques. This real time service is provided by our
experts onsite or virtually.
Examples of coaching assistance provided:







Guidance for selecting the appropriate
deliverables for your project.
Assistance in determining and estimating
business analysis activities.
Strategies for effectively engaging all stakeholders
and project team members.
Coaching you to become a more agile BA.
Provide direction for adapting and customising
templates.
Help with roles, career paths and skill
development identification.
Direction for building and sustaining a Community
of Practice or Centre of Excellence.
Beyond the Classroom
Link in to the world of Business Analysis communities and resources online.
Redvespa For the BA (blogs and more)
www.redvespa.com/for-the-BA
Redvespa LinkedIn
www.linkedin.com (search Redvespa)
Redvespa LinkedIn Training & BA Practice Group
www.linkedin.com (search The Redvespa BArista group)
Redvespa PictureThis! Diagram Book FREE Download
www.redvespa.com/diagram-book/
Business Analysis Times
www.batimes.com
BA Collective
www.bacollective.com
Business Rules Community
www.brcommunity.org
Business Process Management
www.bpm.com
International Institute of Business Analysis
www.theiiba.org
Modern Analyst
www.modernanalyst.com
Project Management Institute
www.pmi.org
Requirements Networking Group
www.requirementsnetwork.org
BA Mentor
www.thebamentor.com
BA Coach
www.thebacoach.com
contact redvespa
P: 0508 REDVESPA
E: [email protected]
T: @RedvespaNZ
www.redvespa.com