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Building a Successful Business Analysis Work Plan

Effective Project Management Skills for Business Analysts

 
Course: 912     Type: RealityPlus     Duration: 3 Days

Quick Enroll    

You Will Learn How To
  • Develop a work plan that successfully addresses the needs of a business analyst (BA)
  • Quickly integrate the BA role into the overall project strategy
  • Apply planning best practices to get projects done on time and within budget
  • Construct a work plan that aligns with the goals of stakeholders
  • Create realistic estimates that account for uncertainty
  • Keep the project on track while meeting stakeholder expectations

Course Benefits
Whether starting from a project's inception or entering a project after it has been established, business analysts must seamlessly integrate their work into the project planning process. To do this successfully requires a well developed and executed work plan. In this course, you learn practical project management methods, tools and techniques to adapt a work plan to the needs of the project and its stakeholders.

Who Should Attend
Business analysts, those who perform the functions of a business analyst or anyone who wants to make a successful contribution to a project.

An evolving case study immerses you in an authentic project environment, providing practical experience in building a business analysis work plan. Activities include:
  • Defining the traits of successful project contributors
  • Developing a stakeholder communication plan
  • Creating well-defined project tasks
  • Calculating the critical path
  • Estimating tasks within appropriate tolerance
  • Securing resource commitments from stakeholders
  • Assessing and communicating risks
  • Presenting your work plan
  • Creating a personal action plan for future use

Course 912 Content
The Role of the Business Analyst
Defining your role
  • Examining the BABOK® framework
  • Pinpointing where you are in the product life cycle
  • Establishing your relationship with the project manager
  • Gathering information to get started quickly
Making a commitment to the project
  • Uncovering the six traits of successful project contributors
  • Determining the requirements for effective personal project management
The Planning Process
Key functions of a planner
  • Exploring the makeup of a solid BA plan
  • Devising change and acceptance procedures
  • Creating the stakeholder communication system
  • Synchronizing your plan with the overall project plan
Jump-starting the process
  • Formulating the right questions
  • Eliciting project constraints
  • Assessing impact on business
Influences on the planning process
  • Juggling the triple constraint
  • Development methodologies
  • Stakeholder concerns
Communicating effectively
  • Fostering relationships and trust
  • Discovering your communication style
  • Sizing up stakeholders
  • Delivering your message for optimal results
Building the Work Plan
Initiating your project
  • Conducting stakeholder analysis
  • Determining objectives
  • Defining the scope of work
Planning the tasks
  • Generating a task list
  • Developing the WBS
  • Listing task attributes and characteristics
  • Devising acceptance criteria
Constructing task dependencies
  • Identifying critical and slack paths
  • Making resource and scheduling decisions
Assigning resources
  • Assessing resource requirements
  • Utilizing a resource allocation matrix (RAM)
Outcomes of the Planning Process
  • Deriving the schedule with a Gantt Chart
  • Calculating the budget
Creating Accurate Estimates
Estimating effort, duration and costs
  • What constitutes a good estimate?
  • Examining project scope, requirements and the WBS to make estimates
Key considerations that affect your project
  • Collaborating to encourage ownership of the estimate
  • Incorporating a WBS
  • Accounting for time/cost trade-offs
  • Employing top-down vs. bottom-up estimating
  • Raising the level of accuracy with three-point estimates
Managing Risks
Increasing the probability of success
  • Leveraging a Risk Analysis Questionnaire
  • Communicating the results
Analyzing potential problems
  • Brainstorming adverse consequences
  • Adding preventive and contingent actions into your plan
Executing the Plan
Managing stakeholder expectations
  • Controlling scope creep, leak and seep
  • Reporting progress
Addressing resistance to change
  • Recognizing reasons behind resistance to change
  • Defusing resistance
Keeping your piece of the project on track
  • Resolving problems with a trouble log
  • Setting up briefing boards
Applying Lessons Learned for Future Projects
  • Evaluating project objectives
  • Documenting methods for continued improvement

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Save Up to 45% per course on the standard tuition!

Building a Successful Business Analysis Work Plan
Upcoming Dates
Mar 18 - 20, 2009
 Washington, DC (Reston, VA)
Apr 15 - 17, 2009
 New York
Apr 15 - 17, 2009
 Ottawa
May 6 - 8, 2009
 Washington, DC (Alexandria, VA)
May 20 - 22, 2009
 Los Angeles
May 20 - 22, 2009
 Toronto
May 27 - 29, 2009
 Washington, DC (Rockville, MD)
Jun 17 - 19, 2009
 Chicago (Schaumburg)
Jun 24 - 26, 2009
 Washington, DC (Reston, VA)
Jul 8 - 10, 2009
 New York

Building a Successful Business Analysis Work Plan
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Course Tuition
$ 2,390 Standard Tuition
Tuition with a Savings Plan
$ 1,350 10-Day Pass
$ 1,670 Training Passport
$ 1,625 Premium-Pass
$ 2,200 Voucher 10-Pack
$ 2,155 Alumni Gold Discount
$ 2,124 Government Discount
 

 

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Customer Service or Enroll: 1-800-843-8733