Project Management Skills for Business Analysts

Course overview

Skilled project managers, business analysts, and technical leads align themselves with the best developers and business visionaries to develop the most appropriate, cost-effective, and innovative product or process solution. The project manager relies on business analysts to assist in providing accurate project objectives, system requirements, and business process and cost-benefit analysis, aligned with strategic business objectives providing stakeholder value. Learn how to meet project team goals through leading-edge business analyst involvement coupled with project management best practices.

Prerequisites

• A comprehensive introductory business analysis course such as Principles of Business Analysis (HE551S)

Audience

This course is intended for business analysts and related professionals such as Project Managers, QA Managers, Project Customers, Technical Leads, Systems Engineers or anyone with a substantive role in the success of projects.

Course objectives

• Define the business analyst deliverables in the systems requirements life cycle
• Link project management planning process to organizational strategic planning process
• Identify and document high level requirements, initial constraints, and business/technical objectives
• Describe key tailoring principles for types of technology and corporate size
• Develop a plan for user project involvement to reduce risk of project failure
• Create test plans that are adapted to the project risk factors
• Employ conflict resolution techniques to create high performance teams

Next steps

• Advanced Business Analysis topics such as Business Analyst Leadership (HE553S)

Benefits to you

• Explain the relationship between project management and business analysis
• Apply the steps of the Business Solution Life Cycle (BSLC)
• Use and tailor standard project cycles in the planning and management of projects
• Apply scope management processes to create and manage the requirements
• Apply time management processes to create and manage a valid, defensible schedule for BA activities
• Apply cost management processes to create and manage a budget for BA activities
• Apply communications management processes to manage information
• Apply risk management processes to manage requirement risks

Course outline

• Identify key development life cycles and their relationship to the best practices project life cycle selection
• Identify benefits of project management and project life cycles and their impact on corporate financial success
• Define factors that create product innovation and project success

Project Initiation

• Discuss why a charter is needed to fund the project in a best practices environment
• Identify key elements of the business requirements document
• Explain the context diagram description relationship to the work breakdown structure

Project Planning

• Identify the parts of a project plan that drive stakeholder involvement and project stability
• Describe key tailoring principles for types of technology and corporate size
• Create a business analysis requirements management plan

Project Scheduling

• Demonstrate arrow and precedence diagramming methods
• Construct a project network diagram
• Calculate and analyze the critical path

Project Organization

• Identify different project organization structures and their impact on project planning
• Examine factors that lead to collaborative and effective core team member project performance partnerships
• Develop a stakeholder analysis to manage the political environment and determine roles and responsibilities of project stakeholders that drive successful projects

Project Risk Management

• Outline the risk management process and discuss how to identify and reduce risk through the test plan
• Identify, analyze, and mitigate risks
• Arrange for user project involvement to reduce risk of project failure

Cost Estimating

• Identify the different types of estimates and estimating methodologies
• Use various techniques to calculate resource requirements
• Differentiate between estimating, budgeting, and pricing

Project Monitoring and Control

• Describe the importance of managing to baselines and apply basic earned value analysis to project performance
• Tailor project key performance indicators to the project environment
• Explain the importance of configuration change control process

Project Closeout

• Explain the value of formal project closeout
• Conduct user acceptance tests
• Promote and foster project planning and business analysis best practices