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Building a Successful Business Analysis Work Plan: Effective Project Management Skills for Business Analysts

Fee:

$2,490

· QuickCode:

QQBUUT

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Provider:
Learning Tree International

Topic(s):
Leadership & Management > Project Management

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.

Full Seminar Description

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 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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Sponsor Background:

Learning Tree International is a world leader in Hands-on training for Management and Technology Professionals. Since 1974, over 1,700,000 course participants from over 13,000 organizations around the world have enhanced their skills through intensive hands-on exercises under the guidance of expert instructors with real-world experience.

Virtually every major company and government agency has relied on Learning Tree to provide its managers and employees with the skills they need to succeed in their job functions.

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