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| What is a business requirement? |
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A business requirement is a statement from the business perspective that specifies a behavior required by a technical solution. Getting them and understanding what they mean are the primary challenges facing business systems analysts in today’s business world. You can get an introduction to the topic in our webinar Business Systems Analysis in the 21st Century. |
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| Can you take a class on your schedule? |
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Yes, our training material is being made available as "self-paced" (also known as "on-demand") "knowledge nuggets". Our goal is to deliver the same quality training experience to you on your time as we offer to groups in our live and virtual classrooms. The absence of the instructor necessitates additional explanatory material, but we still attempt to follow our successful formula of intermingling interactive exercises and questionnaires in our stand-alone, web-based modules. As a result, the development of these "knowledge nuggets" is an on-going effort. We are releasing new modules as quickly as we can deliver them with the requisite quality. |
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| What is "Requirements Engineering"? |
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Requirements engineering is generally considered to encompass all activities of eliciting, specifying, analyzing, documenting and managing requirements. In our class How to Analyze Business Systems to Define Business Requirements introduces all dimensions of requirements engineering. |
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| How can you become certified as a business analyst? |
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The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) conveys the Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) title. RSG is an IIBA Endorsed Education Provider, and all of our core Business Analysts’ Courses are also endorsed. All of our courses are aligned with the current IIBA Body of Knowledge (IIBA BOK) version 1.6. We will continue to update our courses as the IIBA BOK changes. See the IIBA certification page at http://www.theiiba.org/content.asp?ContentId=551. Currently the IIBA offers the CBAP through testing only. The testing is mostly based on the BOK. |
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| What can you do if the course you want is not scheduled? |
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If you are interested in a class that is not currently scheduled, let us know. We schedule our training courses based on demand and the better informed we are about the demand, the better we are able to schedule. |
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| How can you take our classes? |
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The Requirements Solutions Group offers training in 3 modes:
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| What is the UML? |
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The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a set of diagrams and related syntax based on the world of "Object-Orientation" which deals heavily with real-time applications. |
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| What problem does business analysis solve? |
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According to the Standish Group’s 1994 and 1997 CHAOS reports, the most significant contributing factors to project failure could be traced directly to poor requirements understanding and definition.
In a recent Sequent Computer Systems Inc. study of about 500 IT managers the most frequently named cause of project failure was poorly defined and changing requirements.
A summary of other studies on the dominant reasons that projects fail indicates that the three most common failure points in developing, enhancing or changing business systems today are:
- Incomplete and/or incorrect business requirements and technical specifications
- Incomplete or ineffective testing (often due to poor requirements)
- Improperly managed projects (Either incompetent project management, or incomplete and incorrect requirements)
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| Can you schedule a training event at your site? |
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Yes, any of our offers can be held at your site. We have instructors available for training anywhere in the world. Request a quote for a detailed offer tailored to meet your specific needs. |
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| Can you schedule a virtual class for your organization? |
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Yes, all of our instructor-led offers are available either as live or virtual offers that can be scheduled for a group. Request a quote for a detailed offer that meets your specific needs. |
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| Does the IIBA offer the equivalent of PDU? |
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The IIBA does not as yet have the equivalent of the Project Management Institute’s (PMI®) PDU® (Professional Development Units). PDUs are based on hours of training or service and are applied toward certification or recertification for the PMI Project Management Professional certification. (See also the FAQ on PDU, below) |
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| How do the virtual classrooms work? |
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We use WebEx®; to provide the presentation to your computer and a toll-free audio connection for the instructor-student interaction. This combination of web-based technology with a live instructor allows for the most interactive session we can possibly deliver. With or without technology, people still learn best by doing, not by listening, so our training is designed to be heavily exercise– and interaction–based. At the end of each day of virtual training, you receive an electronic version of all of the results achieved during the day to review and as a reference after the training. |
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| Can you get PDU for taking RSG courses? |
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The PMI's Project Management Professional certification PMP® is primarily for project managers.
RSG courses qualify for PMI PDUs for both certification and recertification as described in the PMP Credential Handbook, page 5, sixth bullet and The CCR Program Handbook, page 7, category 4. See Certifications: http://www.pmi.org/info/PDC_CertificationsOverview.asp?nav=0401 for the handbooks. |
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| Does the business expert have to understand the data model? |
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A data model expresses constraints that a technological solution will place on the business community. If the business experts can not identify the constraints on the model, they will have difficulty determining what it means to accept the constraints. At the very least, the business experts should be conversant with the concepts of cardinality, relationships and attribute assignment. We present these topics in our seminar How to Model and Analyze Business System Data. |
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| Why analyze a business area if the business experts already know what they want? |
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A large number of information technology projects start with a solution that "has to" be implemented. The solution may or may not be the right decision. Whereas it is in IT’s best interest to deliver the solution that the end-user wants, the better the analysis of the thought process behind the decision, the easier it is for them to deliver a working system. Without sufficient understanding, IT may be implementing a solution that will not work. Our workshop How to Analyze Business Systems to Define Requirements presents a wide variety of state-of-the-practice techniques. |
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| How many types of requirements are there? |
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The IT industry not only does not agree on the number of requirement types, we can’t even agree on what to call those that we have! The most commonly accepted categorization of requirements is presumably "functional" versus "non-functional" requirements but even here, the definition of what falls into each category is not universally accepted. Our Requirements Taxonomy provides a printable recommendation that describes 18 business requirements and a complementary set of system specifications. These requirements categories form the basis of all of our training offers. |
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| What is the difference between "business process improvement" and "business process reengineering"? |
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Generally speaking, business process reengineering implies a radical, significant change to a business process to take advantage of emerging technology and solve identified business problems. Business process improvement is an evolutionary approach to achieving the same goal. Whichever approach works for you, the techniques we present in How to Model, Analyze and Improve Business Processes gives you a complete set of techniques for identifying and solving process problems. |
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| What is the difference between a data model and an entity relationship diagram? |
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An Entity-Relationship diagram (ERD) is a model of the static structure of the things about which you need to store data. A data model, technically speaking, is a broader category that encompasses ERD's as well as several other conventions for creating diagrams of your data. The Entity-Relationship diagram, however, has become so widespread that the two terms are most often used interchangeably. Our workshop How to Model and Analyze Business System Data presents techniques for creating and using ERD's for identifying and defining business data requirements. |
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| What is business analysis? |
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Business systems analysis is the evolving discipline that deals with identifying your business information technology needs. It includes expressing these needs as business requirements, processes and rules (hereafter business requirements) that the business community and information professionals both interpret the same way. Business requirements serve as the basis for development, testing, deployment, and use of your future information systems. They are the starting point for lifecycle management and business driven development. In a nutshell, these are the critical success factors for delivering information technology that the business community needs and wants. |
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| What diagrams comprise the UML? |
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The Unified Modeling Language (UML) encompasses symbols for the many commonly used models: Object Diagrams, Class Diagrams, Use Case Diagrams, Activity Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams, Collaboration Diagrams, Component Diagrams, State Diagrams, and Deployment Diagrams. Our workshop How to Model Business Requirements with the UML focuses on those diagrams that are most commonly used by business systems analysts. |
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| Do you have anything on unit, integration, and system testing? |
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Our seminar "How to Test Business Systems" targets specifically system and user acceptance testing. Unit and Integration testing are commonly conducted by or in conjunction with Developers. |
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| What can I do if I do not have enough time to test? |
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If you do not have sufficient time to test, the first thing you need to do is communicate to your managers and anyone else who is involved what risks are being added to the project. Of course, reality will always prevail. If you don’ have and can’t get more time or resources, your only recourse will often be to test the high-risk components of the solution and deal with the errors in the rest when they show up in production. |
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| What is an equivalence class? |
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An equivalence class is any set of input data and conditions that execute a common set of business rules, modules, files, etc. Each test situation can be different, but if the result that you are evaluating is achievable with a variety of different test cases, those test cases form an equivalence class. You can test any single member of the class and evaluate the systems’ reaction to the entire class. We present how to identify and use equivalence classes in your testing in our workshop How to Test Business Information Systems. |
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| What is a JAR/JAD? |
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A JAR/JAD (Joint Application Development - Requirements - or Joint Application Requirements Definition) is a time-compression workshop that focuses on quickly capturing, clarifying and confirming business requirements (and, later, system specifications) for an information technology solution. It is attended by a cross-functional group consisting of subject matter experts, business / systems analysts, systems designers and project leaders. Our training session How to Prepare and Facilitate a Successful JAD Session introduces participants to tools, techniques and tricks for facilitating and supporting these workshops. |
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| We have scheduled a JAR/JAD session. How can I prepare myself? |
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Effective preparation for a JAR/JAD session requires that you know and understand the goal of the JAR/JAD session (what will the session produce) and how the deliverables will be created (tools or techniques). If you do not have access to this information, contact the project leader or JAR/JAD facilitator and ask for help. He/she should be able to recommend training or presentations that will help you prepare yourself. The most effective participants are those who know what to expect and feel confident in their ability to deliver. |
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| Who should attend a JAR/JAD session? |
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The four critical categories of JAR/JAD session attendees are the facilitation team, technical experts, contributors and observers. The facilitation team has to lead the session and produce the deliverables based on the input from the "contributors". The "technical experts" pose pertinent questions and have to use the deliverables to do their job once the session is complete. "Observers" are present to study the process and potentially to learn about the topic under discussion but have no active role in the discussion. |
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| Who has to be involved in a pre-session? |
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The purpose of a pre-session is to evaluate the project and determine whether a JAR/JAD session is the appropriate approach for creating deliverables within the project environment. Typically, the people who have to be involved in making this determination are the project leader, IT management, client management, business analysts and/or system analysts, and the proposed facilitation team. This group may need input from other project participants or peers to be confident that their decision is right for all involved. |
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| Can I schedule a virtual class for classroom delivery? |
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You can schedule our virtual classes for in-house, instructor-led classroom delivery. Since our virtual modules are generally 3.5 hours in length, you might want to combine several modules to create a 2 - 3 day course to decrease the impact of instructor travel expenses. |
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(813) 319-5851