Services We Offer to Support Business Systems Analysts

Requirements Management Office
Outsourced Business Analysis
E-Coaching
JAD Facilitation
SDLC Customization
Skills Assessment
Tailored e-Learning
Tailored Training

We feel very strongly that a consultant's first obligation is to work him/herself out of a job! If we manage to make you dependent upon our services, we are doing your organization the greatest disservice. We base all of the services that the Requirements Solutions Group provides on the concept of skills-transfer. It is our firm commitment that when we are done working with you, your organization will have the skills needed to take our place.


	Requirements Management Office
	How do you build a Requirements Management Office (RMO, a.k.a. Requirements Center of Excellence - RCoE)? You start with qualified and motivated people. Give them the best training available to keep their skills current. Allow them to share experiences through interaction — sharing experiences has been the best method for skills acquisition since the beginnings of time. Let them become a team, then you can challenge them to gather, define, analyze, prioritize, and manage the requirements for all of your information technology projects. Business analysis has long been a major challenge for most organizations. Understanding how the business community can leverage information technology for competitive advantage is a challenging task. Translating those needs into technology solutions is another, equally challenging task. Keeping up with the constantly changing business landscape adds a third dimension to the issue. Having a cadre of trained, professional business analysts ready to meet these challenges can spell the difference between project success and failure. A Requirements Management Office gives this group a home where they can share their experiences and build each other’s skills. If your projects are "requirements-challenged", the Requirements Solutions Group will help you set up, train, staff, and implement a Requirements Management Office. This new unit will be the clearing house for business analysis and requirements gathering requests for all IT projects.


	Outsourced Business Analysis
	Don’t have time or resources to train in requirements analysis skills? Business systems analysis is an extremely challenging activity as can be witnessed by the myriad of reports citing poor requirements as the number one factor contributing to project failure. Outsource your business analysis function to us. Use our on-site or over-the-web consulting service to capture, clarify and confirm your business requirements before you take the dive and commit to a project. We deliver a business requirements definition document that both business experts and information technology professionals can understand and use. It can be used by in-house or outsourced developers for bidding and/or as the basis for development. By using our expertise, you are getting business requirements that are clear, concise, and measurable early in the project. We can also use our standard Request for Proposal (RFP) forms to solicit initial effort estimates from several independent outsourced developers for you.


	E-Coaching	click for details
	The coaching method of transferring skills is as old as learning itself. In fact, it presumably predates human speech, as observing someone else do something is often more important than reading every book ever written on that topic. Apprenticeship programs around the world still follow this time-honored tradition. In the field of information technology, we all-too-often neglect the non-technical solution because we are so heavily involved in technology. The simple idea of using the communications technology at our fingertips to make this easiest of all learning processes available to a world-wide audience might just prove to be invaluable.


	JAD Facilitation	click for details
	Our interactive JAD concept uses a facilitation team to create session documentation with your business and system specialists. We can also enable your people to do their own JADs by classroom training or e-Coaching. The Key is getting the right people in the right place at the right time and creating a productive and synergetic environment for them to work. This is what we do best. Our concept is ideal for creating system development deliverables with minimal interruption of day-to-day operations.


	SDLC Customization	click for details
	Do you have a requirements definition methodology that needs updating, downsizing, or tuning? We can help! Every methodology we’ve seen, from commercial products to in-house developed approaches, can be significantly improved using our methods. We help you integrate new concepts such as Agile approaches to your existing methods. We start with your development methods. Then we add our proven requirements analysis, project management, and software testing methods to build a foundation for your new successful business analysis life cycle. We help you customize and apply our methods for initial planning, phase planning, status tracking, change management, and post-project evaluation. We can add our estimating methods, supported with our estimating tool Quest For Better Estimates®. Our estimating methods use the best features of today’s approaches, such as Boehm’s COCOMO factors and Function Point estimating. Of course, we supply supporting background and explanatory materials. We bring you up to speed using Plan By Example®, our re-usable automated project planning approach. One strength of Plan By Example is its active documentation support. It captures your project documentation while accelerating early planning. The final touch on your new, enhanced methodology is the fine-tuning. We help you populate your project models with baseline project plans, adapted to your methodology. Then we coach your staff in the pilot projects using the new methods. We can also provide training in your new methods, if needed. In follow-up, we show you how to update your model project plans from your history, and complete the transfer of technology and skills needed to maintain your new, improved methods.


	Skills Assessment	click for details
	This tool is designed to help you assess your individual and organizational level of expertise in a set of typical business systems analysis activities and deliverables. You will assess where you think your skill level currently is and also what you think your skill level should be for either your current job, for a specific task, or for career development. From an organizational perspective, management can identify the desired level of skills. A comparison of where you think you are versus where management desires the skill levels to be helps us tailor our training to better serve you and your organization. The assessment consists of two parts; part 1 presents you with a set of typical business systems analysis activities whereas part 2 focuses on knowledge representation tools commonly used by business systems analysts. The purpose of the evaluation is to identify areas for improvement or topics to improve, either in books or in training seminars. This assessment can also serve as a "before and after" evaluation of a learning experience. You can access a free sample of this tool at Skills Evaluation.


	Tailored e-Learning
	Our virtual workshops and knowledge nuggets contain many examples and exercises that are based on past projects we have done. These skill-building training experiences would be even more powerful if they used examples, exercises and debriefs from YOUR organization or industry. We can customize any of our e-learning offers to include fitting scenarios that focus on the challenges facing your people. We work with you in a series of conference calls, WebEx conferences and/or site visits to select the most appropriate material to reinforce the content that a particular module or workshop is designed to deliver. We then take your material and work it into our format to generate a unique training experience for you. Since our training is designed to be modified, the amount of work needed is minimal, which translates into significant savings for you.


	Tailored Training
	The Requirements Solutions Group’s Business Systems Analysis Curriculum is designed specifically to address the three most common failure points: Incomplete and/or incorrect business requirements and/or technical specifications Incomplete or ineffective testing (often due to poor requirements) Improperly managed projects (Either incompetent project management, or incomplete requirements) Our standard training offers are targeted toward Business Analysts, System Analysts, Business Systems Analysts, Business System Architects, or any professionals who are engaged in the discipline of gathering, understanding, and translating business needs into technology solutions. Our training is designed based on about 100,000 hours of training experience and follows several major precepts. Our courses: Are two to three days duration (which has been found to be the optimum duration based on over 300 person years of instructional experience) Are based on a common case study (this provides continuity for the participant) Appropriately limit the number of participants (which varies depending on topic) Focus on only one or two major subjects Provide links to all the other seminars through a common language, a common case study and consistent Business Systems Analysis methods Are about 20% lecture, 25% exercises, 30% case study and 25% exercise and case study debriefings Can be modified by: including a custom case study from your organization or industry rearranging or swapping seminar sections adding customer-specific material that integrates the training with your organization