Tuesday 21 April 2009

ISEB Certificate in Requirements Engineering... Done!!

I know you all must think I am on a roll, doing all these courses back to back! This I must say was an intense yet fantastic Course. This is the core of Business Analysis. A BA is useless if they have no knowledge of the skills that this course teaches. I did the course on the 18th-19th April 2009 in Central London.

Course Overview:
Requirements Engineering provides Business Analysts with a good grounding in a range of techniques for revealing, analysing and documenting business and system requirements. The course examines a range of elicitation techniques and how to record user requirements for an information system. Key areas such as prioritising requirements, resolving conflicting requirements and linking project objectives and requirements to the Business Case are also covered.
Holders of the Certificate in Requirements Engineering should be able to:
-Act as effective members of a team involved in eliciting and recording user requirements for an information system.
-Recognise the nature of the requirements and the knowledge type to which they belong, and to select and use an appropriate elicitation technique.
-Be familiar with a range of elicitation techniques and know how to apply them effectively.
-Record and prioritise requirements, and be able to recognize and help resolve conflicting requirements.
-Link project objectives/requirements to the Business Case.
-Be aware of what CASE support exists for Requirements Engineering

...I have decided to do my exams on the same day as the exams for the Agile course as they were unbelievably related, Use-cases and all! Below is the Course Syllabus.

ISEB Certificate in Requirements Engineering
Course Syllabus

1. The role of the analyst
o The role and competencies of an analyst
o Developing analyst competencies
2. The requirements engineering process
o The importance of requirements engineering
o A framework for requirements engineering
o Characteristics of requirements engineering
3. Actors and viewpoints
o Stakeholders in business analysis projects
o Roles and responsibilities in the requirements engineering process
o Context diagrams and stakeholders
4. Project initiation
o The importance of the project initiation stage
o The project initiation document
5. Facilitated workshops
o The use of workshops to elicit, analyse and negotiate requirements
o Structure of a facilitated workshop
o Workshop roles
o Facilitation skills
o Stimulating creative thinking
6. Fact-finding Interviewing
o Structure of a fact-finding interview
o Questioning techniques
o Documenting interviews
7. Documenting requirements
o General business requirements
o Functional and non-functional requirements
o Technical requirements
o The requirements catalogue
o Interpreting class diagrams
o Scoping systems and documenting requirements with use cases
8. Other requirements elicitation techniques
o Observation and ethnographic studies
o Activity sampling
o Document and data source analysis
o Questionnaires
o Choosing the appropriate technique/s
9. Analysing requirements
o Examining the requirements catalogue
o Prioritising requirements (MoSCoW)
o Checking for ambiguity and lack of clarity
o Testability of requirements.
10. Scenarios and prototyping
o The use of scenarios to explore requirements
o Use case descriptions as a method of documenting scenarios
o The use of prototyping to explore requirements
o Types of prototyping (throwaway, evolutionary etc.)
o The dangers and difficulties of prototyping; managing prototyping exercises
11. Requirements management
o Change and version control of requirements
o Requirements traceability
o The use of CASE tools in requirements engineering
12. Validating requirements
o Validation techniques
o Quality control in requirements engineering
13. Requirements and systems development
o Development lifecycles
o The link between requirements and systems development
o Post-implementation review

Wednesday 1 April 2009

ISEB Certificate in Organisational Context... Done!!

I was able to snap up the last available space on the OC course on the 28th-29th March 2009. I am very glad that I did. Still, I predict that this course will be the hardest of the lot. OMG!!! i refuse to believe that BAs do that much accounting and all them financial stuff. I couldn't be presented with more cash-flow, balanced, and expenditure sheets. I fell ill just sitting there! I tell you!!! One of the already working BA there said he never does this kind of thing at work, he says there is always a financial/accounts person in the project team. Oh well, its done now and I passed!!

Course Overview:
Organisational Context provides Business Analysts with a good grounding in the basics of business. The course examines various types of businesses and their management structures. Key areas such as Financial and Management accounting, Budgeting and Legal issues are also covered.
Holders of the ISEB Certificate in Organisational Context should be able to:
-Describe the range and type of business organisations in the UK.
-Describe the advantages and disadvantages of a range of management structures operated within organisations.
-Demonstrate an understanding of the work carried out by key functions found within organisations.
-Explain legislative issues affecting information systems.
-Understand the range of activities carried out by financial and management accountants.
-Apply investment appraisal, costing and cash flow forecasting techniques

I did enjoy the course, the case studies and hearing the other delegates experiences relating to the subject but I must admit, this one took the biscuit!

ISEB Certificate in Organisational Context
Course Syllabus

1. Law and Government
o Criminal and civil law
o The legislative process in the UK
2. Business organisations
o Public sector organisations
o Private sector organisations
o Not-for-profit organisations
o Start-up organisations
o Business drivers
3. Organisational structures
o Departmental
o Project
o Matrix
4. Functional areas
o Functional divisions within organisations
o Sales and marketing
o Production/service delivery
o HR
o IT
o The finance function - the role of finance and the use and interpretation of the balance sheet and profit and loss account
5. Management accounting
o Investment appraisal
o Budgeting
o Cash flow forecasts
o Costing approaches
6. Costing
o Fixed and variable costs
o Absorption and marginal costing
o Standard costing
7. Financial reporting and analysis
o Profit and loss account
o Balance sheet
o Financial ratios
8. Legislation
o Anti-discrimination
o Software contracts and liability
o Intellectual property rights
o Data protection, privacy and freedom of information
o Internet issues
o Computer misuse