The session covers the following key themes and topics:

• Role of the Business Analyst (BA):
  • The BA serves as a foundation for projects, primarily operating in the pre-project and initiation phases to perform needs assessments.
  • The BA’s objective is to understand the “why” behind a project to avoid efficiently building the wrong thing.
• Needs vs. Requirements:
  • A need is a fundamental gap between the current state and the desired future state, often described as the “why”.
  • Requirements are the “what” and “how”—specific, detailed statements used to address the identified needs.
  • Effective projects require the alignment of business requirements (high-level), user requirements (stakeholder goals), and technical requirements (functional/non-functional criteria).
• Investigation Techniques:
  • Qualitative: Techniques such as interviews, observations (shadowing), storytelling, and focus groups are used to understand feelings, attitudes, and behaviors.
  • Quantitative: Techniques such as surveys, data analysis, and tracking metrics provide objective numerical data.
  • Workshops: High-energy collaborative sessions used to elicit requirements and foster consensus, though they require careful management of dominant personalities and time constraints.
  • Benchmarking: Comparing processes, performance, and strategies against competitors or industry best practices to identify improvements.
• Root Cause Analysis and Documentation:
  • BAs use tools like the “Five Whys” and “Fishbone Diagrams” to dig beneath symptoms and identify the underlying causes of business issues.
  • Effective documentation, such as meeting reports and visual process maps, is essential for validating information and ensuring alignment with stakeholders.
• Practical Application:
  • The session included interactive exercises where participants practiced distinguishing between needs and requirements using a coffee shop scenario, and selecting appropriate investigation techniques for an office canteen problem.