Course slides on running Discovery and Requirements Workshops for the Client's Subject Matter Experts.

1. Workshop
Management
Business Analyst
Academy

2. Where We Are….
Business Analyst Academy 2
Business Process Model
0. Tool Chest for
Innovation
4. Elicitation
1. Straw Models
Participants
5. Business Process
Model
6. Decisions and
Rules
7. Conceptual Data
Model, Glossary,
Entity Descriptions
8. Use Cases
9. Requirements
2. Workshop
Planning
3. Workshop
Management

3. Business Analyst Academy – Workshop Management
3
3
• Interactive - different levels and organizations communicate
directly with each other--rather than one on one with the
interviewer
• All ideas are given a chance to percolate to avoid premature
criticism
• Business process rather than function orientation--not just
accounting or programming; not just the State point of view
How are JADs different

4. Roles and Responsibilities
Business Analyst Academy 4
• Facilitator
• participation by all involved; focused and timeboxed
• keeps baggage and hierarchy out of meeting
• Encourages open exchange of ideas
• Recorder
• Takes detailed notes, distributes in timely manner
• Participants
• Leave baggage at the door
• Look at process from the view of customers and business partners

5. Facilitator Shows Up PREPARED
Business Analyst Academy 5
• Allow at least two weeks before conduct of the first JAD to learn
the business
• Understand or prepare the charter
• Meet with the Project Sponsor to verify understanding of the project’s role
in the enterprise strategic direction
• Work with other business analysts to collect, read, and catalog reference
materials
• Understand the enterprise technology investments and the project’s
contribution to them
• Prepare “straw model” process flows
• Read the RFP and our response

6. Workshops are Hard Work -- Daily Tasks
Business Analyst Academy 6
• Edit and distribute the minutes of each JAD session
to the participants – each day!!!
• Make homework assignments where needed
• Verify the note taker understands what is
important
• Organize notes by findings, questions, needed
followup, assignments, rules, requirements, data
needs, report needs, constraints, assumptions,
performance measurements

7. Daily Tasks….
Business Analyst Academy 7
• Lists of Old and New Assumptions, Problems, Opportunities,
Exceptions, Rules, Policies
• Assign homework:
• Collect reference materials
• Research metrics: throughout, volumes, workload, level of effort
• Distribute meeting notes
• Schedule next meeting
• Update Prototype, database, storyboard

8. Remember: You Start with a Model to ELICIT Contributions
Business Analyst Academy 8
• Don’t start with a blank slate
• Show the team you have done your homework to
understand the business
• The sessions are not intended to educate the
facilitator, but to educate one another
• Provide an initial story board and process model to
use to elicit information rather than starting from
scratch
• Include an “as is” model of the current process—
use to establish a common understanding

9. Show Participants Their Contributions are Embraced
Business Analyst Academy 9
• Keep a note page open to record facts, definitions, requirement
ideas, rules, changes in laws
• Update Visio in real time when easy to do.
• If not, draw change on the white board as overlay to the projector
and take a picture.
• Create email lists so that pictures can be shared right away.

10. Why Immediate Recognition is Important
Business Analyst Academy 10
• Keep a note page open to record facts, definitions,
requirement ideas, rules, changes in laws
• Update Visio in real time when easy to do.
• If not, draw change on the white board as overlay
to the projector and take a picture.
• Create email lists so that pictures can be shared
right away.

11. Dealing with Distractions And Detours
Business Analyst Academy 11
• An esoteric need can take the discussion sideways.
• Ask “how often does this happen?”
• How much effort goes into each occurrence?
• What is consequence of delay, manual processing?
• What would prevent it?
• “Please send me an email summarizing the topic and I
will turn this into requirements and explore some ideas
for how to represent in the models”

12. Facilitator Role
Business Analyst Academy 12
• Explain the project goals from an enterprise
strategic and management perspective
• Explain the system development life cycle – where
the current activity fits into the overall project and
time frame
• Explain how the team’s work will influence what
happens later – and how they can stay informed
• Emphasize knowledge and idea sharing – not early
judgment or criticism

13. Techniques to Promote Creativity
Business Analyst Academy 13
• Establish common understanding of the current process
• Identify termite droppings:
• logs, handoffs, error listings, Filemaker Pro reports, control totals,
transmittal letters
• Understand assumptions that underlie current practices, roles,
responsibilities
• Challenge the underlying assumptions, not the people performing
the current tasks
• Propose new assumptions as the conditions for new tasks and
responsibilities

14. Challenge Assumptions
Business Analyst Academy 14
• What are Underlying Assumptions?
• The constraints and conditions that mold the way
business is currently performed
• Outmoded technologies
• Personal preferences of supervisors who have long
since retired
• Responses to concerns that no longer exist
• Limitations imposed by laws and procedures no longer
applicable
• The number of forms that can be tied together by a 30
inch length of string

15. Prompts for New Assumptions
Business Analyst Academy 15
• Staff are more highly trained than ten years ago
• Staff are computer literate
• Verifications can be done at the end rather than serving as
a condition of approval for each step
• People are empowered to make decisions with audits at a
later time
• Edit and correct without error listings
• Customers can decide for themselves what is best
• Technical assistance, not control and approval
• We can offer wisdom, but can not require its use

16. Business Analyst Academy 16
How Workshops are Different
• Emphasize the business process not just the point of view of a single
organizational unit
• System must meet needs of line, operational staff as well as management’s
reporting needs
• Effective user involvement not controlled by the information technology
point of view
• Stimulate “out of the box” thinking
• Do more than automate the current process
• Involve people who normally have little influence but may have important
insights

17. Business Analyst Academy 17
Workshop Way of Thinking
• Takes a business process, not automation point of view
• Requires someone looking at the project from a business
perspective
• Reduces the “control” of the techies
• Requires thinking about what people do w/ system
• Enables users to understand and ask more questions about
what new process will look like an d do
• Makes explicit that we are not automating the status quo
• Forces exploration of ways to improve the business process

18. Business Analyst Academy 18
• Provides access across a wide range of business units: user line of business,
fiscal, executive, admin support, Info Tech, other lines of business
• Translates words into an understandable picture
• Breaks the conceptual barrier of looking at a business process across
organizational boundaries
• Focuses on the end product/service to the customer/business partner
• Something for everyone: executives see enterprise process, managers see their
individual contributions
• Provides reason to explore entire enterprise
Workshop Approach Benefits

19. Beware of Baggage
Business Analyst Academy 19
• Divisions may have long memories and grudges over past
problems
• People may have competed for positions and promotions
• Software team rivalries; labor grievances

20. Rules of Engagement
Business Analyst Academy 20
• Time Box to stay focused
• All ideas and questions are worthwhile
• Save criticism for later; once closure reached, move on
• Participants appreciate views that cross organizational boundaries
• Participants recognize different levels of responsibility: mgmt, admin, phone
duty, filing, technical
• Criticize Assumptions underlying the current process--not the activities or the
people