Business & Finance line, station 1 of 4
Business Analysis
Understand the problem before the solution: elicitation, process models, requirements, user stories and acceptance.
- 6lessons
- 3.5 hto read and do
- Beginnerlevel
- 6podcast episodes
- 6checked exercises
Tools you'll use in this course
The lessons open these with a template ready. They work for your own job too, no course needed.
About this course
Business analysts make sure teams build the right thing. They find out what people really need, map how work flows today, write requirements that developers and testers can use, and check that the result solves the problem. This course teaches the core techniques from first principles, in line with the knowledge areas of IIBA's BABOK Guide, and every lesson ends with something you can use at work the next day: a problem statement, an interview guide, a process model, a requirements list, a set of stories with acceptance criteria, a traceability matrix and a UAT plan.
You are the business analyst on Mangrove Market's project to move partner-shop phone orders into the Partner app. About 1,500 partner orders a week still come in by phone to 40 sales reps, and about 1 in 12 of them is corrected after delivery. You measure the problem with SQL, map the stakeholders, interview shop owners like Ravi and shadow a sales rep, model the current and future ordering process in BPMN, find the waste, write requirements and business rules for credit limits and cut-off times, split the work into user stories with Given/When/Then criteria, and take the change through change control and user acceptance testing with the agency that builds the app.
Each lesson has quick checks, a worked example, auto-checked SQL or JavaScript exercises that run in your browser, practice tasks with model answers, flashcards and a podcast episode. The course ends with a capstone you can show in an interview: the full analysis pack for the phone-order project.
What you will be able to do
- Measure a business problem with data and turn a request into a problem statement with measurable objectives
- Identify stakeholders, plan how to engage them, and elicit needs with interviews, observation and workshops
- Model current and future processes in BPMN and find the waste between them
- Write testable functional and non-functional requirements, business rules as decision tables, and data requirements
- Split work into small user stories with Given/When/Then acceptance criteria and a definition of ready
- Manage changes with traceability and impact analysis, and run user acceptance testing to sign-off
Syllabus
6 stops, about 3.5 h in total. Each stop fills in when you complete the lesson.
What business analysts do
A business analyst makes sure a team builds the right change, for the right reason, and can prove it helped. This lesson explains the job, the BABOK Guide's core concepts and knowledge areas as work you will actually do, and how analysts work in agile teams. You start as the new business analyst on Mangrove Market's project to move partner-shop phone orders into the Partner app.
Requirements analysisStakeholder managementRequirements elicitation
Stakeholders and elicitation
Before you write a single requirement, you need to know who cares about the change and what is really happening today. This lesson shows you how to map stakeholders, choose the right elicitation technique, run a workshop, and confirm what you heard, using the search for why 1,500 partner orders a week still come by phone.
Stakeholder managementRequirements elicitation
Modelling processes
A process model is one picture that everyone in the room agrees is true. This lesson teaches the small part of BPMN that covers most real models, walks you through Mangrove Market's phone-order process as it is today, shows you how to find and measure the waste in it, and designs the future app process that removes it.
Process modellingBPMNRequirements analysis
Requirements that work
A requirement is only useful if a developer can build it and a tester can prove it. This lesson turns the phone-order findings into a set of requirements Lagoon Digital can estimate and test: functional and non-functional requirements with numbers, business rules kept apart in a decision table, a data dictionary, and the requirements for the move itself.
Requirements analysisBusiness rulesAcceptance criteriaTraceability
User stories and acceptance criteria
In the last lesson you wrote requirements and business rules for moving phone orders into the Partner app. Now the agency's team needs work it can build in two-week sprints. This lesson shows you, as the business analyst, how to turn those requirements into a story map, thin stories and acceptance criteria built from real examples, and how to check a story is ready without turning that check into a wall.
User storiesAcceptance criteriaRequirements analysisBusiness rulesTraceability
From change control to acceptance
Requirements keep moving after you write them, and somebody has to prove that what was built does the job. This lesson shows you how to link every requirement to its reason and its tests, judge a change request with real impact analysis, run user acceptance testing with Ravi and the pilot shops, and measure after go-live whether the project met its objectives.
TraceabilityUATRequirements analysisAcceptance criteria
Capstone: Move phone orders into the Partner app
A realistic project with a rubric and a model answer.
Final exam and certificate
10 questions drawn at random, 70% to pass.
Capstone project
Move phone orders into the Partner app
About 4,000 partner orders a week reach Mangrove Market, and about 1,500 of them still come by phone to 40 sales reps, who write them down and re-key them into the back office at the end of the day. About 1 phone order in 12 is corrected after delivery, at about $9 a correction, and the head of partner sales wants the app's share to rise from 62% to 75% within a year. Lagoon Digital, the agency that builds the Partner app, is waiting for a backlog. Produce the analysis pack the team needs: measure the problem, plan how you will work with shop owners, reps, finance, the distribution centres and Lagoon, find out why shops still phone, model the ordering process today and after the change, write the requirements and business rules (credit limits, the 6 pm cut-off, pack sizes), turn them into a backlog of user stories with acceptance criteria, and show how every requirement traces to a need and a test, with a UAT plan for a pilot with 20 shops.
You will hand in
- A one-page problem statement with today's numbers and two to four measurable objectives
- A stakeholder map with an engagement plan, and an elicitation summary that names the evidence behind each finding
- Current-state and future-state BPMN models of partner ordering, with the waste you found and how the future state removes it
- A requirements list with IDs (business, functional, non-functional, transition), the business rules as decision tables and a short data dictionary
- A backlog of 12 to 20 user stories with Given/When/Then acceptance criteria and a story map showing the first release
- A traceability matrix from objectives to requirements, stories and tests, and a UAT plan with entry and exit criteria
Check what you know
Already know some of this? Answer 6 quick questions, one from each lesson, and we will mark the lessons you can skim. It takes about 3 minutes and nothing is graded.
Questions
Do I need any experience?
No. The course starts from what a business analyst does and explains every term. Office or operations experience helps, because you will recognise the problems, but it is not needed.
Does it prepare me for IIBA certificates?
It covers the main techniques behind entry-level certificates such as ECBA, with practical work. Use IIBA's own material, including the BABOK Guide, to prepare for the exam itself.
Do I need to know SQL or JavaScript?
No. A few exercises use a short SQL query or a small JavaScript function to measure a problem or check a business rule. The starter code shows the shape, and each one has a worked solution. Analysts who can run their own queries ask better questions.
Business analyst or product manager?
They overlap. BAs focus on understanding and specifying the need and making sure the solution delivers it; PMs also own the product's direction and outcomes. Many people move from one role to the other, and the role-switch guide on the paths page shows how.
Is it really free?
Yes. Every lesson, podcast episode, exercise, quiz, final exam and certificate is free. The labs and their templates for real work are free too. Plus and Premium add every lab challenge, weekly extras and a mentor on top, and they never lock the tools or the courses.
How long does it take?
Each lesson shows an honest time for reading and doing. Most people finish a course in two to four weeks at three or four hours a week.
How does the final exam work?
You get 15 questions drawn at random from a larger bank. You need 70% to pass. If you do not pass, you can try again after 24 hours. The exam is graded on the server and you never see the answer key.