Overview

View Course Highlights

Increasingly, organisations are operating in fast-moving and often volatile business environments.  Project teams need to respond quickly to tricky and often ill-defined problem situations, enabling the organisation to adapt and meet the ongoing demands of its customers and environment.    In these contexts the pre-project stage is crucial: For our change initiatives to be successful, we need to truly understand the problem we are trying to solve.  By understanding the problem we can ensure that any future project activity is built upon a firm foundation, and is heading towards a set of goals that are concise, precise and have been agreed upon.

This practical, hands-on workshop, focusses on the problem-solving skills that practitioners need in order to collaboratively explore and describe problems, and to co-create potential options for improvement.  These skills are extremely valuable pre-project and early in the project lifecycle, and this course will be of interest to business analysts and other practitioners who help analyse, assess and solve tricky organisational problems.

All public courses are available as in-house training. Contact us for more information.

Learning Objectives

After attending this course, delegates will:

  • Understand what pre-project problem analysis is, and its significance in the analysis and project lifecycle
  • Understand the importance of stakeholder identification, categorisation and management
  • Be able to use a range of problem analysis techniques to understand problem situations
  • Be able to define a problem using a ‘problem statement’ and understand how successful outcomes can be articulated with Critical Success Factors and Key Performance Indicators
  • Understand what a Business Use Case diagram is and understand its value in articulating scope during pre-project problem analysis
  • Use a 1 page ‘Project Concept Summary’ template to bring together a potential project idea onto a page

Course Outline

Introduction

  • What is ‘Problem Analysis?’:  A brief introduction to the course, and a discussion of why it is important that we analyse the problem before assuming or implementing a solution

Stakeholders in Problem Analysis

  • Identifying Stakeholders: Tips for identifying likely stakeholders, along with suggestions of potential ‘generic’ stakeholder types that regularly warrant consideration
  • Stakeholder Analysis: Categorisation of stakeholders
  • Communication/Engagement Planning: Planning how to liaise with stakeholders in the early stages of problem investigation
  • Power & Politics:  Discussion of how power & politics can affect problem solving, and how it affects us as practitioners

Understanding the Problem Situation

  • Elicitation Techniques: Overview of a range of techniques for eliciting information about a problem situation (Interviews, Workshops, Observation, Document Analysis)
  • Categorising Problematic Situations:  The difference between a ‘difficulty’ and a ‘mess’
  • Problem Analysis Techniques:  Practical overview of:
    • 5 Whys
    • Fishbone Diagram
    • Multiple Cause Diagram
    • Causal Loops
  • External Environment Analysis: Practical overview of STEEPLE technique for analysing the broader business or organisational context
  • Perspectives: The importance of understanding that different stakeholders may perceive the problem situation differently
  • Defining the Problem:  Overview of a typical ‘Problem Statement’, along with a discussion of pros/cons and when it is most useful
  • Defining Success:  Critical Success Factors (CSFs), Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Balanced Business Scorecard

Defining Business Requirement Scope

  • Roles & Goals: Defining the ‘roles’ that are involved in the problem space and their (business) goals
  • Business Use Case Diagram: Introduction to Business Use Case diagrams as a way of scoping out the high level business requirements on a problem situation/potential project concept
  • Requirement Types:  Brief discussion of other requirement types that may emerge early in the project lifecycle

Identifying Areas for Change

  • Gap Analysis:  Comparing the output from the techniques in previous sections to identify areas where change is desirable
  • Existing Solution Evaluation: Discussion on approaches for benchmarking/measuring existing solutions to determine where improvement may be needed

Generating Improvement Ideas

  • Creative Thinking Techniques:  Techniques for generating a range of potential ideas for improvement:
    • Brainstorming
    • Brainstorming Enhancers
  • Types of Improvement Approach:  Discussion of the breadth of improvement approaches that are generally available, which is often wider than initially anticipated.  Discussion on feasibility: What might stop or inhibit an approach being acceptable

Bringing It all Together

  • Project Concept Summary:  Overview of a one page ‘project concept summary’ outlining the problem, likely requirement scope, and potential solutions
  • Validation: How to ensure the ‘project concept summary’ is validated by key stakeholders
  • Next steps: What next after the ‘project concept summary’

 

IIBA Accreditation

This course, Pre-Project Problem Analysis: Practical Techniques for Early Business Analysis Engagement, is a course endorsed by the IIBA. The course is aligned with the BABOK v3. By attending this course you will earn 14 PDs (Professional Development hours) or 14 CDUs (Continuing Development Units).

Who It's For

This course is well suited for anyone needing to understand how to undertake problem analysis early in the project lifecycle.  It will be of particular interest to BA teams that are looking to ‘left shift’ and seek early engagement.  Typical delegates include:

  • Business Analysts
  • Business Systems Analyst
  • Consultants
  • Requirements Manager
  • Requirements Engineers
  • Product Owner

Speaker

Adrian Reed

Principal Consultant

Blackmetric Business Solutions

Adrian Reed is a true advocate of the analysis profession. In his day job, he acts as Principal Consultant and Director at Blackmetric Business Solutions where he provides business analysis consultancy and training solutions to a range of clients in varying industries. He is a Past President of the UK chapter of the IIBA® and he speaks internationally on topics relating to business analysis and business change.  Adrian wrote the 2016 book ‘Be a Great Problem Solver… Now’ and the 2018 book ‘Business Analyst’. You can read Adrian’s blog at http://www.adrianreed.co.uk and follow him on Twitter at @UKAdrianReed

Fees

  • 2 days
  • £1,295
  • £1,295 + VAT (£259) = £1,554
Group Booking Discounts
Delegates
2-3 10% discount
4-5 20% discount
6+ 25% discount

Cancellation Policy:
Cancellations must be received in writing at least two weeks before the commencement of the seminar and will be subject to a 10% administration fee. It is regretted that cancellations received within two weeks of the seminar date will be liable for the full seminar fee. Substitutions can be made at any time.

Cancellation Liability:
In the unlikely event of cancellation of the seminar for any reason, IRM UK’s liability is limited to the return of the registration fee only. IRM UK will not reimburse delegates for any travel or hotel cancellation fees or penalties. It may be necessary, for reasons beyond the control of IRM UK, to change the content, timings, speakers, date and venue of the seminar.

Venue

  • etc.venues Marble Arch
  • Garfield House
  • 86 Edgware Road
  • London W2 2EA

Accommodation

IRM UK in association with JP Events Ltd has arranged special discounted rates at all venues and at other hotels nearby the venue. Please visit the JP Events website for further information.

Email: mina@jpetem.com Tel: +44 (0)84 5680 1138

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