MTAT.03.310 Business Analysis
Coordinator: Fredrik Milani (milani ät ut . ee)
Objective
Business analysis is, at its core, about “delivering business value” and is defined as “the practice of enabling change in an enterprise by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value”. This simply means to analyze needs or problems of a specific business for the purpose of designing, developing and implementing a solution to fill that need or solve the problem. Value is very often delivered by means of IT-intensive solutions. Although the work of business analysis can take on a multitude of forms, in the end, it is about understanding the current state and through a set of activities, bring the business to desired future state that is of higher value.
This course provides an overview of business analysis when primarily engaged in delivering business value through software related solutions and investments. By the end of this course, you will be able to identify a problem, elicit relevant information, evaluate and select the best-suited alternative. You will also become acquainted with the role of an analyst in designing, delivering and, evaluating the final solution and results. In short, you will learn about analysis to ensure the fit of an IT-solution to its context so it delivers value. This course is perfect for students who seek to gain a fundamental understanding of the profession of business analysis.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify, analyze, and work with a need, problem, opportunity
- Collect, organize, and synthesize input and documentation from different sources
- Design and assess solution alternatives
- Prepare and present business case for IT system development projects
Lecturer and Assistant
Lecturer: Fredrik P. Milani (milani ät ut dot/punkt ee) Teaching Assistant: Katsiaryna Lashkevich (katsiaryna dot/punkt lashkevich ät ut dot/punkt ee)
Structure
This course covers the main activities of the business analysis process and will examine the following aspects of such work.
- Understand the business analysis process
- Understand the business context and how it affects the analysis work
- Learn to gather and elicit relevant information
- Learn to define the current state
- Learn to analyze and define the need/problem
- Learn to define the future state
- Learn to evaluate alternative solutions and select the best one
- Understand the role of a business analyst in designing the solution
- Understand the role of an analyst in delivering a solution and finally
- Understand how the solution can be evaluated based on its delivered results
Each session consists of 2-4 academic hours and will cover one or several of the topics listed above. The sessions will have lectures, recaps, discussions, tasks, and classwork to be completed in teams.
The lectures are on Tuesdays 14.15 - 18.00 in room 1021 (Delta). For more detailed course schedule, see Moodle.
Prior to the session, the students are to independently study the materials. The topic will be revisited (recap) and discussed during the session. After the discussions, the newly gained knowledge is applied on a real-life inspired case by means of classwork.
Assessment
This course consists of 13 quizzes, seminar reports, one project assignment, and a final exam. The distribution of the points for each assessment type is as follows.
- Quizzes: The quizzes can give a total of max 20 points
- Seminar Reports: Each report can give max 1 points (total 10 points)
- Project Assignment: The project assignment can give maximum 20 points.
- Exam: The exam can give maximum 50 points.
The maximum points for the course is 100. For a passing grade, points are required from all assessment parts (least 15 points from the exam). The grading follows the standard rules of the University of Tartu. For a passing grade, at least 51 points (grade E) are required. For a grade D, 61 points are required. The same structure applies for grades C, B, and A where an A requires at least 91 points. For a passing grade, points are required from all assessment parts (least 10 points from the exam).
In this course, Moodle is used for group selections, submissions, communication (Q&A and announcements), exams, and information about deadlines. Please refer to Moodle for such information.
Communication
For questions and discussion, please use the course forum in Moodle. Please subscribe to the forum so you will be alerted about new posts and course relevant information.
Acknowledgments
The contents of the course material and the structure of this course is based on "A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge" issued by IIBA (http://www.iiba.org/babok-guide.aspx).