Process Mapping Approach and Techniques for the Business Analyst 

Build the current state flow using process mapping (Affinity Mapping Process)

1.  Opening the Mapping Process- Appoint the following team roles:

a.  Team leader- process owner- opens the meeting, states the objectives, facilitates the charting and closes the meeting

b.  Documentor/Scribe- captures the issues on flip chart paper

c.  Timekeeper- keeps track of the time for the group

2.  Ground Rules for sessions- encourage communication, create a ‘rough draft’, avoid torpedoes/missiles, go for quantity, use flip chart for parking lot of unresolved issues

3.  Review the source information- Team Leader encourages debate and review of the information.  The group develops a list of questions, concerns and gaps.

4.  Brain-dump the activities- The Team Leader asks the participants to work independently to identify the verb noun activities for the process map.  Using a marker, each participant captures their ideas on post-its and writes their initials on each note.  The members are asked to collate their own post-its into common areas (e.g. customer items, IT items, etc.)

5.  Collate and rationalize- Use the brown- paper to sort the notes in the following order, involving one person at a time:

a.  Relate notes in a time sequence from left to right.

b.  Relate the notes in a level of doing order- high level stuff at the top (e.g. decide strategy, and lower operational stuff towards the bottom)

c.  Be prepared to reorder as you collate the collections

d.  Remove duplicated notes.

e.  The team leader keeps the group focused on identifying anything that might be left out and completing the process map.

6.  (Check) Sequence the activities- Walk through the activities in the process map to check to see what is missing and obtain consensus.  Identify and label the gaps with different color notes.  Capture the questions and notes on the flip chart paper.

7.  Agree on the Strawman Process Map- Check the current views between teams at this stage.  Discuss and refine together.

8.  Checklist of Issues- Is the map balanced in level of detail?  Are we missing steps?  Do we have too much detail?  Do we need to reorder it or space it out better? Etc.

Pierson Requirements Group (www.PiersonRequirementsGroup.com) offers business analysis training to companies seeking a more efficient approach to software development.

Stamford, CT – March 18, 2009 – Companies no longer have to suffer poor return on investments (ROI), or accept costly redesign efforts as the norm in software development. Business analysis training and JAD training classes from Pierson Requirements Group help members of management and staff work together to avoid the most common pitfalls in requirements planning to maximize efficiency and ROI.

“The problems most companies have with software development are due to poor requirements rather than coding,” says Pierson Requirements Group Partner, Joy Matthews. “Developers know how to code but the business requirements are most often incomplete and don’t effectively communicate the business needs. The lack of effective requirements gathering and writing leads to 82% of the software re-design and maintenance efforts causing companies to waste millions of dollars a year on ineffective software implementations and lost product to market opportunities. [Our] customers have found that it is a 200:1 cost savings to find defects in requirements rather than in the maintenance phase.”

Pierson provides hands-on training in requirements gathering and writing, testing, and project management with an interactive approach. The business analyst training classes are designed to improve project performance by teaching project teams how to work together to implement industry standards and best practices.

The methodology is so effective that customers of Pierson Requirements Group have reported that $12,000 – $15,000 business analyst training classes have produced a $144,000 to $192,000 ROI in a year. According to Matthews, “Surveys of Pierson’s customers have found that the use of a Collaborative Requirements Approach saved 25% to 33% of time over the entire project, or three to four months out of a year-long project.”

Pierson offers training classes or seminars in business requirements analysis, UML and business modeling, QA testing, project management, requirements gathering and writing, JAD facilitation and requirements gathering, and more. The company also offers mentoring and consulting services for more direct involvement in clients’ software development projects.

About Pierson Requirements Group

Pierson is an Endorsed Education Provider of the IIBA- International Institute of Business Analysts and a member of the BABOK review board.  All of Pierson’s courses can earn PDUs with the Project Management Institute (PMI) and CDUs with the IIBA.

Pierson Requirements Group has been the leader in requirements training and testing training using industry best practices for 18 years and is often recommended by Gartner to its clients. What makes Pierson’s training unique and successful is that the training classes conclude with a simulation using the deliverables throughout the PLC.  A real life customer’s project can even be used. The training is 1/3 lecture and 2/3 hands on exercises so that the trainees are ready to go after completing the class and equipped for success with a full toolkit of checklists, a procedures guide, agendas and scripts. The primary objective of the training is to provide the participants with the knowledge and experience to implement a repeatable requirements gathering and writing process using UML and helps prepare those who want to take the IIBA Certification Exam.  Participants of Pierson’s training are provided with a certificate of successful completion of the training.

For more information about Pierson Requirements Group or business analysis training, please visit www.PiersonRequirementsGroup.com or contact Walter Pierson at 203-322-1606.

Contact:
Walter Pierson, President
Pierson Requirements Group
Phone: 203-322-1606
Email: wpierson@piersonrequirementsgroup.com
Web: www.PiersonRequirementsGroup.com

Pierson Requirements Group’s customers have found that they are able to capture 93 – 95% of the business requirements functionality by using a collaborative requirements method and by creating and validating paper prototypes with the business community.  Pierson’s philosophy is to strive for consensus based requirements in order to provide better customer satisfaction.  If a more traditional interviewing approach is used to gather requirements, studies show that only 65% of the requirements will be captured.  When using a collaborative approach to gathering requirements Pierson’s studies show that there will be at least 90% of the business requirements defined.  If companies validate the data descriptions and the screens and reports, the requirements will be further defined to the programmer and a better understanding of the business and technical community is achieved.  JAD session and focus groups are both excellent tools for implementing a collaborative requirements gathering approach.

To learn more about training that is available for these collaborative techniques and methodologies click on Pierson’s Requirements Group’s agendas for JAD Facilitation & Requirements Gathering using Use Cases and Business Requirements Gathering & Writing Seminars.

The problems most companies have with software development are due to poor requirements rather than coding.  Developers know how to code but the business requirements are most often incomplete and don’t effectively communicate the business needs.  The lack of effective requirements gathering and writing leads to 82% of the software re-design and maintenance efforts causing companies to waste millions of dollars a year on ineffective software implementations and lost product to market opportunities.  These statistics are based on studies done by James Martin a leading methodologist.

An important aspect of the iterative development approach is the Joint Application Development (JAD) process.  JAD is used as a technique for developing business system requirements.  The purpose of JAD is to bring together IT and the business community in a structured workshop setting to extract consensus based system requirements.  This is accomplished by using a trained JAD facilitator and customized, planned agendas to assist the participants in arriving at complete, high quality requirements.  Experience has shown that the JAD process substantially reduces development time, costs and errors. 

JAD is typically used in the early stages of a project life cycle. Pierson Requirements Group, Inc provides training and mentoring and shows how a project can be supported through Joint Application Development workshops.

Agile/Iterative development methodology includes JAD techniques for determining user requirements. These requirements are reflected in a set of products that are produced using Object Oriented Analysis and Design.  Pierson provides training for Agile Requirements Gathering & Iteration Planning and JAD Facilitation & Requirements Gathering Training Seminar using Use Cases.  Both these classes provide techniques that can be used by your project teams to achieve consensus-based requirements.

Here are some important statistics to share with your management.  These statistics clearly support the importance of the role of the Requirements Lead/Business Analyst at your organization and why training in the industry standards and best practices is so important.

Pierson’s customers have found that it is a 200:1 cost savings to find defects in requirements rather than in the maintenance phase.  Therefore, it is important to gather and write effective requirements and perform formal inspections and sign-off phases with the business community. 

Studies performed at companies including GTE, IBM and HP have measured and assigned cost to errors occurring at various stages of the lifecycle.  Studies were run independently and all reached the same conclusion.  If at a unit cost of one is assigned to Coding, then the cost to detect and repair an error during the requirements stage is between five and ten times less. The cost to detect and repair an error during the maintenance stage is twenty times more.  As much as a 200:1 cost savings results from finding errors in requirements versus finding errors in the maintenance stage.

Pierson Requirements Group, Inc. provides training in Writing Effective Requirements and User Acceptance Testing.  Click on the links to view the class agendas and learn more about what best practices your project teams need to improve.