Consulting Skills for the Business Analyst

Students will learn how to communicate effectively with all behavior types, how to handle conflict and deal with difficult people, effective methods for asking the right kinds of questions to elicit information, critical thinking and problem solving skills, and how to properly manage expectations using a 3 step approach.

Overview

In today’s ever changing business environment, where customers and developers may be across the hall or halfway around the world, the role of the Business Analyst has become critical to the success of the organization. The BA today must be a jack of many trades. There are a multitude of courses that can teach you how to use a particular methodology or tool to assist in creating requirements documents. This course focuses on the practical skills needed by today’s Business Analyst to be able to effectively interact with their business stakeholders to produce excellent business solutions.

Students will learn how to communicate effectively with all behavior types, how to handle conflict and deal with difficult people, effective methods for asking the right kinds of questions to elicit information, critical thinking and problem solving skills, and how to properly manage expectations using a 3 step approach.

Many practical exercises will help students practice the concepts presented. This course teaches the key traits and skills of a highly effective Business Analyst in their quest for producing on-target business solutions.

Audience

This course is for business analysts, systems analysts, project managers, clients and anyone else who participates in the analysis process to provide recommended business solutions.

Length

16 hours

Outline

Upon successful completion of this course, the student should be able to:

  • Understand the role and traits of highly successful Business Analysts.
  • Learn the 3 elements of human behavior that are the keys to communication.
  • Practice specific action plans to effectively communicate with people in all levels of the organization in face-to-face, as well as digital communications.
  • Learn how to use critical thinking skills in order to analyze problems.
  • Demonstrate techniques for eliciting the right information from your clients by asking questions that cause clients to express their expectations, as well as hidden business needs.