Business Change Foundation is an online business analysis training course that prepares people to take the BCS accredited examination, ‘Foundation Certificate in Business Change’.
Our course is not accredited by the BCS but is based on the course we ran when Capiro was an accredited BCS exam and training provider, updated to reflect the latest syllabus and restructured for e-learning. We terminated our BCS accreditation in 2017 because we wished to adopt a different business model.
Prerequisites for Business Change Foundation
There are no specific prerequisites to taking the course.
‘ Business Change Foundation’ is for anyone:
- Wishing to self study for the British Computer Society (BCS) examination, Foundation Certificate in Business Change
- Wanting a general introduction to the topic of business change, particularly in the context of the role of business analyst
Business Change Foundation – Course Outline
Module 1 – Business Change Principles
- Aspects of business change
- Degrees of business change – The Venkatraman model
- An overview of a life cycle for business change. The stages of this life cycle are examined in detail during the remainder of the course.
- The stages of this life cycle are examined in detail during the remainder of the course.
There is also an optional lesson on core competences.
Module 2 – Business Alignment
We consider the importance of aligning business change with the:
- External environment
- Enterprise architecture
- Vision and strategic objectives
and look at techniques to achieve this goal, set strategies and measure strategic success.
In so doing, we examine the impact of culture on:
- Organisational structures, management and the distribution of authority
- Strategy
- Identity
Module 3 – Business improvement definition
The module covers the change life cycle stage associated with setting up and scoping a change programme and its projects.
This involves:
- Creating a business case and financial case for change
- Determining the root causes of problems
- Discovering, analysing, validating, documenting and managing the requirements for change
- Working with and managing the stakeholders who are the owners of the problems
Module 4 – Business design and development
Having defined the required changes, we show how to take a holistic view of the design of the inter-related elements required to produce a solution to the problems giving rise to the need for change.
We examine the design of changes to the:
- People, their jobs, roles and development
- Organisation, types and structures
- Business processes
- Information
- Technology and the various approaches to acquiring IT solutions
- Traditional waterfall and V model
- Agile, iterative and incremental approaches
- The place of testing in the development lifecycle
Module 5 – Business change implementation
The designed changes now need to be implemented. We continue to take a holistic approach as covered in Module 4.
This requires careful planning that needs to start from the outset of the change programme.
- As well as the need for precise planning, this stage of change requires great people skills:
- Stakeholders need to be engaged with and supported through the change
- They need to be encouraged to buy into the new ways of doing things
- Sources of resistance and support need to be identified and managed
- It is vital to consider the emotional and learning aspects of change
- The SARAH model maps self esteem against time
- The conscious competence learning model demonstrates the stages in acquiring a new competence
- We cover Kotter’s and Lewin’s approaches to achieving successful change
Many of the lessons of this module need to be applied during the entire change programme.
Lessons learned during the programme are summarised and analysed for future use.
There are links back to earlier lessons such as the cultural web.
Module 6 – Benefits Management and Realisation
The purpose of change is normally to achieve benefits for the organisation.
Realisation of benefits does not usually happen by chance; it needs to be planned.
- We look at the nature and classification of benefits and how to measure them.
- Benefits are anticipated and predicted in the business case; they are the basis on which the investment in the programme and its related projects was justified and initiated.
- Benefits realisation is about ensuring that the planned benefits are actually achieved.
- We examine the Ward Daniels approach to categorising, qualifying and quantifying benefits.
Important information for those taking the BCS Foundation Certificate in Business Change exam
All course delegates who intend to take the associated examination must ensure that they familiarise themselves with rules covering provision of photographic identification and the guidelines on eligibility for requesting additional time for the examination. Please click this link to see the BCS identification policy.
We will provide advice and guidance on these topics, as well as on how to apply to take the exam, during the course.
Exams may be taken at a Pearson VUE exam centre. These need to be booked and paid for directly with Pearson VUE. The price of the exam is not included in the price of this course.