A major aim of business analysis is to support organisations in achieving their strategic objectives.

To be able to do this, it is essential that business analysts understand the vision, objectives and strategy of their organisation. These things will affect and guide, directly or indirectly, everything that BAs do.

The lessons in this module will help to improve the effectiveness of business analysts by explaining a number of popular techniques used by business strategists. Every BA will subsequently be able to see for themselves where and how their organisation is applying these techniques.

The lesson considers the forces for change that might affect a particular organisation, an entire market sector or even, potentially, all organisations.

These forces provide opportunities as well as threats that may cause an organisation to adjust its long term strategy and its short term tactics.

This lesson also examines balanced business scorecards, critical success factors and key performance indicators.

Stakeholder engagement is at the heart of everything that business analysts do. Working collaboratively is key. It is also key to taking an agile approach to business analysis.

Successful engagement relies on a BA's ability to know who their stakeholders are. More than that, it is essential to really understand the motivations, concerns and attitudes of the stakeholders. This relies, at least in part, on emotional intelligence.

BAs need to draw on their skills to motivate and negotiate. Also, their ability to communicate formally and informally.

The lesson includes people centred techniques to dig deep into the stakeholders' perspectives on what the organisation and the change programme should be doing.

Stakeholder engagement is a key topic in the BCS Practitioner Certificate in Business Analysis.

Before proposing changes to an organisation's operations, it is essential to understand the current situation. This is best done in cooperation with the stakeholders.

This lesson builds on the previous one and covers a number of popular approaches for,

• Engaging with stakeholders
• Listening to them
• Understanding the environment in which they work
• Gaining awareness of their problems and their needs

For each technique, we identify the factors that make it a good or a poor fit for particular situations.

We also look at techniques such as customer journey maps that have traditionally been used by sales and marketing teams to understand and attract external customers.

Typically, the immediate customers of business analysts are the business stakeholders. Stakeholders in sales, marketing and customer support are the BA's intermediaries to external customers. BAs can help them to develop their links to external customers.

Having gained a good understanding of the current situation, the business analyst is now in a position to consider the situation desired by the stakeholders.

This module explains design thinking and the double diamond model, two established techniques for taking a customer centred view and creating innovative solutions.

Business activity modelling helps to identify the business activities that are logically necessary to achieve what the stakeholders say they want.

There are always multiple options for achieving what is required. Each option comes with its own risks, impacts, costs benefits and potential return on investment. These can be analysed separately and collectively in order to negotiate a preferred option.

Working in a team that comprises business stakeholders, business analysts and technical specialists, a target operating model (TOM) can be created.

We now have all the information necessary to complete a business case for change. As with most other work performed by business analysts, this is usually best done as a team effort.

The business case is a core theme of the BCS Practitioner Certificate in Business Analysis.

The lessons in this module exam,

• The typical contents of a business case
• How a business case is developed iteratively over the change life cycle
• How the development of a business case can fit into a linear approach to change.

This practice exam in the multi-choice style of the exam as described in the syllabus for the BCS Practitioner Certificate for Business Analysis Practice

The practice exam has 40 questions with annotated answers.