Business analysts wrestle with business ramblings every day. Whether written or verbal, these “policies and requirements” are difficult, frustrating, and confusing to collect, parse, cross reference, and translate into decent BA artifacts. In this session, we build on techniques previously presented at BBC to create business rules from ramblings. We’ve added new techniques for managing masses of ramblings and ensuring all the right stuff gets included in our BA artifacts.
In this presentation we will:

1. Review a few basics of business analysis with business rules.
2. Demonstrate practical techniques for
   • collecting and organizing masses of business ramblings.
   • tagging rambling content according its fundamental components (activities, concepts, states, requirements, gripes, improvement opportunities) using OneNote.
   • building an index of the components as input to BA artifacts.
   • breaking down ramblings into their fundamental components and reassembling them into concept models and structured rules using Word, Excel, and Visio.

If you are new to the concepts of business analysis, these techniques can help you get you started. If you are a more seasoned veteran, these may be additional useful tools for your toolbox. Either way, these techniques can give you a jump start on your analysis by unraveling the ramblings.

Learning Objectives:

• Reinforce the fundamental concepts of business analysis with business rules.
• Discuss and demonstrate techniques for unraveling ramblings using real-life examples.
• Participants understand the concepts, appreciate the value, and may use the techniques on their own.