Preparation for Elicitation - Essay Example

? Business Analysis Table of Contents 2. Elicitation 3 2 of Elicitation Group Preparations 3 2 1. Preparation for Elicitation 3 2 1.1. Scheduled Resources 3 2.1.1.2. Supporting Materials 4 2.1.1.3. List of Stakeholders, Their Responsibilities and Roles 5 2.1.2. Conducting the Activity of Elicitation 5 2.1.2.1. Results of Elicitation 5 2.1.2.2. Stakeholders That May Provide Requirements, and May Participate in the Activity of Conducting the Elicitation- Listing 6 2.2. Documentation of Elicitation Results 7 2.2.1. Requirements 7 2.2.2. Concerns of Stakeholders 7 2.3. Confirmation of Results of Elicitation 8 2.3.1. Confirmed Requirements 8 2.2.2. Confirmed Concerns of Stakeholders 8 3. Analysis of Requirements 8 3.6. Requirements Verification 8 References 9 2. Elicitation 2.1. Description of Elicitation Group Preparations 2.1.1. Preparation for Elicitation 2.1.1.1. Scheduled Resources Business needs stem from identified gaps in the current business conditions of the art institute versus its identified long-term goals and objectives. The Brisbane Institute of Art or BIA has identified several strategic goals and objectives that it wishes to pursue moving forward, centering on the need to improve the financial viability of the institute, which in turn depends on improving services quality, student enrollment and retention, and overall satisfaction levels of students and other organization stakeholders, including sponsors and potential new members. The business needs are therefore to be threshed out in terms of how the different aspects of the organization's activities, from business processes to systems used to the programs offered, to the tuition and fees and the course schedules, support or hinder the achievement of the long-term goals (International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009, pp. 53-61). The business case is valid, and stems from the institute's need to upgrade its operational capabilities and to improve its general level of business. There are many aspects to those. Among them, identified in the previous section, are manual processes that hinder operational effectiveness, as well as online properties that are based on somewhat antiquated technologies, that require upgrades in order for the institute to improve services to students and subsequently improve enrollment and revenues (International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009, pp. 53-61). A valid elicitation technique proposed here is the review of current or existing documentation (International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009, p. 55). This discussion details activities tied to this central elicitation activity of reviewing existing institute documents. The general activity is to collate existing documentation on all relevant systems and institute business processes in order to use them as input in the documentation review and analysis. At present, some documentation has already been collated from the BIA, including a presentation of the current state and challenges facing the institute; a management report document that details facilities, class schedules, personnel, exhibits, and classes offered historically; a document detailing the needed materials for a number of classes offered in 2012; a copy of the letter sent out by the institute to students who enrolled for the 2012 first semester; and two spreadsheets detailing class schedules for 2012, one for the Joomla system and another for the web. The activity will be a parallel gathering of documentation to occur for all relevant departments in the BIA, to take place in the space of a week. 2.1.1.2. Supporting Materials The collection and collation of existing documentation for review and analysis is to take place in accordance with the stipulation in the BABOK guide of such an activity being a valid way for elicitation for business analysis. The inputs and schedules have been detailed above. As well, the lectures on elicitation likewise provide support material for the activity (International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009, pp. 53-61) 2.1.1.3. List of Stakeholders, Their Responsibilities and Roles The key stakeholders for the elicitation activity are the institute manager; the instructors; key office personnel in the institute; students; and sponsors. The key office personnel are responsible for providing relevant documentation for use in the analysis of those. Instructors and tutors are responsible likewise for providing documentation for their classes, together with the institute manager (International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009, pp. 53-61). 2.1.2. Conducting the Activity of Elicitation 2.1.2.1. Results of Elicitation The documentation provided by the institute already has been detailed in the preceding section, and here the documentation is actually analyzed, as prescribed in the BABOK guide. The guide prescribes that in this section the analysis of the documentation is actually carried out. Taking a step back, this section also relies on the preceding chapter in this document, that details the business needs of the institute, in the form of its long-haul business goals and objectives, as well as its identified gaps and the results of the SWOT analysis. Those all point to the use of the documentation analysis section to further flesh out the gaps, and to provide inputs into a plan to upgrade processes and systems and improve the provision of services to students (International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009, pp. 53-61). For one, the client presentation yields useful inputs with regard to its own self-identified gaps in operations, systems, and overall financial viability. Payment collection is manual, necessitating the need to consider how such a manual system compares to the use of more automated payment gateways. There is a deficiency in enrollment compared to ideal, of about 50 students, identified by the institute. Its web property can be further enhanced in the following areas: booking of classes; calendar for booking that is appropriate for the web, and advances ease of use and user friendliness; reduction in databases redundancy, pertaining to records and use of those databases; the current inability of the use of Word documents, when it comes to making users easily collaborate on documents; the use of videos; and the expansion of social networking capabilities to make such use more effective (Brisbane Institute of Art, n.d., slide 24; International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009, pp. 53-61). The manager's report document likewise details aspects of the institute's operations relating to courses offered on a historical basis; instructors and personnel; classes offered; and facilities. Those can be the basis for scoping current capabilities, and how the institute can expand or change its offerings and capabilities in line with its long term business and organizational goals (Manager's report document, 2012; International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009, pp. 53-61) 2.1.2.2. Stakeholders That May Provide Requirements, and May Participate in the Activity of Conducting the Elicitation- Listing The initial analysis above depends on documentation already gathered for this exercise. Other key office personnel are also further potential sources of additional documentation, especially those pertaining to the institute's existing manual systems for creating and sharing documents; students records; web properties; accounting; instructor records; creation of instructional materials, and general Human Resources systems relating to processing payments, dealing with suppliers, dealing with employee salaries, and dealing with sponsors contributions and concerns (International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009, pp. 53-61). 2.2. Documentation of Elicitation Results 2.2.1. Requirements The requirements so far identified relate more to operational aspects of the institute's business needs, in particular, increasing the level of enrollment, improving usability and access to web properties, improving the use of social networking, more efficient use of databases, improvements in the way payments are processed, and improvement in documents and work collaboration. Further requirements are generated from an analysis of the previous chapter's stipulations relating to the key objectives and goals of the institute, as well as the identified business opportunities and desired outcomes. Those additional requirements include being able to attract more sponsors, improve membership and communication with major stakeholders, improving Excel-based records keeping, improving outdated web technologies in the institute web site (Brisbane Institute of Art, n.d.; Managers report document, 2012; International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009, pp. 53-61). 2.2.2. Concerns of Stakeholders Stakeholder concerns identified in the documentation analysis are essentially similar to the wish list that was generated from the client presentation, and at this point, are synonymous with their identified requirements necessary to upgrade services provision and internal operational processes in the Institute (Brisbane Institute of Art, n.d.; Managers report document, 2012; International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009, pp. 53-61). 2.3. Confirmation of Results of Elicitation 2.3.1. Confirmed Requirements The requirements are those that have been gleaned from inputs from the previous chapter of this document, and are confirmed generally from the analysis of the provided documentation, undertaken above (Brisbane Institute of Art, n.d.; Managers report document, 2012; International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009, pp. 53-61). 2.2.2. Confirmed Concerns of Stakeholders Likewise, as discussed above, the analysis of the provided documentation makes it clear that the concerns of the stakeholders are mirrored in the client presentation document used for the analysis (Brisbane Institute of Art, n.d.; Managers report document, 2012; International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009, pp. 53-61). 3. Analysis of Requirements 3.6. Requirements Verification The quality of the requirements gleaned from the preceding exercise has been verified from the existing documentation and the analysis undertaken of those provided documentation (Brisbane Institute of Art, n.d.; Managers report document, 2012; International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009, pp. 115-116). References Brisbane Institute of Art (n.d.). Client presentation International Institute of Business Analysis (2009). A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK Guide). Manager's report document (2012). Read More