Data and Object Modeling Workshop for the BA: Analyzing Business Rules with Class Diagrams and ERDs (with UML 2) - Corporate Training

Learn how to use static, structural analysis techniques to model a business domain. This is a hands-on practical workshop in the use of class diagrams, data models and other structural modeling diagrams to describe business requirements for an IT system. You will step through a complex real-life case study, learning at what points to develop and verify portions of the model. You will learn how to use structural analysis ‘live’ during interviews to define business concepts and objects and capture business rules and, later, how to use the structural model to verify use-cases from the behavioural model. You will also learn how to convert UML class diagrams to ERDs (Entity Relationship Diagrams), so that you can adapt to any analysis environment – OOA (Object-Oriented Analysis), structured analysis or mixed. Please note that this course is available on request with workshops in IBM Rational ROSE.

Why Attend this Course?

Project failures or cost overruns can often be traced to Business Requirements documentation that is incomplete, inconsistent or ambiguous.

Object and data modeling address all three issues:

Complete documentation is ensured through model-driven interview techniques that ensure that all the right questions get asked.
Consistent documentation is obtained through techniques that centralize common business rules within the structural model.
Unambiguous documentation is produced by conforming to the UML – a standard widely accepted and wellunderstood by developers.

What Makes this Course Stand Apart?

Focus on Business Analysis: Unlike many other courses in structural object and data modeling, this is not a course in design for developers. Our course is focused squarely on the needs of the Business Analyst, clearly explaining where and how structural modeling benefits the gathering and documenting of business requirements by the BA. Developers looking to expand into the BA role will also gain value from this course, as they learn how to apply UML techniques to the requirements-gathering “front-end” of a project. Learn how, why and how much: You learn not only how to build the structural model, but also the business rationale for doing so, so that you willl be able to judge just how much structural modeling to perform for each project.

Structural modeling taught as a soft skill: Many courses focus on how to use structural modeling as a ‘hard-skill’ documentation technique. We view it as a ‘soft-skill’ interviewing technique as well. In this course, you’ll learn to use structural modeling actively during interviews to quickly come to an understanding and consensus about complex business concepts and to ensure that important questions aren’t missed during the interview.

Integration with use-cases: We teach the trainee exactly how to integrate structural analysis with use-case analysis. Trainees learn at what steps during use-case analysis to create structural models and how the models fit into use-case documentation. Real-time training: Rather than present this discipline academically, by subject area, we walk the trainee through the modeling of a practical case study. The trainee learns not only what to do, but when to use each technique during the course of a project. We find this approach greatly enhances the ability of trainees to apply what they’ve learned in the workplace.

Hands-on tool experience (when requested): Upon request, trainees may gain hands-on experience with IBM Rational Rose, providing the kind of BA perspective on the tool’s use that can only be provided by an organization devoted to BA training.
What you will Learn

What you will Learn?

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:
Use object modeling to help guide questions during interviews.
Integrate object modeling with use-case analysis.
Create UML class diagrams that centralize business rules that apply across multiple use-cases and business contexts.
Create links from structural modeling diagrams to the use-case model, and vice-versa: from use-cases to the diagrams.
Judge how much modeling to do (and why) for different types of projects.
Convert class diagrams to entity relationship diagrams (ERD) for use with Relational Data Base Management Systems (RDBMS).
Understand the BA role on a Data Warehousing project and how to transition from relational transaction databases to a data warehouse.
Upon request: Use a modeling tool (IBM Rational Rose, etc.) to model business requirements.

Business Analysts
Data Base Administrators, Systems Analysts, Data Modelers expanding their role into the Business Analysis area

There are no formal prerequisites for this course.