Fundamentals of Business Analysis Training

When starting out as a business analyst, you will need to convince potential employers, recruitment agents and colleagues that you understand business analysis. Therefore, you will need to understand the concepts, tasks and the language that is used by experienced business analysts.

You will also need to understand the gaps in your knowledge to know where you need professional development to make yourself more employable and to demonstrate how you are developing those skills.

With the high level knowledge provided by a quality business analysis foundations course, you can:

• guarantee your resume focuses on your business analysis skills

• enhance your interview preparation

• improve your interview performance

In the course of researching my eBook ‘Blueprint for Success starting a Business Analyst Career’, I investigated what the market offers in the way of training to address this need. I deliberately targeted eLearning courses because these work very well for communicating the fundamentals of business analysis and are cost effective and flexible (i.e. you can take the classes at a time and place that suits you).

I chose two courses from those that I found because, although they are both high quality courses that I highly recommend, they are also quite different in several ways and will appeal to different types of people. I have negotiated significant discounts on these courses for the benefit of Business Analyst Mentor readers. The two courses are Foundations of Business Analysis which is supplied by ESI International by and Roadmap to Success: Foundation for Requirements Development and Management which is supplied by EBG Consulting.

My side by side comparison is shown below: The main difference between the two is the student assessments, instructor/student interaction and the price.

They are both very professional courses and have different styles but you should make your selection based on the above criteria.

For more information on the course objectives, syllabus and style of eLearning, please click on the following links: Foundation for Requirements Development and Management from EBG Consulting and  Foundations of Business Analysis from ESI International.

ESI International is a global training provider with ongoing course assessment and external course assessments to ensure they maintain high standards for their courses which is reflected in the higher price. If you value having access to instructors very highly, I recommend you purchase the ESI International course, click here and use the eTraining VIP code BAM to automatically receive the £80 discount (Total cost of £715).

(Note: the course is priced in British pounds rather than dollars as it is supplied by the UK branch of ESI International.)

The following is customer feedback for the ESI International course:

I really like that the instructor was behind the scenes to answer questions or concerns and how this course allowed me to use text/reading materials to learn at my own pace, post discussions at my own pace, and complete assignments at my own pace. Great for working students who have small windows of “class” time.

2/16/2009, (ANNA) JUNG EUN PARK, BUSINESS ANALYST - LIBERTY MUTUAL

The instructor was always very quick to read my assignments and I liked the interaction over email regarding the assignments. They added a lot by explaining items I needed clarification on.

6/2/2009, Jackie Bodmer - WellPoint

Most of the problems were clear and easily answered using the Project desk. I really liked the mix of questions and formats.

4/14/2009, Sherri Blackburn, Sr. Business Systems Analyst - Medtronic

I walked away from the course with a much better understanding of the basis of Business Analysis and was able to utilize that training on projects I was working while taking the course.

7/7/2009, Dawn Rutledge - WellPoint

EBG Consulting is a global training provider with many years experience and expertise in business analysis consulting and training. Ellen Gottesdiener, the founder of EBG Consulting, is a well known author, speaker and consultant in business analysis. EBG consulting has made significant contributions to the creation of the BABOK (Business Analysis Book of Knowledge). They do not have the overheads and infrastructure of ESI but do have ongoing course assessment to ensure high standards.

If you do not see instructor access as critical I recommend you purchase the EBG course, click on this link to automatically receive the $100 discountTotal cost of $399).

The following is customer feedback for the EBG Consulting course:

I have to say that dollar for dollar, the elearning offered by EBG Consulting was the best I have taken. I completed Foundation for Requirements Development and Management elearning, and the material is well presented in manageable segments, clearly articulated with excellent supporting graphics. The templates provided have proven to be useful long after I finished the course over one year ago. I was able to work through the course at my own pace at my own desk, and read and review the material as I chose. Definitely time wisely invested and money well spent.

Karen Johnstone, Business Analyst, Scotia Bank (posted on BATimes here - only available to members)

The self-paced Software Requirements e-training [Roadmap to Success: Foundation for Requirements Development and Management] was a wonderful course for me as a Business Analyst to better recognize and understand the most effective methods for gathering, analyzing, and managing requirements throughout the entire life-cycle of a project.  So much time is spent on trying to define requirements up front, but then the ongoing validation and managing of those requirements can often end up as a forgotten task.  This course really highlighted the importance of getting the right people involved at the outset and ensuring that all parties are in agreement when defining requirements.

Molly McIver, Business Analyst, Baker Hill, An Experian Company