Five Whys is a root cause analysis technique developed by Sakichi Toyoda and popularised through the Toyota Production System.

Business Analysts can use this technique:

• To find the root cause of an issue, failure, defect or decline in performance.
• During requirements elicitation to avoid jumping into solution mode prematurely.

If a stakeholder tells you: “We need to be able to export our monthly sales reports to Excel”, it can be tempting to jump into solution mode and start thinking or asking about how the exporting should look and work. However, you would be developing a solution to a problem that you don’t understand. Or even worse, you may be developing the wrong solution or one that is inefficient and can lead to further issues.

How To Use Five Whys (with examples)

The core idea is you ask ‘why’ repeatedly five times, because the first few answers are often the symptoms, not the root cause of issues.

Using the example above, where the initial requirement is “We need to be able to export our monthly sales reports to Excel”, here is an example scenario of how Five Whys may work:

Why #1: Why do you need the monthly sales reports in Excel format?

Answer: Because the sales manager needs to combine this with marketing spend data.

Why #2: Why do they need to combine it with marketing spend data?

Answer: To calculate the ROI for the marketing campaigns.

Why #3: Why do you need to calculate the ROI every month?

Answer: To determine the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns and reallocate the following month’s budget accordingly.

Why #4: Why does the ROI need to be calculated manually?

Answer: Because we need to get the sales figures from specific dates to the relevant marketing campaigns.

Why #5: Why can’t we filter the sales data to specific dates?

Answer: The filter function only allows filtering by calendar month, financial quarter and financial year.

Using Five Whys you have now ascertained that the root requirement is actually an extension to the filtering function, not Excel reports which creates unnecessary manual processing that is prone to human errors.

Do We Always Ask ‘Why’ Five Times?

Despite the name, you can vary how you ask the five whys so they don’t always have to start with ‘why’. “What is driving that need?”, “What would that enable you to do?”, “How does it currently work?”, “Without the current issue / limitation, what should be the ideal process?” are all valid Five Whys questions.

You don’t always have to ask exactly five times either. Sometimes you may only need three, sometimes you may need seven questions before you find the root cause. The main idea is you stay curious and dig deeper through the symptoms so you understand not only what to fix, but why you are fixing it.

You’ll know you’ve found the root cause if the answer reveals a systemic issue in a process, system or policy.

Learn More Business Analysis Techniques

• Business Analysis Accelerated
• Business Requirements Elicitation
• Workshop Facilitation Skills

– Browse all Business Analyst Courses –

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Business Analysts hold a quiet advantage in the age of Artificial Intelligence. We see an ever-growing list of AI tools and prompting techniques, but they all demand skills that Business Analysts already use every day and fall within their domain of expertise. The biggest adaptation required is from collaborating solely with human stakeholders and developers, to working also with AI agents.

Custom GPTs and Gemini Gems, which allow us to create custom AI assistants for specific business needs, are what perhaps gives us the clearest glimpse of what future projects may look like.

In the years ahead, working on a project may involve:

• Understanding the project’s mission, vision, goals and strategies
• Mapping out the skills required to finish the project
• Identifying existing AI assistants that have the required skills
• Creating and training new AI assistants to fill the skill gap
• Architecting a model that allows those assistants to work together and collectively develop the final solution
• Testing and verifying the solution
• Using the test results to further train the AI assistants
• Running the next iteration
• Re-testing, re-verifying and continuously improving in multiple iterations.

The key techniques required to accomplish the above are:

• Eliciting, clarifying and verifying requirements
• Specifying requirements
• Problem solving
• Process modelling
• Evaluating and recommending a solution
• Testing and verifying the solution

If you are a Business Analyst or have worked with one, you will recognise that all the above fall within Business Analysts’ area of expertise. Many non-BA professionals today already realise that they also need those capabilities to stay ahead. IRM Training, as a prominent business analysis training provider in Australia, has seen a sharp rise in professionals from other roles seeking business analysis training.

Those who have chosen Business Analysis as a job may have hit the career jackpot as it is one of the few jobs that are AI proof. For others, equipping yourselves with AI-ready skills will put you in an advantageous position, where you can quickly pivot and adapt as technologies evolve.

Human-written content, with the assistance of AI tools for idea generation and proofreading.

Learn AI-Ready Business Analysis Techniques

• Business Analysis Accelerated
• Business Requirements Elicitation
• Business Process Modelling

– Browse all Business Analyst Courses. –

The post AI Demands Everyone to Be a Business Analyst appeared first on IRM Training.

Analyse this User Story:

“As a Data Analyst, I want an anonymised copy of our 2025 sales data, so that I can use it for customer research without risking exposure of individual identities.”

While this may look like a well-written User Story that follows the INVEST (Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small and Testable) criteria, there is some ambiguity that carries potential legal, ethical and reputational implications.

Whether we use AI simply to assist with some of the tasks or we have a sophisticated AI tool that can process and output the anonymised data, any ambiguity that is not clarified may lead to unintended results.

Analysis

Anonymise – Wouldn’t simply obscuring or removing the customer names from the data make it anonymous? Well, technically, and by the definition that AI understands, yes. But what if the data includes addresses or phone numbers? Wouldn’t that potentially still reveal someone’s identity?

So to be safe, why don’t we just remove all personal information? Yes, that’s possible, but what if our research needs to identify statistics based on customers’ postcodes / cities / countries?

These are all questions that good a Business Analyst needs to ask when eliciting requirements from the stakeholders. The good news is, such elicitation techniques can be learned, and as with many things, the more you practice the better you become.

Ambiguity in Requirements Documentations

And don’t forget, in the requirements lifecycle, requirements elicitation is only one link in the chain. After eliciting the requirements, you still need to document them so that the requirements can be implemented, tested, deployed, used and supported.

As we know, and as we can see from the example User Story above, the English language is prone to ambiguity. That’s why good requirements documents often include visual artefacts, such as BPMN diagrams, data models, Use Cases, Decision Trees, etc. The structured nature of these artefacts allows you to efficiently describe processes, data flows and rules with minimised risks of misinterpretation, by both humans and AI tools.

Become an AI-Ready Requirements Expert

• Business Requirements Elicitation
• Business Analysis Accelerated
• Business Process Modelling
• Writing Better Requirements

– Browse all Business Analyst Courses. –

The post The Risks of Ambiguous Requirements in AI appeared first on IRM Training.

The truth is, disengagement is not always a sign of disinterest. Quiet participants might be introverted, processing information internally, or unsure how to contribute. Shy individuals may fear judgment or feel overshadowed by more vocal colleagues.

The good news? With the right strategies, you can create an inclusive environment that encourages everyone to participate. Here are some ways to tackle this challenge and ensure your workshops are productive and engaging for all.

1. Invite Them to Speak

NOTE: Give them time to think before putting them on the spot.

Some people may not feel comfortable jumping in into a discussion uninvited. They may fear their input is not valuable enough or they may be waiting for the right moment (that never comes) to say something.

The invitation to speak should make them feel welcome to contribute. For example: “Julie, you have a lot experience in this topic, is there any other approach that we can look into?”. Avoid making them feel confronted for not speaking: “You haven’t said much since the start of the meeting, Mark. Have you been listening?”.

Help them explain and elaborate on their ideas by asking “open” questions. For example: “what are your thoughts on…” instead of “do you agree?”.

When they speak, let them speak uninterrupted (by you or by another participant). As a facilitator, you are responsible for “protecting” your participants.

It is also important to reinforce their good ideas and refer back to them so that they feel valued and heard.

2. Break Into Smaller Groups

Speaking in a smaller group is not as daunting, and the participants may be more confident presenting their ideas after they are validated by the smaller group.

3. Ask for Non-Verbal Feedback

For example, use Fist-to-Five to quickly gather feedback. In Fist-to-Five, all participants are asked how much they agree with or understand a certain topic by holding up a number of fingers from 0 to 5.

A quiet / shy participant may not feel comfortable voicing their disagreement verbally, as they may feel it is too confrontational.

To facilitate a productive workshop, it is important for you to create the environment and understanding that disagreements are not only fine, but encouraged, because the whole point of a workshop is to gather different ideas.

There are many other strategies and techniques that you can use to engage quiet or shy participants. Sometimes you may also need to manage participants who are disruptive or overly dominant / talkative. In some situations, conflicts may even arise in a workshop.

Join the Workshop Facilitation Skills course to learn the strategies and techniques to deal with the above issues and more. Practice applying them in realistic workshop scenarios. You will come out of the course with the confidence that you are now equipped with the skills to handle some of the most challenging workshop situations.

– Browse all Business Analyst Courses. –

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Use Case Diagram

Use Case Diagrams can be used to help visualise the story described in a Use Case. A Use Case Diagram consists of 3 components:

1. Actor – represented by a stick figure
2. Use Case Name – represented by an ellipse
3. Association – represented by a straight line that links an Actor with a Use Case Name

Example:

Conventions followed when creating a Use Case Diagram:

• The Use Case Name starts with a verb and (optionally) followed by a noun.
• The main / primary actor is usually drawn on the left and the supporting / secondary actor (if there is one) on the right.

Exercise

Course Registration

Task

Analyse the ‘Course Registration’ requirements above and represent them as a Use Case Diagram.

Example answer

Textual Use Case

A textual Use Case typically include:

• Use Case ID
• Use Case Name
• Actors (or Users)
• Description
• Pre-conditions
• Post-conditions
• Trigger
• Primary Flow
• Alternative Flows
• Exception Flows

The Primary Flow is usually quite simple and shows what normally occur in the most common scenario and when nothing out of the ordinary happens. Any possible variations to the normal story are then presented as Alternative Flows, while the Exception Flows describe what can go wrong and how the Use Case will handle it.

Example textual Use Case for ‘Register for Courses’:

Further Learning

In Use Case Diagrams, apart from the simple association there can also be other relationships between an Actor and a Use Case that you can show, such as Extend, Include and Generalisation.

In textual Use Cases, there can also be more complex requirements, possible alternatives and exceptions.

Learn further about Use Cases and more, by attending one of the following IRM Training’s hands-on courses:

• Business Analysis
• Writing Better Requirements

The post How to Create Use Cases appeared first on IRM Training.

The average cost of a data breach in 2023 was USD $4.45 million, which is a 15% increase over 3 years.

https://www.ibm.com/reports/data-breach

As the need for effective cybersecurity solutions grow, Business Analysts are also increasingly required to include cybersecurity considerations or solutions when eliciting, documenting and validating requirements.

As a Business Analyst, you may be required to:

• Identify your organisation’s exposure to cybersecurity risks.
• Elicit and prioritise the cybersecurity requirements and expectations.
• Evaluate and recommend the best cybersecurity solutions.
• Ensure the successful implementation and adoption of the cybersecurity solutions. 

Some business analysis techniques you can use:

By bridging the gap between the business and IT domains and ensuring that the cybersecurity solutions are in line with the needs and expectations of your organisation, as a business analyst you play a critical role in cybersecurity analysis. By doing this, you may safeguard your organisation’s assets and reputation while also assisting them in improving their cybersecurity performance and resilience.

Learn Practical Business Analysis Skills

• Business Analysis
• Business Requirements Elicitation
• Workshop Facilitation Skills

– Browse all Business Analyst Courses. –

The post The Role of Business Analysts in Cybersecurity Analysis appeared first on IRM Training.

To understand the impact of AI on the business world, let’s first have a look at some major technological disruptions of the last few decades, and how they transformed the way we work:

1. Personal Computer – Helped automate routine tasks, perform calculations and manage data that previously required a tedious amount of manual work.
2. The Internet – Enabled people to access and share information across geographical boundaries quickly and efficiently.
3. Smartphone – Allowed people to stay connected anytime, anywhere.

Similar to these technological breakthroughs, in an AI-driven world we will also experience a major transformation where most jobs will utilise the power of AI to get data-driven insights and automate more advanced tasks.

Now let’s have a look at what business analysis is and what tasks it covers.

Business Analysis is the process of identifying business needs and determining ways to solve business problems or improve business processes. It requires the application of analytical methods and techniques to help organisations make informed decisions to improve their overall performance. Business Analysts work closely with stakeholders to gather and analyse data, identify business requirements and recommend solutions that align with organisational goals.

Such role requires people skills, creativity, strategic thinking and a human-level understanding of customers, which are skills that cannot be replicated by AI. And due to technological limitation as well as ethical considerations, this is unlikely to change anytime soon – at least not for perhaps the next two to three decades.

As such, the business analysis role will not only stay relevant, but may also become even more critical as the bridge between the “business” and AI-powered solutions.

– Explore Business Analyst Courses –

Learn AI-Proof Skills

• Business Analysis
• Business Process Modelling
• Business Requirements Elicitation
• Data Analytics & Business Intelligence
• Workshop Facilitation Skills

– Browse all Business Analyst Courses. –

The post The Future of Business Analysis in the Age of AI appeared first on IRM Training.

If you are looking for motivation to stay positive as we are about to bid 2020 adieu, have a look at some encouraging data that IRM Training collected below.

Quick Summary

• Significant increase in average salary.
• Noticeable improvement in gender pay gap.
• 3 things influence job satisfaction more than remuneration.

Business Analyst Salary

The survey conducted by the IIBA® in mid 2020 found that the average salary for Business Analysis roles in Australia was $137,681 (AUD). The average from its 2019’s survey was $100,912 (AUD).

Compared to other countries, Business Analysts in Australia on average earned ~20% more than those in the UK and Canada, but 5% less than those in the USA.

The same survey found that men in Australia this year earned 1% more than women while slightly fewer worked full time (84% men vs 85% women). In 2019’s survey, the average salary difference was 6%.

According to SEEK, the most common salary advertised for Business Analysis roles is in the range of $100k – $120k.

Popular and Top Paying Industries

The most common industries Australian Business Analysts worked in are:

• Finance, Insurance and Banking (25%)
• Information Technology (19%)
• Government (12%)

Last year the top paying industries for BAs in Australia were Communications, Construction / Real Estate and Energy / Utilities. This year, the top dollars are in:

• Government ($160,028)
• Healthcare / Pharmaceutical ($157,860)
• Information Technology ($149,037)

Job Trend

Robert Half reported that Business Analyst is in the top 5 in-demand roles in the IT & Technology category for both permanent and temporary jobs.

There is also a growing recognition of the importance of business analysis skills in a wider range of roles. In this year’s IIBA® survey of people in business analysis roles, some 40% of the respondents did not have ‘Business Analyst‘ in their job title.

Data Analytics remains popular with 36% of respondents were involved in using data to help their organisation improve efficiencies, deliver on strategic imperatives and enhance customer experience.

– Find relevant Data Analytics courses. –

Job Satisfaction

• 70% feel valued as a Business Analyst
• 46% think their business analysis role is well understood within their organisation

Main factors that influence job satisfaction according to Robert Walters’ salary survey:

1. How interesting the day-to-day work is (58%)
2. Good work-life balance (53%)
3. Training opportunities (51%)

Remuneration and benefits came fourth at 48%.

– Browse Business Analyst courses. –

Business Analyst courses to prepare you for 2021:

• Business Analysis
• Business Requirements Elicitation
• ECBA Exam Prep Course
• Workshop Facilitation Skills
• Data Analytics & Business Intelligence

– See all Business Analyst courses. –

The post Business Analyst Salary & Job Trends – End of 2020 Review appeared first on IRM Training.

You can now attend IRM Training courses remotely from the comfort of your home or office.

The courses will still be:

• Practical
• Hands-on
• Interactive
• Run in small groups
• Run live by highly-skilled instructors with 15 to 25+ years’ experience.

Compared to the in-person training, there will be:

• Smaller instructor-to-participant ratio
• More frequent (albeit shorter) breaks

IRM’s Remote LIVE Training VS other online courses

Platform

Courses are delivered via Zoom which supports most modern computers and mobile devices (Windows, Mac, Android and iOS are supported).

To learn more about how to use Zoom, watch the short video tutorials.

Group Exercises

Most exercises are worked on in groups of 2-4 people where each group is allocated their own breakout room to discuss and share screens with their group.

Similar to in-person training, you can still ask your trainer questions while you are in the breakout room and the trainer will visit all the breakout rooms to offer guidance, or in some cases, additional challenges.

Questions?

If you have any questions please Contact Us.

The post Practical Training Delivered Remotely (Live) appeared first on IRM Training.

As we advance towards the holiday and the New Year, let’s have a look at the latest developments impacting upon business analysts in 2019.

Quick Summary

• Future growth and prospect for the role remain positive.
• Business Data Analytics is now the most sought-after field for career advancement.
• 3 industries are offering top salaries to their BAs, up to 22% above national average.

According to government statistics the prospects for the broader business analysis profession are for strong future growth and lower unemployment. This is supported by industry surveys, such as the IIBA 2019 Business Analysis Salary Survey, which indicates prospects and salaries increasing on an international basis.

The survey indicates that the core skills in demand have not changed: problem solving, critical thinking, decision making, customer experience, user stories, change management, Agile, negotiation and design thinking. – Find relevant business analyst courses. –

Business Data Analytics unsurprisingly has become an area of interest by both employers and business analysts, where 38% of the survey respondents are involved in the increasingly popular field. It has also become the most sought-after field for career advancement in 2019 with 17% of respondents who are looking for a career move interested in moving into the field, up from 13% in 2018 where it was surpassed by management and consultant roles. – Find relevant data analytics training. –

In Australia, the industries that hire the most business analysts are IT, finance (including insurance and banking) and government / public sector. On the other hand, the industries that pay the highest salaries are energy and utilities, construction and real estate, and communications, where business analysts working in these industries are earning on average 8% – 22% above the national average.

The industry trends also suggest that more employers (60%) are investing in skills training to increase the capabilities required to meet new demands from business stakeholders.

The post Business Analysis Industry Trends in 2019 appeared first on IRM Training.