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Is live and die by their tools, 
but not all templates are 

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created equal. 
In this BA Bytes episode, I will

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break down 10 essential 
templates that every BA needs in

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their toolkit, regardless of 
their skill level. 

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Whether you're contracting or 
consulting or embedded in a 

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permanent role, these templates 
will help you frame, 

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communicate, and deliver value 
faster. 

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It'll allow you to save time, 
reduce chaos, and start 

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following some standard Better 
BA practices. 

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And to others, you'll start 
showing up like a senior, even 

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if you're just starting out. 
The Better Business Analysis 

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Institute presence, the Better 
Business Analysis podcast with. 

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Welcome back to this BA Bytes 
episode on the Bit of Business 

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Analysis podcast. 
Now, why are templates 

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underrated? 
They're they're actually 

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underrated. 
I it's easy to find templates. 

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You can always Google them so 
they're easy to find, but to 

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find a decent template that 
helps you along the way and 

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connects to another template 
that connects to another 

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template, which is all part of 
your delivery journey, that's 

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essential. 
And so I'm going to give you 

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some templates. 
They're not theoretical 

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templates, by the way. 
They're actual ones I use, and 

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they're part of the Better 
Business Analysis framework. 

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So #1 we start with the Agile BA
plan template. 

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Now, I've talked about this. 
This is the idea that you'll 

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clarify when you first start, 
regardless of what type of 

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project, regardless if it's an 
agile project. 

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So that agile here means agility
of the plan, not necessarily the

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project management approach. 
And this allows you to clarify 

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your analysis approach from 
whenever you're dropped into a 

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project. 
It allows you to both get and 

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provide clarity to your 
stakeholders. 

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The sections include the project
context, so the context of the 

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project. 
Write that up in 2 paragraphs. 

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If you can't summarize what the 
project's about in two 

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paragraphs, you need to talk to 
your project manager and you 

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need to make that clear. 
It's not clear to you. 

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It's not clear to the 
stakeholders. 

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What are you reporting up? 
That's genuinely a good pack, 

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like a monthly reporting pack 
for a project manager. 

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They will have to report and 
they'll have to do a couple of 

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lines on the project. 
What does that say? 

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What is the scope of your 
analysis? 

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What are you going to do as part
of your business analysis? 

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Is it simply to produce 
requirements, detailed 

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requirements or just high level 
requirements? 

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Are you going to be involved in 
the delivery phase or not? 

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So this is more around setting 
you up for success. 

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It's not about the tools that we
use to do the analysis. 

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It's about what are you going to
do? 

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How are you going to do it? 
Why are you going to do it, and 

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when are you going to do it? 
OK, so it talks about the key 

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artifacts that you're going to 
produce. 

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And you agree with this with the
project manager. 

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So you say these are my steps 
goes into a project plan. 

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This is what I plan to do. 
Does that fit in with the rest? 

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Yes, it does. 
Co-op put in project manager 

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might say, oh, I'll put in 20 
hours for you to, you know, do 

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some workshops. 
You're like, well, actually this

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is kind of let me think about 
that. 

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This is the approach I'm going 
to take and you might take the 

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lead. 
If they are more experienced 

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than you or you don't know where
to start, then maybe you go with

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that and go, OK, that's fine. 
But I want to check in after 

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I've done a couple of workshops 
just to see if that's enough 

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time and agree that that time 
might need to be pushed out. 

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And then you can say these are 
the actual BA artifacts I'm 

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producing, which we just talked 
about South actual BA thing. 

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So what I'm talking about, maybe
you're going to produce 

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requirements, traceability 
matrix, Maybe you're going to 

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produce stakeholder net starting
off with to know who to engage 

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with if it's a big project. 
And then deliverables, which 

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those artifacts I talked about 
are kind of, if you like 

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waypoints, they are things you 
produce which the project 

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manager you might be interested 
in, a few people in the project 

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team might be interested in. 
The deliverable is almost the 

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outcome that your wider 
stakeholders are interested in. 

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So the requirements are the user
stories, what is the 

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deliverable? 
And that shows up for the 

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business here or for another 
team like the tester producing 

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the user stories down to a point
where they can be turned into 

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test cases, which is the most 
common use case for ABA. 

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And the idea is that this Agile 
BA plan, it's adaptive for any, 

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you know, waterfall setup or 
hybrid and agile. 

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I can have to keep saying that 
because I've called it the Agile

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BA template. 
Now, this is simply an Excel 

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spreadsheet. 
So it is simply these headings 

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and an Excel spreadsheet. 
And I will, if you join our club

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in the future, which is 
launching soon, you'll get a 

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copy of this template to use 
which consistently gets updated 

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and has some examples #2 is the 
stakeholder map and matrix. 

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And I have to say I've been 
Chrissy Lacks on this one 

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myself. 
If I'm doing a huge customer 

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engagement area and I don't have
a change manager and usually I'm

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in a size of project where I do,
they will manage the stake on a 

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map or work with me on it. 
And I don't generally own it. 

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I just help populate it. 
And it's really got, you know, 

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what are the, the risky, who's 
involved what, what kind of 

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engagement do they need in it? 
And it kind of sits well there. 

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And the flip side of that is 
when I've done things like what 

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are the rolling out phones, you 
know, it's one of my first jobs,

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VoIP phones. 
And it was, you know, who needed

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what phone, you know, what was 
their phone number? 

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It was just a list of users 
really, and then maybe their 

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security rights and what they 
needed to do. 

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And so that's a type of 
stakeholder matrix there. 

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But when I talk about this 
particular template, I am 

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talking about understanding the 
influence and interest that your

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stakeholders play in your 
engagement. 

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And so I think it's really 
important if you're not used to 

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having this in your head. 
And maybe I'm, I'm good at this,

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It's really to understand, OK, 
I've got a project manager who 

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is the business owner for this 
piece of work. 

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Is there a product owner? 
Is there a product, you know, 

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manager? 
Who's the sponsor, Who's the 

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business owner is the person 
who's kind of your person who's 

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kind of, I guess accountable for
it. 

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But then you've got someone 
who's ultimately paying for it, 

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the responsible owner. 
So that senior responsible owner

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or also known, you know, as your
sponsor, as the person paying 

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for it. 
And that's generally could be an

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executive level or the CEO of 
your company or maybe someone 

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external to your company. 
So that's the sponsor, that's 

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the person who's putting the 
money up and has ultimately got 

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the has to. 
They want to know red and the 

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green. 
They want to know whether or not

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things going well. 
Now they are not the person that

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you generally are doing business
with. 

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And so the business owner is 
usually the person in the area 

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of the business where you're 
making change. 

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That's just the top tip there. 
And it's the reason why this is 

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important, especially for a 
junior BA, is that it maps out 

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which stakeholders are most 
important and it, and it kind of

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avoids a lot of rework. 
It also avoids getting a whole 

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lot of feedback for an area from
a stakeholder who is not 

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responsible for that area 
accountable or even really 

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contributes that much to it. 
So the loudest person in the 

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room, for example, they may not 
be someone that you need to 

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spend as much time with. 
They're talking to you though, 

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and they want to tell you their 
opinion. 

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And so you suck up all your time
doing that as a junior. 

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And actually that person is just
someone who's maybe interesting,

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but and they may have some valid
points too. 

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I'm not dismissing that, but 
that's not where you should be 

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spending your time when you're a
junior. 

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And I think we all get caught up
in that. 

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And the columns you really have 
again, in Excel spreadsheet, 

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it's just the role kind of the 
interest level around. 

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Look at again, rescue is a 
really good model for that. 

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Their influence is really 
important. 

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Are they influential? 
Are they someone who's quiet? 

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Are they someone who doesn't 
push? 

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They're someone who just wants 
it done and you know, what is 

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their preferred comms. 
Now, is it something like you 

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need to meet the first person 
once a week? 

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A business owner, for example, 
when you're a project manager 

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and especially if you're a 
junior BA, you might work with a

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project manager and you might 
meet with your business owner 

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once every couple of weeks or 
once a month. 

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And then if you're working with 
a product owner and you're ABA, 

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you might meet with them every 
day stand up situation or more 

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likely once a week. 
And I would say in modern day 

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projects, once a week is 
generally more than enough. 

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The, the, the, the levers don't 
particularly change unless 

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you're in a high performing 
product function, you know, 

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where you're producing features 
within a limited scope on a 

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project. 
The concept of having daily 

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stand ups, you know, for the 
purposes of talking about what 

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you're going to do next and 
refining the backlog isn't 

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really something that happens in
reality if you're, if you're, if

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you're not working on a product 
like that. 

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So if you're in a more project 
space, then once a week is 

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generally OK because you're 
actually spending time doing 

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analysis, spending time running 
things up. 

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You're spending most of your 
time actually engaging with your

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end customers who you're going 
to be providing value to. 

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And that's the way that the 
world works #3 which I've talked

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about a lot. 
So I think if you want to this 

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one, we've kind of nailed, if 
you like. 

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And it's the problem state 
statement canvas, OK. 

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And we could just call it a 
problem statement template. 

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And we use the five WS and the 
two HS, which is of course from 

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the level 1 course, which is 
around, you know, why, when, who

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and where. 
And then we've got the two HS, 

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which is how and how much. 
So that 5W2H model is a common 

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model. 
I haven't, you know, I didn't 

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come up with it, but it's a 
really good one. 

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And that is an example that 
keeps the conversation focused, 

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especially with senior 
stakeholders and it gets 

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everyone aligned to what is a 
problem. 

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And again, there's so many good 
episodes on that. 

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But the final point talking 
point before we go into #4 here 

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is that and majority of projects
start with a solution in mind 

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and the problem is hidden. 
So if you're a junior out there,

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your job is really to find out 
what the problem is. 

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And that should form the 
statement of that, you know, 2 

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paragraph project context. 
We're solving this problem. 

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Very, it's very common for that 
not to be the case though. 

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OK. 
And that's first piece of value 

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you can add. 
The next one of course is the 

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process model or the BPMN 
diagram template. 

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So this is where we show, we 
visualize how things work or 

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don't, we map out processes. 
And that really I think is the 

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number one difference between 
what ABA does and anyone else 

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and Golema process analysts to 
do all that. 

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I think that's quite right 
because during a process diagram

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and analyzing it and being able 
to capture it completely is 

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actually a different role to 
down to, you know, 

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documentation. 
And it's our superpower because 

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it allows us to really 
articulate simply very, very 

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simple, simple terms, provide 
clarity to the problem at hand 

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and really the jobs to be done 
in order to get whatever outcome

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is that customers trying to do 
in that process. 

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And that's where you can see the
pain points and whatnot. 

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And that's generally your 
problem domain. 

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Well, it is your problem domain.
And using that template, I mean,

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there are lots of ways you can 
do it. 

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You can use draw dot IO if you 
don't want to spend any money. 

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Vizio's the tool I've used since
I was, you know, first on the 

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job. 
But effectively you are mapping 

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up processes. 
And again, I've got some great 

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podcast episodes on how to do 
that. 

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BPMN is the is the gold standard
for that. 

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But you can get up to a, you 
know, 80% kind of BPMN. 

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It does kind of avoid the point 
of of going having a kind of a 

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great looking diagram that 
doesn't kind of take it to the 

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extremes. 
However, that's where they 

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really we land. 
If you bring a BPMN diagram to 

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someone who doesn't really 
understand what the different 

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symbols made, generally A 
stakeholder, then you can spend 

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too much time actually 
explaining what it is. 

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I would suggest if you are doing
that, do that lower level and 

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then at the high level draw just
normal process flows. 

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I've got a great template that I
use. 

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I've actually, it's part of the 
toolkit that we provide as part 

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of membership. 
And it, it doesn't matter what 

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it looks like. 
It really matters what it looks 

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like. 
It matters where the words are. 

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It matters, you know, the 
iconography, it matters the, the

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kind of, yeah, all the 
templating, how you message it, 

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the layers you use. 
It's so important. 

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And so there's a whole, it's a 
whole arts to do that well #5 is

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the length canvas? 
I mean, if you use the change 

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canvas or the business canvas, 
they're all the same concept, 

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which is to try and frame up 
strategy on on one page. 

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And the lean canvas, which we 
have talked about many times 

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before and there's great, great 
podcasts out there that talk 

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about it in much more detail 
than I do. 

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But it really sets up change 
initiatives or startups or 

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working with execs in their 
language in a very easy to 

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understand way. 
And usually this one pager kind 

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of looks like a reporting 1 
pager. 

254
00:15:13,520 --> 00:15:16,960
And it could be a lot of 
reporting one pager, as in it 

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00:15:16,960 --> 00:15:21,120
could articulate what your 
project is on a page. 

256
00:15:21,360 --> 00:15:24,560
And then maybe under that, it 
could have some status options. 

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And the, again, the best way to 
do that, I mean, I wouldn't 

258
00:15:29,680 --> 00:15:34,840
suggest Excel maybe, but maybe 
an online tool or even a 

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00:15:34,840 --> 00:15:37,760
PowerPoint slide would be really
good as a template here. 

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It's got different boxes with 
different labels that mean 

261
00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:44,760
different things. 
And it builds in alignment with 

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your business model thinking. 
Again, I'm not going to go into 

263
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this huge detail, but I think 
it's really important to have 

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one of these in your tool kit 
that all all three the the lean 

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canvas for if you're in a 
startup, but it's still useful 

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to do for a business and ask 
simple questions. 

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And if you can't answer those 
questions, you know, you really 

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00:16:03,520 --> 00:16:06,360
need to go back to talking to 
your project manager. 

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00:16:06,560 --> 00:16:09,400
Business model Canvas is an 
internal looking one and a 

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00:16:09,400 --> 00:16:14,600
change canvas is showing what 
your change initiative and how, 

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00:16:14,800 --> 00:16:18,280
what that is, what that impact 
is to your business. 

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Number six is the high level 
requirements table. 

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So this is the priority. 
Epics links to objectives or 

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themes, whatever language you're
using, and it helps control 

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scope. 
And this is something that I 

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harp on about at the Better 
Business Analysis Institute all 

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the time. 
It's probably my number one 

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00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:44,200
piece of advice for a BA Once 
they understand process 

279
00:16:44,200 --> 00:16:48,840
modelling, how to write a user 
story, then I say, you know that

280
00:16:48,880 --> 00:16:52,440
this area is the number one area
that projects file on. 

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00:16:52,880 --> 00:16:59,400
And it's really to how do you 
articulate scope in a way which 

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00:16:59,400 --> 00:17:03,360
is very clear and articulate and
has traceability all the way 

283
00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:05,920
down to requirements, testing 
features and whatnot. 

284
00:17:06,319 --> 00:17:10,400
And that's your epic level. 
And it forces early thinking 

285
00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:13,960
about feasibility, viability, 
are there any gaps? 

286
00:17:13,960 --> 00:17:15,680
What's the value you're 
providing? 

287
00:17:16,200 --> 00:17:20,760
And it's simply using the same 
format as the, the story 

288
00:17:20,760 --> 00:17:25,520
template format, the user story 
template, epic ID, you know, 

289
00:17:25,520 --> 00:17:28,160
description, a link to an 
objective, which is so 

290
00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:30,920
important, the priority and the 
acceptance criteria at a very 

291
00:17:30,920 --> 00:17:33,040
high level. 
And if that is locked in, 

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00:17:33,040 --> 00:17:37,800
that's, that is such the most 
importable, important, sorry 

293
00:17:39,160 --> 00:17:42,960
piece of the puzzle that I've 
added to my toolkit has changed 

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00:17:43,240 --> 00:17:46,760
projects and made them more 
successful as a result of doing 

295
00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:49,680
that. 
So that's a really, really hot 

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00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:51,800
1. 
And obviously we have some 

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00:17:51,800 --> 00:17:55,120
templates that we use. 
You could just use Excel for 

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00:17:55,120 --> 00:17:56,600
that. 
And it is something you need to 

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00:17:56,600 --> 00:18:04,000
research a little bit #7 you 
should be a little bit kind of 

300
00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:08,840
used to, which is when you're, 
it's called the Detail 

301
00:18:08,840 --> 00:18:11,400
Requirements Catalog. 
I don't really like the name, 

302
00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:15,520
but the idea is that this is 
where you are translating those 

303
00:18:15,520 --> 00:18:20,080
high level epics into user story
sprints. 

304
00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:24,400
So it's the transition state 
between epics and user stories. 

305
00:18:24,520 --> 00:18:26,760
OK. 
This is a little bit different 

306
00:18:26,800 --> 00:18:32,160
to working in Jira and 
elaborating user stories. 

307
00:18:32,600 --> 00:18:36,720
This is another step that gets 
doesn't get done well by BAS and

308
00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:40,800
and we have some problems here. 
So you should really understand 

309
00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:44,640
the pieces of the puzzle, the 
tasks that need to be done in 

310
00:18:44,640 --> 00:18:49,520
order to complete the epic at A 
at a function and functionality 

311
00:18:49,520 --> 00:18:54,280
level and non functional level. 
And that allows you to have some

312
00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:58,800
traceability. 
It allows you to link to and do 

313
00:18:58,800 --> 00:19:02,040
your traceability matrix, which 
is our next template, but it 

314
00:19:02,040 --> 00:19:06,120
also provides clarity in terms 
of what needs to be done in what

315
00:19:06,120 --> 00:19:08,600
order. 
So another way of really 

316
00:19:08,600 --> 00:19:14,360
articulating this, I think for 
#7 would be user story map. 

317
00:19:14,760 --> 00:19:16,200
OK? 
I think that's really what we're

318
00:19:16,200 --> 00:19:19,680
trying to achieve here. 
It's what it drops out of the 

319
00:19:19,680 --> 00:19:21,720
epics and what needs to be done 
and what sequence. 

320
00:19:21,720 --> 00:19:25,200
This is your first cut, high 
level requirements and you use 

321
00:19:25,200 --> 00:19:26,880
them best. 
Are they independent? 

322
00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:28,920
Are they negotiable? 
Are they valuable? 

323
00:19:28,920 --> 00:19:32,280
Are they and you estimate them 
at some degree and estimations 

324
00:19:32,280 --> 00:19:35,120
interesting anyway, are they 
small and are they testable? 

325
00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:39,800
And then so that's number seven.
And then it drops into #8 which 

326
00:19:39,800 --> 00:19:42,640
is the requirements traceability
matrix where this all comes 

327
00:19:42,640 --> 00:19:44,760
together. 
So that's where you're mapping 

328
00:19:44,760 --> 00:19:47,440
the user storage to the apex and
the business objectives. 

329
00:19:47,440 --> 00:19:48,680
OK. 
And again, that's an Excel 

330
00:19:48,680 --> 00:19:50,680
spreadsheet. 
And it's essential if you're 

331
00:19:50,680 --> 00:19:54,960
doing a regulated industry or 
you're delivering project heavy 

332
00:19:54,960 --> 00:19:57,880
stuff. 
Not so much for for product 

333
00:19:57,960 --> 00:20:01,040
here. 
Now, requirements traceability 

334
00:20:01,040 --> 00:20:04,120
matrix is something you do for 
other people as well as 

335
00:20:04,120 --> 00:20:06,000
yourself, of course. 
But this is where it all lands. 

336
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:10,400
This is one of these artifacts. 
And that helps new team members 

337
00:20:10,400 --> 00:20:13,760
understand the project very 
fast, understands the level of 

338
00:20:13,760 --> 00:20:16,960
abstraction and allows you to 
link to your processes. 

339
00:20:16,960 --> 00:20:19,040
And you can use it to track 
status all the way through. 

340
00:20:19,360 --> 00:20:23,240
So before we had Jira and 
DevOps, we used requirements 

341
00:20:23,440 --> 00:20:25,680
traceability matrix. 
And we just had statuses on it 

342
00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:29,080
and vendor responses and where 
things were happening. 

343
00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:31,880
And you still use requirements 
Traceability Matrix. 

344
00:20:31,880 --> 00:20:35,520
If you're going out for RFP and 
you're producing requirements, 

345
00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:38,160
you're managing it, you do it 
all in there, which is just an 

346
00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:40,280
Excel spreadsheet. 
And you know, we've got some 

347
00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:45,080
really good templates for that. 
This is probably one O 1, if not

348
00:20:45,360 --> 00:20:48,000
the number one critical template
you should have. 

349
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:49,600
So that's in your process 
template. 

350
00:20:50,240 --> 00:20:53,480
They should be your minimum 2 
templates you have in your 

351
00:20:53,480 --> 00:20:55,880
toolkit to start today. 
If you don't have those. 

352
00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:00,600
And the difference here is that 
when you've done your, what we 

353
00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:03,960
call a user story map or a 
detailed requirements catalog, 

354
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:08,920
this is that's your thinking 
phase, your visualization. 

355
00:21:08,920 --> 00:21:10,800
And then you're dropping 
everything into your 

356
00:21:10,800 --> 00:21:12,200
requirements traceability 
matrix. 

357
00:21:12,560 --> 00:21:18,320
And if you're working in an 
agile delivery Sprint way, then 

358
00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:22,600
this is your starting point. 
You do this before you enter 

359
00:21:22,600 --> 00:21:26,280
into your delivery sprints, OK? 
And this then gets all the user 

360
00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:30,000
stories and all the links 
ideally get moved across to 

361
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:31,400
JIRA. 
And then the requirements 

362
00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:36,720
traceability matrix becomes 
locked in those projects #9 is 

363
00:21:36,720 --> 00:21:39,200
your persona and empathy map. 
I think this is really 

364
00:21:39,200 --> 00:21:40,800
important. 
And again, something that BAS 

365
00:21:40,880 --> 00:21:43,360
don't do, or they leave the 
human centered design team to 

366
00:21:43,360 --> 00:21:47,840
do, which is amazing because a 
lot of the human centered 

367
00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:53,040
designs teams I meet do not have
empathy or they're not able to 

368
00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:56,680
really figure out who their 
personas are. 

369
00:21:56,680 --> 00:21:59,120
They're really focused on the 
service design elements. 

370
00:21:59,920 --> 00:22:02,680
And this is where you are 
building insights to actually 

371
00:22:02,680 --> 00:22:06,920
get used. 
And this, the personas are so 

372
00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:09,720
important because it stops 
stakeholders providing some 

373
00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:11,200
guesswork and just looking 
white. 

374
00:22:11,720 --> 00:22:13,520
This has come from the world of 
marketing. 

375
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:16,760
It's really understanding that 
you have a return on investment 

376
00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:20,120
for the money spent and you go, 
oh, that's very dry. 

377
00:22:20,280 --> 00:22:22,120
But that's exactly what we do in
a project. 

378
00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:25,160
We're investing. 
But in this case, we we deal on 

379
00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:28,880
the commodity of value. 
And you need to understand who 

380
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:30,240
is getting the value out of 
this. 

381
00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:33,000
Not everyone, not everyone in 
New Zealand, not everyone in 

382
00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:35,360
America. 
What is the people that are 

383
00:22:35,360 --> 00:22:38,080
getting the value? 
You need to find those people 

384
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:39,680
and there'll be, you know, a set
of them. 

385
00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:41,240
That's why we have a set of 
personas. 

386
00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:44,320
And then you need to understand 
what the characteristics are. 

387
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:47,640
And this is so important because
not only can you use this in 

388
00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:51,360
user experience testing or your 
service design initiatives, the 

389
00:22:51,360 --> 00:22:55,720
personas themselves provide the 
different variations for 

390
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:58,080
testing. 
And what I mean by that is say 

391
00:22:58,080 --> 00:23:02,720
you've got a requirement to say,
I don't know, it's just a very, 

392
00:23:02,720 --> 00:23:06,800
very basic requirement around 
having a description screen that

393
00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:10,080
explains what your app does and 
provides, you know, a little bit

394
00:23:10,080 --> 00:23:14,160
of a how to and a kind of get 
started option, right? 

395
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:18,280
That's, that's the user story. 
Now, this if you had different 

396
00:23:18,280 --> 00:23:22,120
personas and one of your 
personas was maybe someone who 

397
00:23:22,120 --> 00:23:26,480
didn't speak English, then that 
would provide a test case to 

398
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:29,960
make sure that and a requirement
ideally that you've got a 

399
00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:34,880
multilingual kind of landing 
page that that allows this 

400
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:37,600
person with this language to 
have the feature to change it 

401
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:41,360
into their language. 
And so that's just a really 

402
00:23:41,360 --> 00:23:44,320
basic example, which can be 
turned into a requirement, but 

403
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:48,880
you have more subtle pieces, 
which is just like, for example,

404
00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:56,000
the different test scenarios can
come from your personas 10 is to

405
00:23:56,000 --> 00:24:00,080
have a requirements pack of some
description. 

406
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:02,800
Now, these used to be called 
business requirements documents 

407
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:04,880
and they're Word documents and 
they're huge. 

408
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:07,920
And that is fine. 
And I would have some sections 

409
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:09,240
and you might even be given one 
of those. 

410
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:13,320
This is probably most common 
that if the BA, there's ABA team

411
00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:15,840
existing and they have some 
templates, you'll get a little 

412
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:17,320
Word document. 
You can fill it all in. 

413
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:22,040
It is so restrictive in terms of
thinking, but it might give you 

414
00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:25,680
some ideas. 
You need a context diagram and 

415
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:28,600
might then say, you know, where 
are your processes, current and 

416
00:24:28,600 --> 00:24:30,480
future states, the old way of 
doing it. 

417
00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:32,480
And then I would say, what are 
your requirements now? 

418
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:35,360
That's all good. 
It shows you almost a flow. 

419
00:24:35,360 --> 00:24:38,480
So what juniors would do is I 
would start at the start of that

420
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:40,840
diagram. 
Sorry, that template, that Word 

421
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:43,760
document and they just start 
filling out from top to bottom 

422
00:24:44,120 --> 00:24:45,960
and that get provide. 
That was a method. 

423
00:24:45,960 --> 00:24:49,480
That's the method for analysis 
and and I've done that many a 

424
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:52,120
time. 
That's fine if you're more 

425
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:55,400
comfortable with the delivery 
journey, which we've talked 

426
00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:59,000
about and and go to our website 
if you're not comfortable with 

427
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:02,120
it and you know, become a member
once we start that plan. 

428
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:11,280
But the idea is that you should 
follow the project phases and 

429
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:16,200
the most do the most appropriate
thing in that phase, right of 

430
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:18,920
that project. 
So if you're in the early 

431
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:21,280
stages, you should really be 
finding out what scope is and 

432
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:23,360
doing the high level 
requirements. 

433
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:30,240
So that's important. 
And using Word templates, OK. 

434
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:34,000
However, people don't read them.
So the problem is they might 

435
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:37,000
read them once. 
So I would strongly suggest that

436
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,760
you have a requirements pack in 
PowerPoint. 

437
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:44,040
And the reason I do that is that
one, you can present it. 

438
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:47,280
And yes, people moan about the 
fact that people still use 

439
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:49,960
PowerPoint. 
It actually forces you to write 

440
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:52,000
things in a concise and clear 
way. 

441
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:56,400
And if you can't articulate 
what's going on in your project 

442
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:59,320
in like 20 slides with 
everything and all your analysis

443
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:02,600
along the way, you can use the 
sections from the Word template 

444
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:04,920
if you want, right? 
But you can jump around a bit 

445
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:07,920
more and you can present the 
ones, the slides that you've 

446
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:11,360
got, hide the rest. 
This is a really, really good 

447
00:26:11,360 --> 00:26:16,720
way of doing and constructing 
business requirements for an 

448
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:18,560
external audience. 
So that's number 10. 

449
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:20,520
I hope you learned something 
today. 

450
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:24,320
They are the top essential 
templates that every BA needs. 

451
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:28,560
We've talked about it before, 
but it's it's just a reminder 

452
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:31,280
that if you want to get ahead 
from being a junior or even an 

453
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:35,080
intermediate BA who's plotted 
around to being a senior, this 

454
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:40,000
is really one of those tangible 
steps that you can take today to

455
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:41,720
really make yourself a better 
BA. 

456
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:43,480
I'll see you next week.