Course description

This course delivers a comprehensive framework for Business Relationship Managers (BRM) to understand the intersection of business strategy with portfolio management and execution activities and to partner with colleagues leading PMOs and BA CoEs to deliver business value. It is based on a real-world philosophy published by both PMI^® and IIBA^® in 2014 and presented at Project World & Business Analyst World conferences in Toronto and Boston in 2015. It defines the enterprise triple constraint as the integration of strategy, analysis, and implementation and contains three fundamental principles:

• Without professional business analysis, pursuing the enterprise strategy becomes a heuristic process burdened with avoidable cost, delay, and risk of failure.
• Without mature professional project management for implementation, strategic planning and business analysis become academic exercises.
• Without sound strategic planning, both business analysis and project management become orphans, and success becomes speculative and ephemeral at best.

But when all three elements of the enterprise triple constraint are synchronized, the enterprise vision, goals, and objectives have a very high probability of attainment. This course shows BRMs how to maximize that probability while minimizing risk.

For two days attendees will examine, evaluate, and apply strategic and tactical components of successful business relationship management. Each participant will interact with peers from various enterprises, resulting in a real-world environment to assess how current and future practices in his or her organization can bridge a productive connection between business and technology.

Who should attend

This course is targeted toward business relationship managers and those with business relationship management tasks.

What you will achieve

• Gain a clear understanding of the integral relationship between strategic objectives, business analysis, and project/program management.
• Recognize and enforce traceability between objectives, requirements, and benefits to the enterprise.
• Develop a hands-on familiarity with tools structured to facilitate the tight integration of strategy, requirements, and program outcomes.
• Develop a common basis of communication between the strategic and executive levels and the project and program levels.
• Recognize the value that strategic planning, business analysis, and project/program management together have for minimizing risk and optimizing success and the role the BRM plays throughout this process.

What you will learn

• Define the business environment, the enterprise, and the strategy using course provided tools such as core competencies evaluation, SWOT analysis, heat maps, capabilities roadmap, and benefits map.
• Describe a blueprint for promoting traceability from projects to programs to portfolios to strategy.
• Proactively connect overall objectives with specific deliverables to determine how and why a project/program fits the organizational strategy.
• Explain how to attain mutual clarity at the organizational and initiative levels to enhance successful interactions among stakeholders.
• Distinguish among four levels of business analysis: enterprise, division, product/service, and program/project.
• Define, prioritize, and control portfolios.
• Define programs and projects in terms of strategic alignment and life-cycle cost-benefit using course provided tools such as business case, cost-benefit analysis, 11-stage project life-cycle, and traceability governance.
• Understand key factors that motivate behavior and decisions across leaders of business, project management, and the business.

Course Outline

Day One

Strategy: Setting the Direction

• Define the Business Environment
  • Markets, Competition, and Trends
• Define the Enterprise
  • Core Competencies
  • Internal and External Influences
  • Priority Mapping
• Define the Strategy
  • Mission, Vision, Goals, and Objectives
  • Capabilities Roadmap
  • Strategic Alignment
  • Portfolio Prioritization
  • Enterprise Transformation

Day Two

Business Analysis: Identifying Possible Tactics

• Enterprise Level
  • Stakeholder Assessment and Management
  • Business Requirements
• Division Level
  • User and Functional Requirements
• Product/Service Level
  • Non-Functional and Transition Requirements
• Program/Project Level
  • Gap Analysis

Portfolio, Program, and Project Management: Selecting and Implementing the Tactics

• Portfolio Definition and Control
  • Intake Process
  • Prioritization
  • Authorization
  • Traceability to Benefits and Outcomes
  • Interdependencies (Resources, Risks, and Synergy)
• Program Selection
  • Program Management in the Overall Enterprise Environment
  • Strategic Alignment
  • Cost-Benefit Analysis
  • The Business Case
• Project Management
  • Project Management Office (PMO) Configuration
  • PMO Effectiveness
  • Full Life Cycle Management and Traceability
  • Accountability, Authority, and Autonomy
• Traceability Governance