BCS Foundation - Case Study Exercises BBL

CASE STUDY EXERCISES
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BCS FOUNDATION C
CERTIFICATE IN R
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Case study
Scenario
Rainbow Cloud Computing Company (R3C)
R3C is a company which provides environmentally-friendly cloud computing services to high-profile
academic and research institutions. As part of their expansion plans they want to branch out and offer
their multi-award winning cloud-based computing services to private individuals and businesses. They
have called this new offering the eCloudShare project. Whilst the company has all the staff and skills
needed to support the current business, R3C does not have experience in expanding into new
markets. They have many decisions to make and so they hire you as a business consultant employed
by BAS to help them with this undertaking.
Copyright © BCS 2020 2

Background/history
R3C is a small company that started with an idea – would it be possible to provide cloud computing
services using entirely natural and/or sustainable energy sources?
Over a number of years, the organisation has managed to achieve just that, making it very attractive
to organisations who want to maintain their ‘green’ credentials. All R3C servers and infrastructure use
energy sourced from wind and wave–based energy generation systems.
R3C employs 25 people in their small headquarters based in the west of the UK; they have been in
business for five years and have managed to attain 4 fairly large contracts with organisations in the
academic and education sectors. At the moment R3C provides online file storage, but options to
introduce data analytics and compute power services may be provided in the future.
In a recent customer satisfaction survey, 95% of the customer base indicated that they were
‘exceptionally happy☺’ with the services R3C provide, and that they would recommend R3C to
others.

Copyright © BCS 2020
Organisation chart

Cloud
Director Development and Cloud Apprentice x
Support Engineer 2
of Cloud x8
Director of Customer Documentation

Helpdesk IT Specialist and Training
Internal IT Specialist Specialist
Jay
Mattao
CEO and
Owner Director Business
Sales Specialist x 2 Relationship
of Sales Manager x 3
Director
HR/Office
of HR and Accountant
Manager
Accounting
3
Under the leadership of its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and owner Jay Mattao, R3C is organised
within the following functional areas (in no particular order):
• The Director of Cloud oversees the IT architecture development and engineering team, with 8
skilled cloud development and support engineers and 2 apprentices. This team support the systems
and infrastructure for the existing customer base. If, as predicted, cloud contracts increase, another
3 engineers may be hired locally, followed by others if growth warrants it.
• The sales team consists of two sales specialists and 3 business relationship managers. Reporting to
the Director of sales, the sales specialists seek new sales opportunities while the relationship
managers are responsible for ensuring the health and continuity of the contracts currently in place.
• The Director of internal IT leads a diverse team consisting of a customer help desk specialist
who answers customer phone calls and participates in online chat sessions with customers, an IT
specialist who handles general IT support for R3C, and a documentation and training specialist
who documents R3C’s procedures and develops training material based on any software or
process needs.
• The Director of HR and accounting handles the corporate functions with an HR/office manager
focused on employee personnel issues and accounts receivable/collections, and an accountant
who performs periodic financial book closes, files the company’s taxes and performs accounts
payable functions.
Mission statement
R3C’s mission statement is to provide green cloud computing services to customers who care about the
environment. R3C believes that providing these services using a scalable ‘green platform’ will best help
fulfil this mission.
Values
R3C prides itself in its strong company values, which it calls its CEC:
• Customer focus – realising that customer support exists long after the sale, R3C provides
frequent follow- up with its customer base via customer calls and surveys to ensure customer
satisfaction with the services provided. R3C believes that today’s customer should be tomorrow’s
customer as well and is committed to repeat customer sales through strong customer support.
• Ethical principles – this extends beyond its customer base to include fair and respectable
treatment of its employees, suppliers and partners. R3C’s ethics motto is: ‘Doing the right thing,
all the time.’
• Community involvement – R3C cares about the health of the people in the communities in which
it operates and serves within its small headquarters. Employees are encouraged to volunteer up to
10 hours per year to serve in a variety of non-profit organisations within the local community.

Strategic direction
In alignment with its mission statement, R3C believes that it can further the reach of its services by
offering them in an online 'packaged’ format (hereon referred to as cloud packs) to conscientious
individuals and businesses who wish to improve their green credentials. The cloud pack provides a
simple online store for digital files, accessible from a range of devices (laptop/mobile/tablet) including
industry-standard security, backup and versioning facilities.
R3C wishes to continue supporting existing customers, but seek to utilise the scalability of their
established ‘green platform’ to offer a range of cloud packs on a monthly payment plan dependant on the
amount of file space the customer requires (10gb/100gb/1tb). This is the first part of a longer five-year
international strategic plan which also includes the following:
• Within the first two years: sell cloud packs via the internet and monitor sales numbers and regions.
• Within the third year: based on the successful increase in sales, research opening further green
platforms closer to the particular global areas served.
• Within the fourth year: based on the research, construct/refurbish additional UK based green
platform(s).
• Within the fifth year: based on continued international sales consider new green energy sources
in other global areas.
In a recent board meeting, R3C identified the following factors (both positive and negative) as being
important considerations for their future strategy:
1. Legal restrictions and properly fulfilling data handling regulations in foreign countries could be tricky.
2. Varying bandwidth mobile data services around the world may limit ability to use cloud packs
effectively.
3. Increasing social expectation that companies behave in a ‘green’ manner could lessen R3C’s appeal
in the longer term.
4. Problems retaining/recruiting enough skilled staff (particularly cloud engineers) to support
the growth anticipated.
5. Changing definitions of sustainable energy, and obtaining sufficient power from such
sources (globally).
6. Larger global technology competitors may (in the future) offer green services ‘as standard’.
7. Could be considered a luxury in a global economic down-turn, with customers returning to
local storage to save money.
8. An increase in the price of green energy could impact the cost of providing services.
9. Increase in digital awareness (in undeveloped markets) likely to increased demand for
online file storage.
10. Increased likelihood of governments imposing restrictions and requiring access to private
digital data holdings.

Key project
R3C believes that, in order to begin fulfilling this strategic direction, a websites needs to be designed
and built to promote R3C internationally, accept orders from new customers for cloud packs, fulfil
orders and receive payments. They have decided to call their site eCloudShare. R3C realises that
they do not have the in-house staff to achieve this, and decide that their first step is to utilise the
services of a business analyst with skills in gathering and documenting requirements, developing a
business case, building necessary business process models etc. This realisation had led R3C to seek
the services of BAS.
BAS
BAS, or Business Analysis Services, is a software consulting services firm that provides qualified
business analysts and other IT consulting and support personnel to clients to help them meet their
staffing needs and achieve their goals. Given their company motto ‘We’ve got your back’, BAS helps
their clients by providing temporary consulting and permanent business analysis and other positions for
both long-term and short-term needs. Having begun as a business analysis consulting company 15
years ago, BAS has expanded into other areas including project management, software development,
software testing and help desk support to better meet the software needs of its large clientele base.
BAS has employed you as a consultant, specialising in business analysis, and R3C is your current client.
After you and R3C have developed a vision statement concerning this project, you both determine that
you will need support to capture and document the project’s requirements, develop the application, test
the product, deploy it and maintain it going forward. One of those key roles will be that of a business
analyst. Given R3C’s organisation structure, there is no one in-house who can assume this role.
Kira Amola
Kira Amola is a business analyst with seven years of experience in the field. She is currently
employed by BAS, and R3C will hire her for the eCloudShare project. You will work very closely with
Kira to develop important business analysis tools, techniques and artefacts such as a business
process models, class diagrams, use case models and a benefits plan.

Case study exercises

The individual case study exercises will help to develop and apply specific business analysis topics
covered in this course to this scenario.
Case Chapter Topic Value of exercise

study
exercise
number
1 1 Advantages and Helps students to consider outsourcing vs.
disadvantages of internally staffing the BA role. Students may
BA outsourcing need to make or influence this decision in their
careers.
2 1 BA job description Enables students to apply the definition of a
BA as a job description. Students should gain
a better understanding of this role after
learning the BA competencies in the next
chapter.
3 2 BA competencies Helps students’ careers by understanding
the competencies of the role for themselves,
in any candidate selection/hiring decisions
and in preparation for the exam.
4 3 R3C’s SWOT with Enables students to understand the various
internal/ external factors, both internal and external, that
analysis tool influence the development of a company’s
SWOT analysis.
5 4 BASF services selection Helps students understand the 6 services of the
BASF and apply then to the eCloudShare
project.
6 5 Investigation techniques Allows students to explore and select
investigation techniques appropriate to a
situation.
7 6 Power interest Helps students consider the various project
stakeholder grid stakeholders, their influence, interest, and how
best to work and communicate with them.
8 7 Business process Gives students experience of developing a
model/ swimlane simple business process model (swimlane
diagram diagram).
9 8 Using the POPIT Helps students understand how POPIT can
model for gap analysis be used for gap analysis.
10 9 Developing the business Helps students learn how to develop a

case business case for a project.
11 10 Developing requirements Helps students understand how to write
textual requirements.
12 11 Developing requirements Helps students develop user stories and a use

(2) case diagram.
13 11 Class model Allows students some initial experience in
developing a class model.
14 13 Determining the delivery Enables students to consider the various
lifecycle lifecycles and their advantages and
disadvantages.
15 14 Developing a benefits Allows students an opportunity to document a

plan planned project benefit.

Exercises
Case study exercise 1

Advantages and disadvantages of BA outsourcing
As a consultant for R3C, discuss both the pros and cons of outsourcing the role of
business analyst as well as the benefits and drawbacks of hiring an internal business
analyst.
This is an exercise to help students work as a team to understand the

Exercise objective advantages and disadvantages of the business analyst role as an
outsourced and internal resource.
Individual/team/class? Team
Duration 15 minutes
Deliverable Flip chart of pros and cons
Review method Review of pros and cons with the class for feedback

BA job description
Having made the decision to recruit an internal business analyst in exercise 1, you now
need to put together a job description. To do that, you will need to determine exactly
what a business analyst does and what you want them to do at R3C.
Write a BA job description, you may wish to:-
• Begin with the one-sentence description of the business analyst role previously
presented;
• Further expand the description to meet the needs of this specific role for R3C.
This is an exercise to help students develop a job description of the

Exercise objective
business analyst role.
Individual/team/class? Team exercise.
Duration 15 minutes
Deliverable Student’s notes
Review method Review job descriptions orally with the class for feedback.

BA Competencies
Building on the business analyst job description you have defined in case study
exercise 2, create a ‘competencies’ section. Choose four of the 13 personal qualities
and note why they are important for the candidate. Likewise, include three of the eight
knowledge areas, and four of the 11 professional techniques as requirements for this
position.
This is an exercise to help students apply necessary business analyst
Exercise objective competencies via a job description for a potential business analyst
candidate.
Individual/team/class? Individual exercise
Duration 15 minutes
Student documentation of the competency section of a business analyst
Deliverable
job description.
Review method Student information shared with the class.

R3C’s SWOT with internal/ external analysis tool
While the search for a business analyst is underway, you ask R3C if they could share
their organisational SWOT analysis with you so you can better understand their
strategic direction regarding eCloudShare. They sheepishly admit that they have not
done one, so you decide to help them with this, working initially with the information
presented in this document. You know that, before developing a SWOT analysis, they
need to understand both their internal and external influences. To do this, develop a
PESTLE and a VMOST and then go on to develop a SWOT analysis.
This is a way to apply the SWOT analysis technique to a larger, fictitious

Exercise objective
case study.
Individual/team/class? Team exercise
Duration 20 minutes
Deliverable SWOT grid on a flip chart
Sharing student team answers with the class. The outcome of the analysis
Review method
will help the student teams to recommend a course of action.


BASF services selection
The search for a business analyst has culminated in the hiring of a business analyst.
Her name is Kira and she has solid experience, and much potential.
To help her settle in, produce a short plan to outline the work likely to be required in
order to support the eCloudShare website project by selecting services from the BASF.
List up to 3 services you think are important in the early stage of this project, and
provide a simple explanation for your choice.
This is an exercise to help students learn how to identify appropriate

Exercise objective
services from the BASF and to apply them to a business situation.
Duration 15 minutes
Review method Review selected services with the class.

Investigation techniques
1. R3C management has asked that you partner with the new business analyst Kira
Amola to design an appropriate BA approach to the new eCloudShare website.
Select up to 4 investigation techniques and explain when and why you might
apply them in the course of the R3C project.
2. Create 3 personas for potential customers of the eCloudShare product. Feel free
to use your imagination, but be sure to consider their characteristics, their
profile, and their individual needs. Feel free to provide a drawing if you like in
order to bring your persona to life.
This is an exercise to help students experience applying investigation

Exercise objective
techniques to a business situation.
Duration 20 minutes
Review method Review chosen investigation techniques with the class for feedback.


Power influence stakeholder grid and explanation
R3C management has asked that you and Kira jointly develop a power/interest grid
pertaining to the new eCloudShare website project. Choose three stakeholder
categories from the stakeholder wheel (e.g. customer) and map them on the grid in one
of the nine cells. Also, provide a short explanation as to why each stakeholder category
appears as such in the grid.
This is an exercise to help students understand and apply the
Exercise objective
power/interest grid.
Duration 15 minutes
Deliverable Power influence grid.
Review method Students to share with the class for feedback.

Business process model/swimlane diagram
R3C management has asked that you collaborate with the new business analyst Kira
Amola on developing a business process model or swim lane diagram to inform the
design of the eCloudShare website.
Please consider the following as-is process description:-
‘A customer requests a cloud pack from customer services, and customer services then check
to see if it is available. If it is available, they send the customer an order confirmation email; if
it is not available they send the customer an order rejection email’.
To keep it simple, please identify no more than two actors and include approximately
four to six tasks with a triggering event, a decision diamond, and an end-of-process
symbol.
This is an exercise to help students develop a simple swim lane diagram

Exercise objective
for one ‘Place Order’ process of the eCloudShare project.
Duration 15 minutes
Deliverable Business process diagram
Review method Share diagram(s) with the class.


Using the POPIT model for gap analysis
As part of the gap analysis process, use the POPIT framework to identify areas for
consideration when planning the move from the current state to the new one proposed
by the eCloudShare project.
This is an exercise to give students experience of using POPIT as an aide-

Exercise objective memoire for considering the ‘gap’ between the current state and the
desired future state.
Duration 15 minutes.
Deliverable Gap analysis.
Review method Students to share their gap analysis with the class.

Developing the business case
R3C management has asked you to work with Kira to develop a brief, outline business
case for the eCloudShare project.
Ensure that all of the necessary elements of the business case are included:-
Introduction
Management (or executive) summary
Description of the current situation
Option description
Analysis of costs and benefits
Impact assessment
Risk assessment
This is an exercise to provide students an opportunity to develop a

Exercise objective
business case.
Individual/team/class?
Team exercise where each team member can do a small number of
sections.
Duration 30 minutes
Deliverable Draft business case for R3C to pursue internet sales/eCloudShare
Student teams can briefly share highlights from their business
Review method
cases with the class.

Developing requirements
Working with Kira, and based on your understanding of the eCloudShare system so far,
develop an initial set of requirements.
Use a simple ‘the system shall….’
Propose:-
• 3 x general requirements.
• 3 x function requirements.
• 4 x non-functional requirements.
Feel free to use your imagination, but be mindful of the requirement quality filters
introduced in the slide pack.
If you have time, give some thought to how these requirements might be prioritised
using the MoSCoW technique.
This is an exercise to help students develop simple textual requirements

Exercise objective
for a project.
Duration 15 minutes
Deliverable A list of requirements.
Review method Record requirements and share with the class.

Developing requirements (2)
Part 1 – User Stories
Create 3 brief user stories (describing functional requirements) for the eCloudShare
project from the perspective a variety of actors. Consider the customer perspective,
but also actors inside R3C (e.g. the director of sales, the accountant etc.)
Keep them brief, but ensure you use the format
‘As a {user role} I want {feature} so that I can {reason}.’
Part 2 – Use Case Diagram

Develop a simple use case diagram using the user stories you identified in part one.
Remember to include the actors, the system boundary, the use cases and the
associations.
This is an exercise to help students write user stories, and produce a really
Exercise objective
simple use case diagram.
Duration 20 minutes
Deliverable User stories and a use case diagram
Review method Share with the class and discuss.

Class model
Working with Kira, develop a class model for the eCloudShare system. Start by
selecting three meaningful classes (customer, order, CloudPack) for this project,
identifying at least two attributes and one method/operation per class, if you have time,
consider their associations.
This is an exercise to help students understand how to build a class

Exercise objective
diagram.
Duration 15 minutes
Deliverable Flip chart of a class diagram.
Review method Review class diagrams on a flip chart with the class for feedback

Determining the delivery lifecycle
R3C has asked you and Kira to provide a view on the delivery lifecycle you think would
work best for the eCloudShare project.
Provide a short paragraph that provides the rationale for your decision.
This is an exercise to get students to consider different project lifecycles

Exercise objective
and select one.
Duration 10 minutes
Deliverable Discussion on lifecycles and pros and cons of such.
Review method Selected shared student responses with the class.

Developing a benefits plan
R3C has asked you and Kira Amola to develop a benefit related to the eCloudShare
project and create a benefits plan to help with benefits realisation after the project has
completed.
Remember to include all of the necessary elements in the plan. Instead of developing a
benefits dependency network, simply state how the benefits contribute to the project’s
business objectives.
Context/vision
Benefits profiles
Benefits dependency network
Responsibilities
Tracking procedures
This is an exercise to help students understand how to consider project

Exercise objective
benefits and document them.
Duration 10 minutes
Deliverable Discussion on benefits

Worked examples

Advantages and disadvantages of BA outsourcing
As a consultant for R3C, discuss both the pros and cons of outsourcing the role of
business analyst as well as the benefits and drawbacks of hiring an internal business
analyst.
This is an exercise to help students work as a team to understand the

Exercise objective advantages and disadvantages of the business analyst role as an
outsourced and internal resource.
Individual/team/class? Team
Duration 15 minutes
Deliverable Flip chat of pros and cons
Review method Review of pros and cons with the class for feedback
Since you see this role growing as well as the need to maintain and
Possible Solution enhance the new eCloudShare website, you determine that the benefits of
an internal business analyst outweigh the drawbacks.

BA job description
Having made the decision to recruit an internal business analyst in exercise 1, you now
need to put together a job description. To do that, you will need to determine exactly
what a business analyst does and what you want them to do at R3C.
Write a BA job description, you may wish to:-
• Begin with the one-sentence description of the business analyst role previously
presented;
• Further expand the description to meet the needs of this specific role for R3C.
This is an exercise to help students develop a job description of the

Exercise objective
business analyst role.
Duration 15 minutes
Review method Review job descriptions orally with the class for feedback.
Consider the definition on slide 8 which provides a detailed description the
business analyst skill (SFIA).
A job description might look as follows:-

Possible Solution

As part of an exciting expansion of our business, we are seeking an

experienced business analyst to lead :-
- The creation and iteration of viable specifications and

acceptance criteria in preparation for the deployment of new
business systems.
- Holistic investigation, analysis, review and documentation of our

business processes.
- The definition of requirements for improving our processes and

systems.
Using your extensive technical awareness, excellent communication and

strategic thinking skills, you will support R3C in creating a bright new
future…
This job description includes elements of the following 3 variants of the BA

role.

BA Competencies
Building on the business analyst job description you have defined in case study
exercise 2, create a ‘competencies’ section. Choose four of the 13 personal qualities
and note why they are important for the candidate. Likewise, include three of the eight
knowledge areas, and four of the 11 professional techniques as requirements for this
position.
This is an exercise to help students apply necessary business analyst
Exercise objective competencies via a job description for a potential business analyst
candidate.


Duration 15 minutes
Student documentation of the competency section of a business analyst
Deliverable
job description.
Review method Student information shared with the class.
Example (many variations are possible)
Possible Solution
Personal qualities
Leadership; team-working; relationship-building; communication.
All of the personal qualities are important. However, R3C believes that a
business analyst who can build and become part of the team quickly is
key (leadership and team-working). This will also involve building strong
working relationships (relationship-building). In order to do this
effectively, R3C wants someone with strong communication skills, both
written and oral (communication).
Business knowledge
Digital technology; domain knowledge; subject matter expertise.
These knowledge areas are important to handle the business case
development. Also, since this project is a software project, the business
analyst should have strong IT skills and domain knowledge and subject
matter expertise in website commerce systems.
Professional techniques
Investigation techniques; project management; business process
modelling; data modelling.
Given the nature of the project R3C wants a business analyst who has
worked using a wide range of investigation techniques, has some
understanding and appreciation of project management, and is able
model processes and data.


R3C’s SWOT with internal/ external analysis tool
While the search for a business analyst is underway, you ask R3C if they could share
their organisational SWOT analysis with you so you can better understand their
strategic direction regarding eCloudShare. They sheepishly admit that they have not
done one, so you decide to help them with this, working initially with the information
presented in this document. You know that, before developing a SWOT analysis, they
need to understand both their internal and external influences. To do this, develop a
PESTLE and a VMOST and then go on to develop a SWOT analysis.
This is a way to apply the SWOT analysis technique to a larger, fictitious

Exercise objective
case study.
Duration 20 minutes
Deliverable SWOT grid on a flip chart
Sharing student team answers with the class. The outcome of the analysis
Review method
will help the student teams to recommend a course of action.
VMOST analysis (developed from information in this document, see

‘Strategic direction’)
To be the leading provider of green cloud computing

Vision
services in the UK.
To provide effective cloud computing services to our
Mission
customers.
• To develop new market share.
Objectives • To enhance the profile of green energy–based
computing.
• To increase revenue.
• Within the first two years: sell cloud packs via the
internet and monitor sales numbers and regions.
• Within the third year: based on the successful
increase in sales, research opening further green
platforms closer to the particular global areas
Possible Solution
served.
Strategy
• Within the fourth year: based on the research,
construct/refurbish additional UK based green
platform(s).
• Within the fifth year: based on continued international
sales consider new green energy sources in other
global areas.
• Create the eCloudShare platform for cloud pack
sales.
• Utilise the existing, established green computing
Tactics platform developed for established customers.
• To utilise the staff and skillsets to provide a new
offering to customers.
Evaluation of VMOST

- Strategy is not SMART.

- Objectives could be SMARTER (e.g. increase profits by x%)
- Tactics make assumptions about scalability.
PESTLE analysis (developed from information in this document, see

‘Strategic direction’)
10. Increased likelihood of governments imposing
Political restrictions and requiring access to private digital
data holdings.
8. An increase in the price of green energy could
impact the cost of providing services.
Economic 7. Could be considered a luxury in a global
economic down turn, with customers returning to
local storage to save money.
3. Increasing social expectation that companies
behave in a ‘green’ manner could lessen R3C’s
appeal in the longer term.
Socio-cultural
4. Problems retaining/recruiting enough skilled staff
(particularly cloud engineers) to support the growth
anticipated.
2. Varying bandwidth mobile data services around
the world may limit ability to use cloud packs
effectively.
6. Larger global technology competitors may (in the
Technological
future) offer green services ‘as standard’
9. Increase in digital awareness (in undeveloped
markets) likely to increased demand for online file
storage.
1. Legal restrictions and properly fulfilling data
Legal
handling regulations in foreign countries.
5. Changing definitions of sustainable energy, and
Environmental possible difficulty obtaining sufficient power from
such sources (globally).
SWOT analysis
Strengths Weaknesses
• Award winning services. • Small organisation.

• Happy ☺ customers. • Strategy not as clear or
• Unique selling point coherent as it should be.
(green credentials). • No experience of the new
• Established and market place (has only
profitable customer base. worked with smaller customer
• Has highly skilled staff. base to date)
Opportunities Threats
• Competitors could eradicate

• A new service offers R3C’s USP by providing the
ability to tap into new and same services.
developing markets and • R3C’s future is dependent on
increase profitability. the health and financial

• Likely to be a market for viability of the green energy
green computing market.
services. • Cloud services likely to be
subject to increasing
government regulation.
• Staff likely to be in high
demands in a competitive
recruitment market.

BASF services selection
The search for a business analyst has culminated in the hiring of a business analyst.
Her name is Kira and she has solid experience, and much potential.
To help her settle in, produce a short plan to outline the work likely to be required in
order to support the eCloudShare website project by selecting services from the BASF.
List up to 3 services you think are important in the early stage of this project, and
provide a simple explanation for your choice.
This is an exercise to help students learn how to identify appropriate

Exercise objective
services from the BASF and to apply them to a business situation.
Duration 15 minutes
Review method Review selected services with the class.
Possible Solution Although R3C seem to be clear on their direction, the

earlier SWOT analysis has revealed there is much to
be clarified and understood/verified further. There is a
Situation
need to really understand the organisation and ensure
investigation
that the right business situation is being addressed.
and problem
For example, if the business is unstable, expanding
analysis
into new markets may not be the best way forward at
the moment – improving the current problems may be
more of a priority.
Feasibility Applying this service will ensure that the proposal for
assessment expansion with the eCloudShare project is robust, that
and business the financial case is solid, and that the risks have been
case fully understood. It will also involve the consideration

development of a variety of options for the way forward – these
could be as simple as exploring other ways to provide
the new services (e.g. by partnering with another
organisation) to reconsidering the services themselves
and determining if another offering might be less risky
and/or more profitable.
As the project evolves, it will become increasingly

important to define the requirements for the project,
providing a firm base for acceptant testing. If a linear
Requirements approach is used it’s likely that requirements may
definition come earlier in the work schedule, if agile, these will
often evolve alongside other work activities – iterating
and cycling through until sufficient detail is reached to
plan the iterations.
Please note other answers may be acceptable – but at this early stage of
the project [Situation investigation and problem analysis] and [Feasibility
assessment and business case development] are considered essential.

Investigation techniques
3. R3C management has asked that you partner with the new business analyst Kira
Amola to design an appropriate BA approach to the new eCloudShare website.
Select up to 4 investigation techniques and explain when and why you might
apply them in the course of the R3C project.
4. Create 3 personas for potential customers of the eCloudShare product. Feel free
to use your imagination, but be sure to consider their characteristics, their
profile, and their individual needs. Feel free to provide a drawing if you like in
order to bring your persona to life.
This is an exercise to help students experience applying investigation

Exercise objective
techniques to a business situation.
Duration 20 minutes
Review method Review chosen investigation techniques with the class for feedback.
Technique
When/What Why Who with?
Possible Solution Early in the project, To build a more effective The management team
would be worth understanding of the organisation and the CEO.
Workshop
using some of the and its proposed direction and to

discovery understand different perspectives.
techniques (round
robin, stepwise
refinement).

Early in the project, To get a ‘first hand’ view of the The sales team and the
Observation
observation would organisation, and see how it really cloud engineers might be a
be a good way of works. good place to start.
getting to know the
R3C business.
Early in the project. To gain an individual insight into With Jay and the
Interviews
the problems and aspirations of management team, but
the organisation, build rapport and also with accountant who
seek to understand any political will provide a ‘financial
issues in R3C. bottom-line’ viewpoint.
After the early To develop greater detail The sales team, the
Scenarios
stages of the regarding current and future accounts team and the
project. processes, to surface tacit cloud engineering team.
knowledge and information likely
to be omitted.
During the early part To get an idea of the expectations All relevant users identified
Prototyping
of the design phase. and functionality of the from the stakeholder

eCloudShare system analysis, as well as
representative customer
users.
As an elaboration of To build a fuller picture of what All users identified from

stakeholder analysis users require from the system and stakeholder analysis.
User role
analysis
to improve understanding of the

target market.
Early in the project To seek views on how attractive Willing volunteers or via an
questionnaire
the cloud pack idea is to potential online survey.

Survey or
customers (might be helpful to

support the business case)
Before business To make a case for new staff, it Cloud engineers, sales
sampling
case production. may be necessary to understand team, support team.

Activity
how staff currently spend their

time and use this to determine
how many more may be needed to
support a future model.
Early in the project. To understand the current The management team,
Document
customer base, internal accountant and HD

analysis
processes, and the financial director.

position. To determine the degree
of discipline around documentation
and record keeping.
Personas
Tristan is a freelance eco-tourism guide, He in his late

20’s. He is often on the go, traveling around the world to
provide unique environmental tours. He is always
worried about losing his files and documents, so
although he only accesses them a few times a month,
it’s important to him that they are always available.
Jenny is a retired school teacher and grandmother.

Although she is very tech-savvy, she prefers to speak to
someone when she needs help. She uses her cloud
pack to store all her treasured photos and documents.
She doesn’t need much space, and she only accesses
her account every few months.

Raul is a freelance photographer and uses the service to

store all his photographs which he sells to range of
wildlife magazines. His files tend to be very large
because they are high resolution, and he’s never sure
how much space he might need. He accesses his
account many times a day, from wherever he happened
to be working.

Power influence stakeholder grid and explanation
R3C management has asked that you and Kira jointly develop a power/interest grid
pertaining to the new eCloudShare website project. Choose three stakeholder
categories from the stakeholder wheel (e.g. customer) and map them on the grid in one
of the nine cells. Also, provide a short explanation as to why each stakeholder category
appears as such in the grid.
This is an exercise to help students understand and apply the
Exercise objective
power/interest grid.
Duration 15 minutes
Deliverable Power influence grid.
Review method Students to share with the class for feedback.
The following is one of many possible interpretations.
Possible Solution
Likely to be high interest, but fairly low power, so keep

Partners informed.
Likely to be high interest, and have some power

Suppliers (especially if involved in provisioning for the

eCloudShare service) so keep onside.
Likely to be low interest, but are very high-power if

Regulators there is a regulatory issue, so watch.
Likely to be interested and have a degree of power in

Employees terms of support and enabling the change so keep
onside.
Likely to be interested and have a high degree of

Managers power in terms of support and enabling the change so
keep onside.
Likely to be both high interest and high power (they

Owners could stop it or be big supporters of it) so constant
active management.
Likely to be very interested, and have the power to

Competitors disrupt, so constant active management.
Will hopefully have at least some interest (!) and are

Customers high power in terms of ensuring the success of the
project, so keep satisfied.

Business process model/swimlane diagram
R3C management has asked that you collaborate with the new business analyst Kira
Amola on developing a business process model or swim lane diagram to inform the
design of the eCloudShare website.
Please consider the following as-is process description:-
‘A customer requests a cloud pack from customer services, and customer services then check
to see if it is available. If it is available, they send the customer an order confirmation email; if
it is not available they send the customer an order rejection email’.
To keep it simple, please identify no more than two actors and include approximately
four to six tasks with a triggering event, a decision diamond, and an end-of-process
symbol.
This is an exercise to help students develop a simple swim lane diagram

Exercise objective
for one ‘Place Order’ process of the eCloudShare project.
Duration 15 minutes
Deliverable Business process diagram
Review method Share diagram(s) with the class.

Possible Solution

Using the POPIT model for gap analysis
As part of the gap analysis process, use the POPIT framework to identify areas for
consideration when planning the move from the current state to the new one proposed
by the eCloudShare project.
This is an exercise to give students experience of using POPIT as an aide-

Exercise objective memoire for considering the ‘gap’ between the current state and the
desired future state.
Duration 15 minutes.
Deliverable Gap analysis.
Review method Students to share their gap analysis with the class.
POPIT Possible Gap for exploration

Element
▪ Will the current organisational structure be
optimal after the change? (more staff in the
current structure, or a whole new design?)
Organisation ▪ Is the change likely to chime with the culture
of R3C?
▪ Will R3C’s values (CEC) be challenged by
Possible Solution this change?
▪ Will the customer support processes be
adequate to deal with the new type of
customers introduced through eCloudShare?
▪ Will extended support coverage be needed
Processes
to cater for different time zones; will multiple
currencies need to be supported?
▪ Can the existing payments process cope
with an increase in customers?
▪ Will there be enough adequately skilled staff
to support this change?
▪ Are the existing staff motivated by the
People
change?
▪ How will we ensure we retain the skills we
need for the future?
▪ What new information holdings might be
Information required by the system? (E.g. international
regulation, data protection etc.).
▪ Although the technology is described as
Technology
scalable, is it scalable enough to deal with
the anticipated demand? (Do we have any
idea what they demand could be?).
▪ Which of the processes changes identified
above will need technology to support them?
▪ Does the extension of the platform to new
services present any technology challenges
in terms of architecture and security
procedures?

Developing the business case
R3C management has asked you to work with Kira to develop a brief, outline business
case for the eCloudShare project.
Ensure that all of the necessary elements of the business case are included:-
Introduction
Management (or executive) summary
Description of the current situation
Option description
Analysis of costs and benefits
Impact assessment
Risk assessment
This is an exercise to provide students an opportunity to develop a

Exercise objective
business case.
Individual/team/class? Team exercise where each team member can do a small number of
sections.
Duration 30 minutes
Deliverable Draft business case for R3C to pursue internet sales/eCloudShare
Student teams can briefly share highlights from their business
Review method
cases with the class.
The following provides an overview of the type of information expected in a

business case
Possible Solution
Introduction This section would describe why the eCloudShare is
important to the company (e.g. to fulfil the strategic
direction of the company).
Management (or This section would provide a pithy summary of the entire
executive) summary proposal.
Description of the This section would explain where R3C is now, and then

current situation make the case for the expansion. It would include a brief
summary concerning the opportunity the eCloudShare
project – and make the case to move ahead.
Options considered This includes brief information on the options not being
recommended and why they were rejected. It is sufficient
to just include the ‘do nothing’ option. Other options in this
case history could include partnering with another
organisation, or perhaps paying for the entire system to be
managed and operated by a supplier – in a full business
case all such options would be fully costed and compared
using appraisal methods.
Analysis of costs
and benefits Focus would be on the additional staffing costs, and the
software and hosting/infrastructure, all of which are likely
to have an initial cost and an on-going cost.
The benefits would primarily focus on the increase in sales

revenue the project should deliver, but they could also
include intangible elements such as an enhanced
reputation and the ability to gain new market share for
future initiatives.
Impact assessment There are likely to be many impacts including

Staff training and process changes as well potential
disruption to the existing customer base.
Risk assessment Such a project comes with a number of risks (many can be
inferred from the output of earlier exercises – e.g. the
SWOT/PESTLE/VMOST and POPIT gap analysis).
• Inability to cope with the (undefined) demand of

the new system could be considered a major risk.
• Competition in the market place could impact
profits.
• A loss of key staff (e.g. cloud engineers) could
mean that R3C can no longer support the needs of
new customers.
• A loss of a green energy supplier could put the
USP of the project under threat.
• A problem with the technical design of the system
or a security breach could result in data loss and
reputational damage.

Developing requirements
Working with Kira, and based on your understanding of the eCloudShare system so far,
develop an initial set of requirements.
Use a simple ‘the system shall….’
Propose:-
• 3 x general requirements.
• 3 x function requirements.

• 4 x non-functional requirements.
Feel free to use your imagination, but be mindful of the requirement quality filters
introduced in the slide pack.
If you have time, give some thought to how these requirements might be prioritised
using the MoSCoW technique.
This is an exercise to help students develop simple textual requirements

Exercise objective
for a project.
Duration 15 minutes
Deliverable A list of requirements.
Review method Record requirements and share with the class.
Please note: The requirements listed here are presented for simplicity,
some would require further elaboration, and depend on a glossary of
terms.
General requirements
1. The system shall be conformant with all R3C corporate branding.
2. The system shall be available in the Spanish language.
3. The system shall be conformant with GDPR.
Functional requirements
4. The system shall record the details of a new customer.
5. The system shall allow a customer to share their files with
Possible Solution
another registered user.
6. The system shall allow a customer to place an order.
Non-functional requirements.
1. The system shall support up to 1000 concurrent visitors.
2. The system shall be available to users 365 days a year.
3. The system shall respond to user requests in no more than 5
seconds.
In terms of MoSCoW – it’s likely that requirement 3 would be a ‘must’ (this

is a legal requirement in the UK), 1 is likely to be a ‘should’. 2 is probably a
‘could’ (assuming there is a requirement to present the system in English!).
5 might be more of a ‘could’ or a ‘want to have, but won’t have this time’.

Developing requirements (2)
Part 1 – User Stories
Create 3 brief user stories (describing functional requirements) for the eCloudShare
project from the perspective a variety of actors. Consider the customer perspective,
but also actors inside R3C (e.g. the director of sales, the accountant etc.)
Keep them brief, but ensure you use the format

‘As a {user role} I want {feature} so that I can {reason}.’
Part 2 – Use Case Diagram

Develop a simple use case diagram using the user stories you identified in part one.
Remember to include the actors, the system boundary, the use cases and the
associations.
This is an exercise to help students write user stories, and produce a really
Exercise objective
simple use case diagram.
Duration 20 minutes
Deliverable User stories and a use case diagram
Review method Share with the class and discuss.
‘As a customer I want to purchase a cloud pack to store all my

treasured photographs.’
‘As the Director of Sales I want to be able to determine how many

cloud packs customers are purchasing so that I can make
financial forecasts.’
Possible Solution ‘As a Cloud Engineer I want to monitor cloud pack purchases so
that I can manage and maintain the infrastructure in place to
support them’
‘As the Sales Specialist I want to be able to monitor visits to

determine which advertising campaigns are proving to be the
most effective.’
‘As the Accountant I want to be able to access payment

information from the system in order to collect payments from
customers.’


Class model
Working with Kira, develop a class model for the eCloudShare system. Start by
selecting three meaningful classes (customer, order, CloudPack) for this project,
identifying at least two attributes and one method/operation per class, if you have time,
consider their associations.
This is an exercise to help students understand how to build a class

Exercise objective
diagram.
Duration 15 minutes
Deliverable Flip chart of a class diagram.
Review method Review class diagrams on a flip chart with the class for feedback
Possible Solution

Determining the delivery lifecycle
R3C has asked you and Kira to provide a view on the delivery lifecycle you think would
work best for the eCloudShare project.
Provide a short paragraph that provides the rationale for your decision.
This is an exercise to get students to consider different project lifecycles

Exercise objective
and select one.
Duration 10 minutes
Deliverable Discussion on lifecycles and pros and cons of such.
An agile approach may be optimal, it is both iterative and incremental, is

widely used, and offers flexibility, allows early and frequent increments of
the solution and does not require all requirements to be understood from
the outset.
The other models may not be flexible enough to accommodate the

uncertainly inherent in the project. The nature of the project may mean that
Possible Solution
‘small steps and revalidate’ is the best approach.
It is worth noting that the agile approach will not incorporate the control
provided by waterfall and the v model, and the eCloudShare could disrupt
the existing customer base so would be worth ensuring that R3C
management are comfortable with these risks.

Developing a benefits plan
R3C has asked you and Kira Amola to develop a benefit related to the eCloudShare
project and create a benefits plan to help with benefits realisation after the project has
completed.
Remember to include all of the necessary elements in the plan. Instead of developing a
benefits dependency network, simply state how the benefits contribute to the project’s
business objectives.
Context/vision
Benefits profiles
Benefits dependency network
Responsibilities
Tracking procedures
Exercise objective This is an exercise to help students understand how to consider project

benefits and document them.
Duration 10 minutes
Deliverable Discussion on benefits
R3C aims to sell cloud packs through a new

eCloudShare site. The purpose of this site is to
Context / vision
create a new sales channel in order to increase
revenue.
Benefit description - an increase in revenue by
10% cent for the first year after the eCloudShare
site has been launched.
Benefit owner – Director of Sales.

Identifier - B-001.
Benefit name – Revenue increase by 10%
Benefit stakeholders –Director of Cloud and Jay
Benefits profiles Mattao (CEO).
Measures – Revenue will be measured before the
launch of the eCloudShare website. 10% revenue
increase will need to be considered in line with the
costs of the introduction of the initiative.
Dependencies - this benefit is dependent on the

successful deployment of a quality eCloudShare
site.
Possible Solution Benefits The benefit of increasing sales through the
dependency offering of cloud packs contributes to the overall
network business objective to increase revenue.
Director of Sales is the benefit owner and is
responsible for checking on sales periodically and
Responsibilities
making any necessary changes to help achieve
this benefit.
Internet sales of cloud packs will be tracked every
month beginning the month of project deployment.
These monthly sales will be presented to senior
leadership at monthly business meetings.
Worth noting that sales (benefits) will have to be

Tracking
factored against the costs of the project (as
procedures
described in the investment appraisal in order to
correctly determine the point at which the project
can be said to have ‘broken even’. Only after this
point can benefits be truly ‘claimed’, as they are
then beyond the cost incurred to achieve them.

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CASE STUDY EXERCISES

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CASE STUDY EXERCISES

Director of Customer Documentation

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Case study exercises

Case Chapter Topic Value of exercise

10 9 Developing the business Helps students learn how to develop a

12 11 Developing requirements Helps students develop user stories and a use

15 14 Developing a benefits Allows students an opportunity to document a

Copyright © BCS 2020 8

Case study exercise 1

This is an exercise to help students work as a team to understand the

Case study exercise 2

This is an exercise to help students develop a job description of the

Copyright © BCS 2020 9

Case study exercise 4

This is a way to apply the SWOT analysis technique to a larger, fictitious

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Case study exercise 5

This is an exercise to help students learn how to identify appropriate

Case study exercise 6

This is an exercise to help students experience applying investigation

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Case study exercise 7

Case study exercise 8

This is an exercise to help students develop a simple swim lane diagram

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Case study exercise 9

This is an exercise to give students experience of using POPIT as an aide-

Case study exercise 10

This is an exercise to provide students an opportunity to develop a

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This is an exercise to help students develop simple textual requirements

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Part 2 – Use Case Diagram

Case study exercise 13

This is an exercise to help students understand how to build a class

Copyright © BCS 2020 15

This is an exercise to get students to consider different project lifecycles

Case study exercise 15

Benefits dependency network

This is an exercise to help students understand how to consider project

Copyright © BCS 2020 16

Case study exercise 1

This is an exercise to help students work as a team to understand the

Case study exercise 2

This is an exercise to help students develop a job description of the

A job description might look as follows:-

Copyright © BCS 2020 17

As part of an exciting expansion of our business, we are seeking an

- The creation and iteration of viable specifications and

- Holistic investigation, analysis, review and documentation of our

- The definition of requirements for improving our processes and

Using your extensive technical awareness, excellent communication and

This job description includes elements of the following 3 variants of the BA

Case study exercise 3