BSc Information Technology Management for Business / Course details

Year of entry: 2023

Course unit details:
Business Analysis

Course unit fact file
Unit code BMAN24630
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 2
Teaching period(s) Full year
Available as a free choice unit? No

Overview

Organisations are constantly striving to become more efficient and effective, this course supports these efforts by clarifying the viable options open to the organisation, evaluating these options and ensuring that the selected Information Systems solution is defined and designed clearly. Business analysis is the discipline involving the identification of business needs and associated potential solutions to business problems. This course will enable students to understand a business, analyse its operations and propose ways in which the business can be transformed using Information Technology (IT). Students undertaking this course will learn how to conduct business transformation, starting from strategic positioning of a business and gradually unravelling different process-oriented aspects of a business system until they reach the underlying Information System (IS).

Pre/co-requisites

Unit title Unit code Requirement type Description
Integrative Team Project 2 BMAN24650 Co-Requisite Compulsory
Only available to students on BSc ITMB.

Aims

Students will learn how effective Information Systems (IS) can be used as a transformative power to improve a business. They will gain practical experience in business analysis techniques, learning how business functions, requirements, and processes can be modelled. This course will enable the application of foundational and advanced business analysis techniques to a number of diverse industry sponsored case studies. The exposition to different situations in various problem domains will help students become familiar with different forms of practice in different industries.

Learning outcomes

1.    Understand the role and responsibilities of business analyst.
2.    Understand the principles of process-oriented business analysis and transformation.
3.    Identify, analyse and interpret business strategy through the application of a number of modelling techniques.
4.    Understand the role, importance and structure of strategic, process and IS models used in business process management and transformation.
5.    Apply business analysis models to business scenarios. 
6.    Present project findings and recommendations to industry clients.
7.    Demonstrate business analysis and business process modelling skills.
8.    Demonstrate report writing skills.
9.    Demonstrate problem analysis and problem-solving skills.
10.    Demonstrate teamwork skills.

Syllabus

1. Applied business re-engineering framework.
2. Modelling techniques for undertaking strategic business analysis.
3. Modelling techniques for undertaking business system analysis.
4. Modelling techniques for undertaking business system design.
5. Modelling techniques for undertaking business processes.
6. Enterprise modelling: role in process transformation and multi-perspective modelling frameworks.
7. Professional report writing of relevant business documentation.
8. Delivering professional presentations.

Teaching and learning methods

Lectures and seminars

  • Lectures – 32 hours
  • Seminars –10 hours
  • Presentations – 1hr per group across two semesters

Employability skills

Analytical skills
Students will learn a range of skills relevant to analysing and modelling business processes;
Group/team working
Students will learn how to coordinate and integrate team effort.
Other
Students will learn how to present technical detail in a manner which can be understood by different perspectives within an organization;

Assessment methods

Formative:

Case study modelling tasks delivered throughout semester 1 and 2.

Summative:

Group project report – 40% (1st semester).

Case study group presentations – 60% (2nd semester).

Feedback methods

  • Feedback for all formative and summative coursework will be feed-forward.
  • Informal advice and discussions during the lectures and seminars.
  • Responses to student emails and questions from course coordinator including feedback provided to a group via an online discussion forum.
  • Written and/or verbal comments on assessed or non-assessed coursework.
  • Generic feedback posted on Blackboard regarding overall performance.

Recommended reading

  • Business Analysis - James Cadle, Malcolm Eva, Keith Hindle, Paul Turner, Craig Rollason, Craig, Yeates, BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT; 3rd Edition, 978-1780172774, 2014.
  • Business Analysis Techniques: 99 Essential Tools for Success – James Cadle, BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT; 2nd edition, 978-1780172736, 2014.
  • A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge – IIBA, 978-1927584026, 2015.
  • Business Information Systems - Graham Curtis and David Cobham, 6th Edition, Prentice Hall, 2008.
  • The Object Advantage: Business Process Reengineering with Object Technology – Ivar Jacobson, 1995.

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 32
Seminars 11
Independent study hours
Independent study 157

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Ali Owrak Unit coordinator

Additional notes

Pre-Requisites: N/A

Co-Requisites: BMAN24650 Intergrative Team Project 2

Dependent courses: N/A

Programme restrictions: Core for ITMB and ITMB with IE

For Academic Year 2023/24

Updated: March 2023

Approved by: March UG Committee

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