Business Skills - Designing and Facilitating JAD Workshops
JAD (Joint Application Development) sessions are structured meetings of business and systems representatives for the purpose of defining requirements and deciding other aspects of proposed systems. Using a structured approach, visual aids, and language that is very much the customers', JAD Workshops extract high-quality requirements specifications in a compressed time frame. The participants are focused, the process is facilitated, and the result is greatly enhanced understanding for all those involved. JAD Workshops significantly reduce your project scope, decrease your timeframe, and result in measurable overall savings. This project management training course gives you hands-on experience planning and conducting JAD Workshops: Learn powerful techniques to quickly mine the collective knowledge of your Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), and get the tools to put these elicitation methods to work immediately for functional, non-functional requirements as well as use cases and Agile/Scrum user story workshops.
Duration: 20-25hrs
Course Content:
I. Introduction to Facilitation
Facilitation is a skill beyond writing with markers on flipcharts or white boards. It includes an array of subtle techniques that should be invisible to participants. The workshop runs smoothly because of effective techniques, but they shouldn't be obvious to anyone except the facilitator. By avoiding the pitfalls and the "ditch," you can ensure such sessions are successful.
The importance of creating the climate
The difference between process and content
Facilitation skills vs. presentation skills
Active listening skills
Tools of the trade
Tricks of the trade
Practice Session
Participants practice the initial skills as demonstrated and receive feedback on their performance from the instructor and fellow students.
II. The Dynamics of JAD Workshops
Creating an atmosphere is important, but being able to deftly handle people problems is key.
People motivators
People principles
Problem people and how to deal with them
The group life cycle
III. Key Techniques: Brainstorming/Cardstorming/Creativity Techniques
Acquiring the information needed to understand a business system and its customers' requirements normally occurs through different versions of brainstorming. Brainstorming is just part of the journey - clarifying, combining and prioritizing are the rest of the journey. Learn subtle techniques for generating ideas, identifying themes, reaching consensus and summarizing the process. Apply the techniques demonstrated to a variety of situations.
Rules
Process
Creativity methods
Clarifying, combining, evaluating, categorizing
Prioritizing
Problem solving
Exercises
Practice Session
Participants are assigned situations to which they must apply one or more of the various techniques in order to demonstrate a working knowledge of the methodology. Participants receive feedback from the instructor and fellow participants.
IV. Preparing for the Workshop
Planning is everything. You must build an agenda and the mechanics of how to conduct each topic in the agenda. It's another ditch-avoidance mechanism. Organizing the topics is a key step, but planning how each topic is handled must integrate the tool mechanics, group dynamics and creativity techniques. Learn how to orchestrate all these factors to create a successful meeting environment.
Building the agenda
Integrating the tools
Considering the mechanics
Setting up the room
Practice Session
Participants learn how to orchestrate mechanics, group dynamics, and creativity techniques to create a successful meeting environment. Participants construct detailed agendas based on the desired outcome of the meeting assigned to them.
V. Facilitating the JAD Workshop - Demonstration and Class Exercises
Teaching participants how to facilitate workshops is a "show and tell" process - first the instructor demonstrates it and then "you do it". During some of these exercises, the instructor will start the process, and then the participants will complete it. In others, the instructor demonstrates the complete process, and participants then use a hypothetical but realistic case project to apply the technique on their own, with other class participants portraying the facilitated group.
Starting the Workshop
Identifying Business and Systems Roles
Scope Identification
Identifying the Context and Actors
Chunking for Further Analysis (Functional Decomposition)
Brainstorming Requirements
Identifying Business Objects, data, and relationships (Entity Relationship Diagram)
Agile/Scrum Facilitated Workshops
Planning for Success
Ending the JAD Workshop
Practice Session
In a highly interactive real-world environment, participants will conduct various sections of the process taught, and receive feedback from the instructor and class participants.
VI. Additional Uses of the Tools
All of the techniques used in the class are applicable to a variety of situations. An overview of actual uses of these tools is provided for future use.