Designing & Facilitating JAD Workshops

What is a JAD Workshop?
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.

Capers Jones, Chief Scientist Emeritus of Artemis Management Systems and Software Productivity Research, has studied JAD Workshops. He concluded that such workshops:

• Reduce scope creep from 80% to 10%
• Increase delivery speed of early phases by 30-40%
• Increase function points by 40-85%
• Result in 5% to 15% overall savings in time and effort for entire project

Please note, there is a $500 fee to claim your St. Louis University Certification upon completion of the requirements.

In this course, you will:

1. Learn techniques for skillful facilitation.
2. Effectively coordinate and organize meetings for maximum productivity.
3. Extract information in a variety of ways - brainstorming, categorization, prioritization, etc.
4. Apply the techniques to improve a variety of other types of meetings.
5. Learn different methods for prioritizing requirements in a group setting.
6. Learn the simple, mechanical techniques of capturing information easily and correctly.
7. Avoid pitfalls to ensure active participation of all parties in a session.
8. Appreciate the flexibility and usability of Post-It™ notes in solving problems.
9. Understand how to assist the business in relevant activities beyond requirements.
10. Keep energy and interest high during meetings that last several hours or days

Who Should Attend:
This Designing and Facilitating JAD Workshops training course is valuable to all those interested in collapsing calendar time in developing requirements, other system-related topics, and learning powerful meeting facilitation skills. This project management training class is for you if you are a…

• Business Systems Analyst
• Business Analyst
• Business Customer or Partner
• Systems Analyst
• Designer or Developer
• Project Manager or Team Leader
• IT Manager/Director
• Scrum Master
• Product Owner

Course Outline:

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.

II. The Dynamics of JAD Workshops
Creating an atmosphere is important, but being able to deftly handle people problems is key.

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.

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.

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.

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.