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Read and discuss this beautiful story of friendship, love and truth set in London, Tuscany and Florence Highlights Join this book club and gain extra motivation to read in English 7 hours of live classes to help you develop fluent speaking in English Discuss this novel of beauty, love and art over 4 decades Be corrected by an expert English teacher to remove errors and mistakes Practise and develop your English online in this 7 week advanced English book club course reading and discussing Still Life by Sarah Winman. Each week you read some chapters, discuss them in class and improve specific areas of vocabulary or grammar while also examining literary aspects of the novel. Personalised feedback improves your grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. The Book Club book In Italy in 1944 two strangers meet in a Tuscan villa. Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier, Evelyn Skinner a free-thinking independent-minded 64-year-old art historian, come to rescue paintings from the war and relive her memories. This chance meeting with Evelyn will transform Ulysses’ life – and everyone who knows him. ‘THE most beautiful book … it will stay with me a long time’ SARA COX, BBC TWO’S BETWEEN THE COVERS Geoff says: "This is a lovely novel, with references to the great writer EM Forster and his masterpiece "A Room With A View". Much loved by readers, the characters of this novel stay with you for a long time."

Read and discuss this global best-selling satirical & entertaining thriller set in the publishing industry Highlights Join this book club and gain extra motivation to read in English 7 hours of live classes to help you develop fluent speaking in English Read this thriller set in the publishing industry to discuss questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation Be corrected by an expert English teacher to remove errors and mistakes Practise and develop your English online in this 7 week English book club course using Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. Each week you read some chapters, discuss them in class and improve specific areas of vocabulary or grammar while also examining literary aspects of the novel. Personalised feedback improves your grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. The Book Club book Author Athena Liu is a literary phenomenon while her friend June Hayward is a literally nobody, and is jealous. So when Athena dies in a freak accident, June sees nothing too wrong in stealing her unpublished work and publishing it herself under the name Juniper Song. When questions start to be asked, what will June do to protect her new-found success...? Yellowface raises interesting contemporary questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, while being gripping and highly readable. ‘Ingenious, astute, hugely entertaining’ David Nicholls ‘Hard to put down. Harder to forget’ Stephen King Geoff says: "It's funny that this book has been a publishing sensation - given that it satirizes the book publishing industry! It was Amazon book of the year, and the Fiction Book of the Year 2024 at the British Book Awards."

Read and discuss this witty, best-selling murder mystery - clever and compelling Highlights Join this book club and gain extra motivation to read in English 7 hours of live classes to help you develop fluent speaking in English Read this amusing book to develop your understanding of colloquial English Be corrected by an expert English teacher to remove errors and mistakes Practise and develop your English online in this 7 week English book club course using the Richard Osman's new series after The Thursday Murder Club, We Solve Murders. Each week you read some chapters, discuss them in class and improve specific areas of vocabulary or grammar while also examining literary aspects of the novel. Personalised feedback improves your grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. The Book Club book This is the first in a new series for detective duo Steve and Amy Wheeler. Steve is happily retired and likes his routines: the pub quiz, sitting outside, his cat. His past was full of adventure, but now he likes a quiet life. His daughter-in-law Amy, however, loves adrenaline. She's a private security officer, protecting a world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio on a remote island. It should be a simple job, until there's a murder, a lot of money and someone trying to kill Amy. This thriller is filled with action, amusing lines and warmth. And you need to work out "whodunnit" - who committed the crime! 'The thing that shines through in Osman’s writing is that he really likes people and revels in all their foibles and eccentricities. All of which makes for a delightful read' THE OBSERVER Geoff says: "Richard Osman is the famous author of the best-selling Thursday Murder Club series. This new book has broken all records as the best-selling adult hardback fiction book in the UK. It is full of action, yet witty, with interesting characters, and full of British English idioms and colloquialisms - great for improving your knowledge of how English is actually spoken!"

Read and discuss this witty, best-selling murder mystery - clever and compelling Highlights Join this book club and gain extra motivation to read in English 7 hours of live classes to help you develop fluent speaking in English Read this amusing book to develop your understanding of colloquial English Be corrected by an expert English teacher to remove errors and mistakes Practise and develop your English online in this 7 week English book club course using the Richard Osman's new series after The Thursday Murder Club, We Solve Murders. Each week you read some chapters, discuss them in class and improve specific areas of vocabulary or grammar while also examining literary aspects of the novel. Personalised feedback improves your grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. The Book Club book This is the first in a new series for detective duo Steve and Amy Wheeler. Steve is happily retired and likes his routines: the pub quiz, sitting outside, his cat. His past was full of adventure, but now he likes a quiet life. His daughter-in-law Amy, however, loves adrenaline. She's a private security officer, protecting a world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio on a remote island. It should be a simple job, until there's a murder, a lot of money and someone trying to kill Amy. This thriller is filled with action, amusing lines and warmth. And you need to work out "whodunnit" - who committed the crime! 'The thing that shines through in Osman’s writing is that he really likes people and revels in all their foibles and eccentricities. All of which makes for a delightful read' THE OBSERVER Geoff says: "Richard Osman is the famous author of the best-selling Thursday Murder Club series. This new book has broken all records as the best-selling adult hardback fiction book in the UK. It is full of action, yet witty, with interesting characters, and full of British English idioms and colloquialisms - great for improving your knowledge of how English is actually spoken!"

Read and discuss this beautiful story of friendship, love and truth set in London, Tuscany and Florence Highlights Join this book club and gain extra motivation to read in English 7 hours of live classes to help you develop fluent speaking in English Discuss this novel of beauty, love and art over 4 decades Be corrected by an expert English teacher to remove errors and mistakes Practise and develop your English online in this 7 week advanced English book club course reading and discussing Still Life by Sarah Winman. Each week you read some chapters, discuss them in class and improve specific areas of vocabulary or grammar while also examining literary aspects of the novel. Personalised feedback improves your grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. The Book Club book In Italy in 1944 two strangers meet in a Tuscan villa. Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier, Evelyn Skinner a free-thinking independent-minded 64-year-old art historian, come to rescue paintings from the war and relive her memories. This chance meeting with Evelyn will transform Ulysses’ life – and everyone who knows him. ‘THE most beautiful book … it will stay with me a long time’ SARA COX, BBC TWO’S BETWEEN THE COVERS Geoff says: "This is a lovely novel, with references to the great writer EM Forster and his masterpiece "A Room With A View". Much loved by readers, the characters of this novel stay with you for a long time."

Read and discuss Jane Austen's first published work, 250 years after her death! Highlights Join this book club and gain extra motivation to read in English 7 hours of live classes to help you develop fluent speaking in English Study this classic novel and increase your knowledge of British culture Be corrected by an expert English teacher to remove errors and mistakes Practise and develop your English online in this 7 week advanced course using this classic novel by one of the greatest British writers - Jane Austen. Each week you read some chapters, discuss them in class and improve specific areas of vocabulary or grammar while also examining literary aspects of the novel. Personalised feedback improves your grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. The Book Club book Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility is a subtle and intelligent story of secrets and lies, and wonderfully shows a world where fixed social rules meet the feelings of the heart. Two very different sisters find themselves in a new world when their father dies. Marianne, wild and emotional, falls dangerously in love, while Elinor suffers heartbreak but hides what she really feels, even from her closest friends and family. Geoff says: "I chose this book because it is beautifully written. Jane Austen really understood human nature and delightfully describes characters and human situations."

Read and discuss the Queen of Crime - Agatha Christie! Highlights Join this book club and gain extra motivation to read in English 7 hours of live classes to help you develop fluent speaking in English Study this classic detective story and work out the clues by understanding the text Be corrected by an expert English teacher to remove errors and mistakes Learn English online using this great story from Agatha Christie - the most widely published author of all time and in any language. This is an 7 week online Zoom course with an expert English teacher from the UK. The Book Club book In Death on the Nile Poirot finds himself in the middle of a confusing murder while on holiday in Egypt. What reason would anyone have to murder the beautiful victim? And will they kill again? With an intricate plot, this is one of Agatha Christie's finest murder mysteries. Geoff says: "Agatha Christie is known as the Queen of Crime. She is the best-selling novelist of all time, writing 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections. This one stars her much loved detective, Hercule Poirot."

Duration 2 Days 12 CPD hours This course is intended for Executives, Project Managers, Business Analysts, Business and IT stakeholders working with analysts, Quality and process engineers, technicians, managers; supervisors, team leaders, and process operators; anyone who wants to improve their Business Analysis skills. Overview After completing this course, students will know how to: Plan, manage and close requirements for software development project in reduced time using Agile Scrum practices Minimize project uncertainty and risk by applying Agile principles through the Scrum method Ensure your project delivers required functionality and adds value to the business Create an environment of self-management for your software development team that will be able to continuously align the delivered software with desired business needs, easily adapting to changing requirements throughout the process. Learn how to apply Agile Scrum by measuring and evaluating status based on the undeniable truth of working, testing software, creating a more accurate visibility into the actual progress of projects. Many of today?s Project Management and Business Analyst Professionals are finding themselves leading, managing and analyzing on Agile development teams - only to find that many of the tools and techniques applied when using a traditional project management approach no longer work as effectively or at all. In order to do more than survive in this iterative development environment, today?s Project Manager and Business Analyst must employ additional project management and business analysis tools and techniques to effectively lead their teams and deliver their projects. Introduction - Fundamentals of Agile Why Agile? Exercise 1a: Waterfall-Lean-Agile Simulation History & Mindset: Understand how the agile approach arose. The Agile Lifecycle Introducing Agile to the organization Roles and Responsibilities on an Agile project team. Understand the purpose, the concepts, the theory, and some applications around the importance of people as individuals providing value through working in teams. Establishing core hours - How will the team work during a day? How to build end-to-end systems in early iterations Exercise 1b: How to build end-to-end systems in early iterations Planning and Managing Business Analysis Communication and Performance Agile and CMMI Exercise 1c: Case Study Project Assembling the team ? Scrum Roles Value-Driven Development: Understand why agile development focuses so heavily on working products, its more general casting as 'value-driven' development, with incremental, iterative and risk-driven approaches. Themes, theory and applications. Exercise 2a: Identify the ?Product Owner? Identify Project Success Criteria Exercise 2b: Review the Scrum Cheat Sheet Establish your Agile team using RACI Exercise 2c: Build the Scrum Team Define the Product and Project Vision Envision the Product and Project outcomes Exercise 3a: Review Agile Checklist Project Chartering (Project Planning) Assemble the Agile project team ? what are their responsibilities? Compile the Product Backlog (Coarse-Grain Requirements) Discuss how to Plan Sprints and Releases Exercise 3b: Product Vision ? Goals and Strategies Establish the Project ?time-box? Exercise 3c: Create a Release Plan Embrace the High-Level (Coarse-Grain) Plan Managing different types of Personas on an Agile Project Identifying and managing ?Information Radiators? Planning in Agile Projects ? Common practices that work Determine how the team will tracking and monitoring activities Exercise 3c: Establish the Project Time-box Tools and Techniques ? Building the Scrum Task board Communications Exercise 4a: Discussion ? Tools and Techniques for Scrum Planning, Monitoring and Adapting Scrum Task Board Exercise 4c: Create a Scrum Task board ? Identify work streams Agile Estimating Agile Analysis and Design Burndown Chart Team Velocity Soft Skills Negotiation Estimating ad Prioritizing Effort Planning Releases. Understand the value, the concepts, the theory and some applications for learning and adapting at all levels and on all topics (the product, the process, the team, and the organization). Exercise 5a: Brainstorm Business Functionality Establishing decision and acceptance criteria for user stories Planning Poker Exercise 5b: Estimate Effort (Coarse-Grain) Prioritize themes and releases Prioritize user stories Exercise 5c: Confirm the Estimated Effort (Fine Grain) Estimating team velocity Preparing for change ? Is the organization ready? Exercise 5d: Hold a daily Scrum and update the Scrum Task Board Exercise 5e: Conduct a Scrum or Scrums Plan the Iteration (Sprint) Sprint Zero activities Elements of a successful Sprint Planning meeting Create a Sprint Backlog How to create a task board Exercise 6a: Using the case study ? Review Iteration Planning Checklist Create a Sprint plan ? Establishing Sprint success metrics Exercise 6b: Discussion Sprint ?Zero? Activities Define the vision and Iteration Requirements Estimating the level of effort (LOE) with the team Creating user Stories for the Product Backlog -Guidelines to consider The art of slicing user stories Exercise 6c: Review the Sprint Plan Managing the Solution Scope and Requirements using 2-4 week Sprints Exercise 6d: Adapting a change-driven Project plan that works Adapting a change-driven (Agile) Project plan that works ? what are the key differences from traditional (waterfall) project plans? Finalize the Iteration Plan and how the team will operate Running the Sprint - from Planning to Review and Retrospective Managing your Scrums and setting expectations with your team Exercise 7a: Using the case study ? Review the Review Planning checklist Using Burndown charts to track progress Exercise 7b: Using the case study ? Review the Review Retrospective checklist Manage changes during the Sprint ? What questions to ask Prepare for the Sprint Review Exercise 7c: Review of roles - Quiz Obtain Customer Acceptance of the Product Increment Hold a Sprint Retrospective - What is working and what needs to be improved upon during the Sprints Update the product backlog - Rework the High-Level (Coarse-Grain) Plan Plan and Execute the next Sprint Create an environment for continuous improvement ? Product, Process and People Additional Information Useful books and links on Agile

Duration 3 Days 18 CPD hours This course is intended for This course is intended for beginner to intermediate business and requirements analysts who are looking to improve their elicitation and requirements writing and documentation skills. This course is also a great fit for technical writers, product and software testers, project managers, product owners who work closely with business analysts or who perform some for of business analysis themselves. Overview Understand the role of the business analyst and core competencies for performing successfully Discuss the criticality of business analysis and requirements for successful project outcomes Understand the main professional associations and standards supporting business analysts in the industry Discuss the common problems with requirements and explore approaches to address these issues Obtain a clear understanding of the various requirements types and the significance for eliciting each type Demonstrate your ability to identify stakeholders Explore various methods for understanding and analyzing stakeholders Discuss and apply good planning practices to requirements elicitation efforts Obtain knowledge and understanding of over 15 current and commonly applied elicitation techniques Understand how to progress from elicitation to analysis to documentation Write well-formed and validated requirements Gain understanding of the best practices for writing quality requirements Learn the technical writing techniques that apply directly to writing requirements documents Discuss writing pitfalls, risks that impact requirements, and how to address them Learn best practices for communicating and collaborating with stakeholders, sharing the results of elicitation and the resulting documentation Learn approaches for validating requirements Understand the difference between validating requirements and validating the solution With elicitation serving as a major component of the requirements process, it is imperative that business analysts maintain high competency levels in elicitation practices and technique use to help organizations overcome the requirements related challenges faced on projects. Regardless whether you are a practitioner just starting off your career in business analysis or whether you have been performing the role for some years, this course will provide insight into the latest thoughts on elicitation and writing effective requirements and present a number of current techniques that are being applied on projects across industries today. Review of Foundational Concepts Definition of a business analysis Definition of business analyst BA role vs. PM role Business analysis competencies Benefits of business analysis Purpose for having a BA standard IIBA?s BABOK© Guide and PMI?s Practice Guide in Business Analysis Business analysis core concepts Discussion: Project challenges Understanding Requirements Common problems with requirements Understand the problem first Define the business need Situation statements and moving to requirements Understanding requirement types Business requirements Stakeholder/User Requirements Solution Requirements Functional Requirements Non-Functional Requirements Assumptions and Constraints Discussions: Requirement problems, business needs, and identifying non-functional requirements Discovering Stakeholders Definition of a stakeholder Stakeholder types Identifying stakeholders Performing stakeholder analysis Stakeholders and requirements Tips for identifying stakeholders Grouping stakeholders Creating a RACI model Tips for analyzing stakeholders Documenting results of stakeholder analysis Workshop: Discovering stakeholders Preparing for Requirements Elicitation Planning for elicitation Benefits of elicitation planning What do you plan? The elicitation plan Setting objectives for elicitation Determining the scope for elicitation Establishing pre-work Determining the outputs for the session The iterative nature of elicitation Elicitation roles Elicitation planning techniques Discussions: Who to involve in elicitation, planning impacts, and unplanned elicitation Workshop: Planning for elicitation Conduct Requirements Elicitation Elicitation skillset Types of elicitation techniques Using active listening in elicitation Techniques for performing elicitation Benchmarking/Market Analysis Brainstorming Business Rules Analysis Collaborative Games Concept Modeling Data Mining Data Modeling Document Analysis Focus Groups Interface Analysis Interviews Observation Process Modeling Prototyping Survey or Questionnaire Workshops Write Effective Requirements Elicitation and Analysis Requirements related issues Implications of bad requirements Elicitation and documentation Writing skillset Documenting requirements Modeling requirements Defining the project life cycle Impact of project life cycle on documentation Requirements specifications Characteristics of good requirements Guidelines for writing textual requirements Structuring a requirement Writing pitfalls Traceability Requirements attributes Risks associated to requirements Discussions: Project Life Cycle and Correcting Poorly Written Requirements Workshops: Documenting Requirements and Identify Characteristics of Good Requirements Confirm and Communicate Elicitation Requirements Business analysis communication Requirements communication Communication skills The 7 Cs Timing of communication Planning communication Importance of Collaboration Planning collaboration Documenting communication/collaboration needs Confirming elicitation results Verify requirements Characteristics of good requirements (revisited) Requirements checklist Requirements validation Signing off on requirements Discussions: Responsibility for Communication, Eliciting Communication Needs, Validation Signoff Workshops: Communicating Requirements and Obtaining Signoff Evaluate the Solution Business analyst role in solution evaluation Why solutions under perform What we are looking for in solution evaluation When does solution evaluation occur Performing solution evaluation Planning solution evaluation Metrics that might exist Evaluating long term performance Qualitative vs. quantitative measures Tools & techniques used in solution evaluation Comparing expected to actuals When solution evaluation discovers a variance Tools/techniques for analyzing variances Proposing a recommendation Communicating results of solution evaluation Discussion: Addressing Variance Wrap up and Next Steps Useful books and links on writing effective requirements BABOK© Guide Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide Additional course details: Nexus Humans BA04 - Eliciting and Writing Effective Requirements training program is a workshop that presents an invigorating mix of sessions, lessons, and masterclasses meticulously crafted to propel your learning expedition forward. This immersive bootcamp-style experience boasts interactive lectures, hands-on labs, and collaborative hackathons, all strategically designed to fortify fundamental concepts. Guided by seasoned coaches, each session offers priceless insights and practical skills crucial for honing your expertise. Whether you're stepping into the realm of professional skills or a seasoned professional, this comprehensive course ensures you're equipped with the knowledge and prowess necessary for success. While we feel this is the best course for the BA04 - Eliciting and Writing Effective Requirements course and one of our Top 10 we encourage you to read the course outline to make sure it is the right content for you. Additionally, private sessions, closed classes or dedicated events are available both live online and at our training centres in Dublin and London, as well as at your offices anywhere in the UK, Ireland or across EMEA.

A Harry Potter Quiz based on the movies and books. This quiz is suitable for children aged 7+ A Zoom link will be sent to those who register and Louise, the host, will provide a link to the quizzing website, Kahoot!