"Back to Basics: A Needs Assessment Roadmap" by Ben Furtaw

Mar 04, 2025 6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Eastern Standard Time  

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A needs assessment is a crucial step in chartering a project. It involves the activities required to gain a comprehensive understanding of the project. This includes clearly defining the business problem or opportunity the project aims to address, aligning the project with organizational goals and objectives, and identifying the value the project will deliver to the organization. A key aspect of this process is having a deep understanding of project stakeholders. Effective stakeholder identification and analysis are essential for gathering the right inputs and information, shaping recommendations, defining the project scope, and securing the appropriate approval for requirements to ensure completeness. Ben Furtaw will provide a back-to-basics overview and roadmap for completing a needs assessment while reviewing typical business analysis tasks and tools along the way.
Ben Furtaw
Ben is a Senior Business Analyst with the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority (NYSERDA). He is a Certified Professional in Business Analysis (PMI-PBA), who, in past initiatives as a consultant, has assisted multiple New York State offices and agencies with strategic business analysis, system development and design, project, and data management, as well as program oversight.
 
Earlier in his career, Ben worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and several other public and corporate entities. His experience includes use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, in planning and compliance capacities, to collect and analyze data for diverse environmental and land use projects, analyzing and drawing conclusions from diverse data sets, interacting with wide-ranging project stakeholders, and accomplishing project tasks according to standards and regulations. In addition to holding multiple professional certifications, he holds a graduate degree in Environmental Planning, as well as academic certificates in Business Analysis, Citizen Development, IS/IT Project Management, and Healthcare Analytics.