Agile Analysis Boot Camp

Course Description

Agile approaches enable rapid development and deployment of solutions.  Unfortunately, sometimes teams are rapidly releasing software that doesn’t provide value or satisfy user needs.  In other words, the team may be building the “thing” right, but they’re not building the “right thing.”  Agile analysis practitioners must ensure that critical analysis work is being done to ensure successful solutions.

This course reframes traditional analysis skills, placing them in context for agile approaches.  It supports the standards outlined in the IIBA BABOK® Guide v3.0 and the Agile Extension to the BABOK® Guide v2.0.  Concepts from Scrum are included; alternate agile approaches such as Kanban, XP, SAFe, DSDM and hybrids like Scrumban or Scrumfall may be covered depending upon the needs of the students.

Boot Camp Experience

Students are immersed in a hands-on case study that lets them practice utilizing their analysis skills on an agile project.  During the course, students will learn how analysis is used at every step along the way.  This allows them to better understand their role on the team and ensure that they are making the right types of contributions at the right time. The class culminates in a simulation activity where small teams create a product based on a user request.

Students who have previously taken our Essential Skills for Business Analysis will see how to leverage and reuse those skills in an agile environment.

Learning Objectives

• Understand roles, planning, and ceremonies for typical agile environments such as Scrum
• Review the top-down hierarchy of managing value; establish a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
• Practice project inception and sprint planning sessions
• Align scoping and analysis techniques with each stage and step in the agile framework
• Develop user stories using the 3Cs. Create supporting content such as acceptance tests, examples and models to support building the right solution and tracing value
• Practice creating other types of backlog items including non-functional requirements, spikes, technical debt, and impediments
• Elicit and communicate the appropriate level of requirement detail
• Understand the value of using “just in time” practices for delivering requirements details
• Learn techniques for managing, estimating, and prioritizing the backlog
• Effectively establish a triage approach to manage the flow of changes while ensuring ongoing backlog refinement
• Identify and negotiate the factors associated with the “Definition of Ready” and the “Definition of Done”
• Understand how to best facilitate communication among the agile team (i.e. the product owner, the domain stakeholders, the delivery team)
• Determine how an analyst adjusts their practices and techniques due to the changing needs of the team

Intended Audience

This course is designed for anyone working on an agile team, but is especially helpful for product owners, business analysts, systems analysts, or any other team member involved with requirements on an agile project. This course may also be appropriate for individuals who manage individuals working on an agile team and need a more in-depth understanding of the process and skills useful for an agile team.

Prerequisites

None