scgmis agile business analysis workshop july 2014

1© Life Cycle Engineering 2014© Life Cycle Engineering 2014

The Business Analyst in an Agile Environment Presented by Justin Petite for SCGMIS

2© Life Cycle Engineering 2014

• 12 years in a number of roles supporting software and the SDLC

• Past 4+ years adapting and applying Agile and Scrum to SPAWAR projects

• PMI – Agile Certified Practitioner

• Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Master

• Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Professional

[email protected]

@JustinPetite

JUSTIN PETITE


STARTING LINEUP• 5 minutes• Confidence in your understanding of Agile• Without talking


AFFINITY ESTIMATION

• Visualize and create groups by relative scale

• Comparison by subjective measure

• Good for large groups, and large quantities

• Intended to be fast, and just precise enough to get started

More on this later…


OBJECTIVES

• Explore Agility, the Agile Manifesto, and Agile principles

• Understand how business analysis fits into the Agile environment

• Introduce personas and user stories

• Experience a variety of analysis tools and techniques used on Agile projects


System Requirements

Software Requirements

Analysis

Design

Code

Test

Operations

“WATERFALL”


MANIFESTO FOR AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

We are uncovering better ways of developingsoftware by doing it and helping others do it.Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and toolsWorking software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiationResponding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right,

we value the items on the left more.


AGILE

An iterative and incremental (evolutionary) approach to software development which is performed in a highly collaborative manner by self-organizing teams within an effective governance framework with “just enough” ceremony that produces high quality software in a cost effective and timely manner which meets the changing needs of its stakeholders.

Scott Ambler

http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/agileSoftwareDevelopment.htm


AGILITY

Agility is the ability to both create and respond to change in order to profit in a turbulent business environment

Agility is the ability to balance flexibility and stability

Jim Highsmith

Agile Project Management (2nd Edition, 2010)


WHY AGILITY

• Need to more effectively respond to change

– Organizational needs

– Market demands

– Threats and opportunities

• Manage evolutionary change to products, processes, and culture

• Frequently and incrementally deliver value to reach a desired goal or outcome


BENEFITS

• Greater responsiveness to changing priorities• Measured increase in productivity• Lower costs• Managed risk through greater visibility• Increased customer satisfaction• Better overall quality• Improved team morale


VALUE IN “WATERFALL”cu

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AGILE VALUE PROPOSITION Acu

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AGILE VALUE PROPOSITION Bcu

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AGILITY


AGILE PRINCIPLES1. Our highest priority is to

satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.


AGILE PRINCIPLES7. Working software is

the primary measure of progress.

8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

10.Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential.

11.The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

12.At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.


AGILE METHODOLOGIES• Extreme Programming (XP)• Scrum• Kanban• Scrum-ban• Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)• Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)• Feature Driven Development (FDD)• Lean software development


AGILE PRACTICES• Cross-functional teams• Timeboxed iterations• Story-driven modelling• Backlogs (product, release, sprint)• Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD)• Test Driven Development (TDD)• Continuous integration and deployment• Pair programming• Information radiators• And many, many others


Accredited to Michael Sahota & Olaf Lewitz


ETHOS


Value(Releasable Product)

Quality(Reliable, Adaptable Product)

Constraints(Scope, Cost, Schedule)

AGILE TRIANGLE

Jim Highsmith


AGILE METHODS DO:

• Position us to be more responsive to changing priorities

• Allow better predictability of output for the foreseeable time horizon

• Improve accountability

• Make priorities and risk calculations more transparent


AGILE METHODS DON'T

• Make engineers write more lines of code per day or designers create output faster

• Preclude the need to make good organizational decisions about product, priorities, and customer needs

• Allow the rest of the organization to assume they think they know what lies months ahead


AGILE MYTHS• “Agile is the silver bullet for our organization!”

• “Agile doesn’t scale, so it can’t work for our organization!”

• “No more documentation or deadlines!”

• “Since we don’t do things upfront, we have no design and poor architecture!”

• “With so much rework going on, nothing new, and innovative gets worked on!”

• “Agile makes us faster!”


ORGANIZATIONAL AGILITY• More than just “doing Agile”• Discipline of managed change through continuous

inspection, evaluation, and adaptation• Tailored to the organization• Leverages Agile methods appropriately at each level:

– Individual– Team– Project– Program/Portfolio– Executive


THE AGILE BUSINESS ANALYST• Analysis still essential to software development,

regardless of project size, complexity, or methodology

• Analysis is still about asking the right questions

• Vital to the agile requirements decomposition paradigm

• Has an immediate impact on development

• Plays an integral role on the development team


ITERATIVE & INCREMENTAL


ITERATIVE & INCREMENTAL“Incrementing” builds a finished piece

Assumes the customer has a fully formed idea

of what they need

Jeff Patton - 2008http://www.agileproductdesign.com/blog/dont_know_what_i_want.html


ITERATIVE & INCREMENTAL

Jeff Patton - 2008http://www.agileproductdesign.com/blog/dont_know_what_i_want.html

“Iterating” builds something imperfect to validate and refine

Iterating allows for less developed ideas to

evolve and be refined


SCRUM• Framework:

– Defined Roles– Ritual Meetings– Artifacts– Terminology

• Emphasis:– Value– Delivery– Open communication– Team self-organization– Stakeholder Participation


SCRUM TIMEBOXES

• Release Planning• Sprint Planning• The Sprint

• Daily Scrum• Sprint Review & Demo• Sprint Retrospective


SCRUM ROLES

• Scrum Master– Lead, promote, facilitate, organize, and coach Scrum– Remove impediments for the team

• Product Owner– Own, manage, and communicate the Product Backlog– Advocate for the customer

• Scrum Team– Turn work from the backlog into a “potentially

shippable” increment of working software


ANALYST PATTERNS

http://www.romanpichler.com/blog/business-analysts-in-scrum/


ANALYST PATTERNS



ANALYST ANTI-PATTERN



RESPONSIBILITIES

Product VisionProduct Backlog

Guidance to Scrum Team

Stakeholder Expectations

PRODUCT OWNER


5 LEVELS OF AGILE PLANNING

Vision

Roadmap

Release

Sprint

Daily

Suggested Time box*

Outcome

Annual Vision

Semi-Annual Roadmap

QuarterlyRelease Backlog

2-4 weeksSprint

Backlog

15 mins daily “3 Questions”


PRODUCT VISION

The product vision is a high level statement

that provides the team with a shared

understanding of the what the end product

will look like.


PRODUCT VISION

Bill Shakelford: ‘Design the box’

Front of the box• Product Name• Graphic/logo• 3-4 key selling points

Back of box• Description of key features• Screens/mockups

Spine• System requirements


ELEVATOR PITCH

FOR (target customer)

WHO (statement of need)

THE (product name) is a (product category)

THAT (product key benefit, compelling reason to buy, problem being solved, etc.)

UNLIKE (primary competing alternative)

OUR PRODUCT (final statement of key differentiation)

Geoffrey Moore’s “Elevator Pitch”, Crossing the Chasm (1991)


AGILE PRODUCT CHARTER

• Mission: The “Why”, higher purpose, or the reason for the project’s existence.

• Vision: the “What” of the project stating what will be done in the project to achieve its higher purpose.

• Success Criteria: The success criteria are management tests that describe effects outside of the solution itself – Defines “Done”


AGILE PROJECT CHARTER

• 1 page (A3)• High level, but specific• Eliminate boilerplate• Aligned with stakeholder

Shared understanding of the charter is critical to enabling team members to collaborate effectively on large, enterprise projects


TARGET PRACTICE• 5 Minutes• Pick a product• Try a method

– Product Box– Elevator Statement– Charter (A3)– What else works for you?

Successful vision defines at a high level:

User – Opportunity – Critical features

Other context specific objectives and success factors


ROADMAP

• Connects the Product Vision to the execution plan• Provides the team with visibility, incentive, and focus• Not a commitment … a visualization of the plan

July Aug Sep Oct Nov

Security

User Admin

Payments

User Admin

Product AdminFulfillment

Security


BIG ROCKS

Grouping like features can be helpful for planning

These are often referred to as Themes or Epics

Security

Login with username/password

Password Reset

SSL 3.0

User Admin

User account DB

Update user info

Register User

Payment

Credit Card

Auto draft

PayPal Integration


ROADMAP


CHART YOUR COURSE

• 10 minutes

• Brainstorm how to deliver value early

• Come up with some high level themes

• Roughly prioritize

• 6 – 9 month horizon


PERSONAS• A fictional character based on role, and real

qualitative understanding of your user base

• Emphasize the user-centric approach and promote empathy for the user and customer

Picture and Name Details Goals or

Solution

Choose a picture and a name that are representative, and that allow you to develop sympathy for the persona

Relevant characteristics and behaviors:Demographics, job, lifestyle, spare time activities, attitudes, common tasks, etc.

Why would this specific persona want to buy or use this product?What problems are solved for this persona?What benefits are this persona seeking?


TIPS FOR USING PERSONAS• Start with quick and good enough - adapt over time

• Distinguish user personas from customer personas

• Choose a primary persona

• Make personas believable

• Stay focused and precise – problems and benefits

• Keep the personas visible

• Connect personas to user stories


INTRODUCE YOUR USERS

• 5 minutes

• Come up with 2-3 user personas for your product

• Tie user’s problem to your product’s solution

• Ensure each user has a role


TELL A STORY


USER STORY

• Simple and concise statement of requirement from a user perspective

• Originated in Extreme Programming (XP)

• Ron Jeffries: 3 C’s

– Card

– Conversation

– Confirmation


THOUGHT TEMPLATE

A conversation with the stakeholder:– “As a” specific user or persona– “I want” need, feature, or functionality– “So (that)” purpose and value of delivery


ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA

• Flip the card over to record expectations:

– User– Customer– Product Owner– Team

How has the customer defined success for this story?


INVEST

Independent

• Can ideally stand alone as a working product increment

• Avoids dependencies with other stories whenever possible


INVEST

Negotiable

• Stories are concepts not contracts

• Can and should be revised or rewritten up until they are planned in a sprint


INVEST

Valuable

• Should deliver value to the end user, customers, and/or stakeholders

• Why else would a story matter?


INVEST

Estimable

• The story provides the Team with enough information to approximate size

• By understanding size, we can then plan


INVEST

Sized appropriately (Small)

• Ideally can be completed in one iteration

• Small for near-term work

• Larger for work further out is ok, realizing further decomposition will be needed later


INVEST

Testable

• Acceptance criteria establishes common expectations across team members and stakeholders

• Critical to understand not just what will be tested, but also how it will be tested


OTHER KINDS OF STORIES

Technical Foundation:

“As a developer, I need to upgrade the database software so we are running on the correct supported version”

Research (Spike):

“As lead architect, I need to research and evaluate COTS products that are compatible with our current system’s architecture so we can reduce the risk of future issues with integration”


OTHER KINDS OF STORIES

Design:

“As a UI/UX engineer, I need to create the initial design for the account management screens so that I can begin to gather customer feedback”

Other possible types of work items:

Defects, maintenance, training, documentation, development infrastructure, automation, etc.


STORY WRITING• 15 minutes• Write stories– From the perspective

of your personas– Leverage/adjust your

roadmap for value– Remember the

template:

As a <user>, I need to <do something>, so that I can <accomplish some goal>


PRODUCT BACKLOG

• An ordered list of work items needed to deliver the desired product, features, or system

• The Product Owner decides the order with input from the development team and stakeholders

• Always ready, never done, ever evolving

• Modelled in greater detail and smaller size at the top

• Maximizing value to the customer is the objective


PRODUCT BACKLOG (FLAT)


PRODUCT BACKLOG (ICEBERG)


USER STORY MAPPING

• Organizes and prioritizes user stories in two dimensions

• Provides a useful tool for the entire team to understand the big picture

• Can be useful when building a feature-rich product based on business processes, workflow, or tasking

• Attributed to Jeff Patton - www.AgileProductDesign.com


STORY MAPPING

time

nece

ssity

Activities

Tasks


STORY MAPPING


PRIORITIZINGWhat is value to the customer?

–Financial–Business–Reduced cost to develop and support– Innovation–Risk reduction–Market factors–Compliance–Deadline


SIMPLE VALUE EFFORT MATRIX


PRIORITIZING

Business Value

Cost ImpactRisk

RemovedTotal

Story A 7 4 8 9 7

Story B 10 2 5 6 5.75

Story C 2 6 3 5 4

Story D 4 10 6 2 5.5

Decision Matrix- Good for teams

supporting disparate customers

- Incorporates multiple factors

- Scored as a group


KANO ANALYSIS


PRODUCT EVOLUTION


EVALUATE YOUR STORIES

• 5 minutes

• Kano Analysis–Must have–Satisfier–Delighter

• Label your story cards

• Ask around


FACTORS TO CONSIDER

• Minimally Marketable Feature (MMF)• Minimum viable product (MVP)• Earned Business Value (EBV)• Risk• Architecture and infrastructure• Dependencies and integrations• Constraints: Schedule & Costs


DEFINITION OF DONE• What do we mean by “potentially shippable”

• When is the team finished with a story? A feature? A release?

• Evolves over time

• Suited to the team’s unique environment

• Incremental maturity

• Helps to ensure quality is “built in”


ESTIMATION

How long is this going to take?


ESTIMATION“Estimation is the process of finding an approximation, which is a value that is usable for some purpose even if input data may be incomplete, uncertain, or unstable”

• Too many variables• Too much unknown• Too far in the future• Individual biases


ESTIMATES BECOME PROMISES

• Estimates drive expectations–Customers–Stakeholders–Business

• Estimation may add value … But, is only valuable within a threshold of risk and cone of uncertainty


REMEMBER THE TRIANGLES


AGILE ESTIMATION

• Story estimates are abstract - not time based

• Derived from other “known” factors:– Effort– Complexity– Uncertainty

• Informed by past performance

• Originate from those who will do the work

• Best to be roughly right than precisely wrong!


RELATIVE SIZING: DOG POINTS

• Golden Retriever• Great Dane• Border Collie• Chihuahua• Cocker Spaniel• English Bulldog

• 2 minutes

• Order from smallest to largest

• Compare your list with your neighbor


RELATIVE SIZE

T-Shirt XS S M L XL XXL

Fibonacci 1 2, 3 5, 8 13, 20 40 100


SIZING TECHNIQUES

• Affinity Estimation – group stories of similar size and then assign points

2 5 8 13 20 40


PLANNING POKER• Product Owner tells the story• Team briefly discusses• Team members reveal their estimates all at once• Discuss outliers• Repeat until estimates converge


ESTIMATING WITH POINTS

• Don’t spend too much time on each story

• Estimate only as much as is needed for planning

• Large stories should be set aside to be broken down

• Estimates come from the team – resist individual “anchoring”

• Only re-estimate when relative size of a story has changed


VELOCITY AND CAPACITY• Velocity

– The demonstrated average number of points completed in an iteration

• Capacity

– The maximum amount a team can get done in an iteration


ITERATION PLANNING• Start at the top• Identify specific tasks for each story• Estimate tasks in ideal hours for each task• Stop when capacity is reached

Hours In SprintPlanned Absent Allocation Buffer Capacity

Jim 80 16 100% 25% 48Joe 80 0 100% 25% 60

Jane 80 0 50% 25% 30Jenny 80 8 100% 25% 54Jack 80 0 50% 25% 30

400 24 100% 25% 222


BACKLOG GROOMING

• At least once a sprint

• Consult with the customer

• Break down or split large stories

– Many ways to do this

• Give the team a preview, but not too far ahead

• Refine acceptance criteria and design tests

• Estimate size


SPRINT CADENCE• Rhythm and ritual


BURNDOWN CHARTS• Represent work remaining

– By Release (points) or iteration (hours)


LOTS OF OTHER METRICS

• Goal: Measure and communicate progress through meaningful and highly visible means

• Force the right conversations early

• Help teams recognize their cadence

• Uncover risk and areas of opportunity

• Inform conversations… not replace them


RETROSPECTIVES

• The most powerful tool available to an Agile team

• Observe, inspect, and adapt:

–What worked well?–What didn’t work well?–What will we improve?

• Focus on the team, not the product

• Avoid dwelling on external factors

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© Life Cycle Engineering 2014

PROJECT INITIATIONDecompose project requirements (scope) to

create the first iteration of the project schedule, roadmap, and backlog

Form the cross-functional agile team(s) of individuals with the roles and skills necessary to

deliver on the project’s requirements

Train the team, educate the customer, and communicate expectations

Get started sprinting following the standard practices to learn how to best adapt in the future

· Incorporate feedback from retrospectives· Build “muscle memory” around good practices

· Establish common understanding of Agile fundamentals

· Agree to a cadence· Decide on initial technologies· Identify and negotiate stakeholder

roles and responsibilities· Agree to the metrics by which project

performance will be measured· Establish the definition of done· Set up visible progress indicators

Work Breakdown Structure

IMS / Roadmap

Agile PM Tool

User StoriesUser Stories

SystemsRequirements

Document (SRD)

SystemsRequirements

Document (SRD)

PWS/CDRLPWS/CDRL

Product OwnerProduct Owner

TestersTestersDevelopersDevelopersScrum MasterScrum Master

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KEEP THE AGILE CONVERSATION GOING• Software engineering

practices

• Agile team dynamics

• Scaling up

• Contracting and government

• Metrics

• Planning

• User story writing

• Testing/Quality

• Retrospectives

• Configuration management

• Release management

• Information assurance

• Fostering culture

• Organizational transition

• Change management

• Industry certifications

• Management and executive sponsorship

• More than software

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CONTINUOUS LEARNING• Take a class• Attend a conference• Get certified• Engage online

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HELP FOR THE TRANSITIONAgile Coach

• Supports the successful introduction of Agile to your organization and team

• Shares subject matter expertise and experience

• Helps avoid common mistakes and pitfalls that hinder adoption and delay value

• Acts as a neutral and objective third party

• Is a supportive partner and mentor across the organization

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THANK YOU!

Please let me know how I can do better next time!

[email protected]

@JustinPetite