Understanding Lean / Agile Business Analysis

Understanding How Lean Principles

Affect Your Requirements Discovery
Process in a Lean, Agile Software
Development Environment
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 What Is Lean Business Analysis?

Topics Covered in this Presentation

 Is business analysis needed in a Lean and Agile software development environment?
 How do lean principles affect the business analysis process?
 What does the difference mean to the business analyst role?
 What business analysis techniques do you need?

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 Four Philosophies Dominate Current IT Development

Philosophy Primary Focus Primary Methodology

Lean Eliminate Waste Kanban

Agile Software Production Scrum

Continuous Delivery Continuity DevOps

Continuous Integration Software Quality ATDD/BDD

© Copyright 2018, 2019 by BA-EXPERTS. All rights reserved.

 Four Philosophies Dominate Current IT Development

© Copyright 2018, 2019 by BA-EXPERTS. All rights reserved.

 Four Philosophies Dominate Current IT Development

Philosophy Primary Focus Primary Methodology

Lean Eliminate Waste Kanban

Agile Software Production Scrum

Continuous Delivery Continuity DevOps

Continuous Integration Software Quality ATDD/BDD

Where does business analysis fit in this landscape?

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 Potential Wastes in Business Analysis and Requirements Discovery

Requirements Defining Features Working Without

Completed, Customers a Common
Not Implemented Do Not Use Understanding

Moving From Waiting For

Doing Things That
One Task To Next an Answer or
Do Not Add Value
Without Focus Availability

Keeping
Work That Needs Unused Human
Knowledge To
To Be Redone Creativity
Yourself

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 Six Lean Principles to Combat Waste in Business Analysis

Deliver appropriate details

Just-in-Time (JIT)

Practice active collaboration Deliver only what is needed

and knowledge sharing and not more

Avoid unnecessary Work with the right people at

non-value adding activities the right time

Build quality in
from the outset

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 Lean and Agile SDM Shift Focus from Project to Product

Projects are processes that develop products (or services)

Projects Products

limited by resources limited by capabilities

have milestones have features

are semi-rigid evolve to meet market needs

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 Lean Requirements Are the Prime Deliverable of Lean Business Analysis

Ideation
Application

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 Conventional Requirement Levels

Business Requirements (Goals and Objectives benefiting the organization)

“Waste-the-Waist will increase our customer base by 20%
by the end of the fiscal year”

Stakeholder Requirements (Needs of individuals or a group)

“As a website visitor, I can order any product in Waste-the-Waist’s
catalog directly from the site to reduce ordering time”

Solution Requirements (Functional and Non-Functional details)

Functional: “Calculate product price including fees and taxes”
Non-Functional: “Average response time will be less than 3 seconds”

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 Requirements Constructs in an Agile, Lean Environment

Features

User Stories

Use Cases

Business Rules

Constraints

Scenarios (GWT)

Examples

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 Evolution of Lean Requirements

Scenario,
Example, GWT
Epic, Feature,
User Story
✓ Project Charter
✓ Business Requirements
✓ Stakeholder Requirements
✓ Solution Requirements
✓ Test Plans
✓ Test Scenarios
✓ Test Cases
One Big Thing,
Vision Statement

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 Repositories of Outstanding Work

Requirements Definition
Document (Business / System)

Product Requirements
Document (PRD)

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 Potential Contents of a Product Requirements Document

Objective
Core Components
User Flow
Details User Flow Steps
Analytics
Future Features

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 Introduction to Backlogs and other Product Requirements Repositories

Backlog Backlog Backlog

✓ Contains User Stories and ✓ Contains subset of ✓ Contains User Stories,
Epics Product Backlog Epics, Work Items
✓ Updated Constantly by ✓ Created in Release ✓ Created in Sprint
Product Owner Planning Session Planning Session
✓ Prioritized by Product ✓ Prioritized by Agile Team ✓ Updated daily by Agile
Owner Team

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 Repositories of Outstanding Work

Product Backlog ➔ Release Backlog ➔ Sprint Backlog

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 Kanban Boards

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 Managing Product Requirements Repositories and Backlogs

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 Managing Product Requirements Repositories and Backlogs

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 Managing Product Requirements Repositories and Backlogs

© Copyright 2018, 2019 by BA-EXPERTS. All rights reserved.

 Managing Product Requirements Repositories and Backlogs

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 Managing Product Requirements Repositories and Backlogs

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 Knowing When to Do What in a Lean and Agile World

Groom/Refine the Backlog

User Story Sizing and Prioritizing
Elaborate Selected User Stories
Scenarios, Examples, Models, etc.

Seed the Backlog

Features, Epics, User Stories Replenish the Backlog
Features, Epics, User Stories

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 What Lean Techniques Does the One Wearing the BA Hat Need?

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 Creating and Using a Product Vision (Next Big Thing)

WHY?
Value to Customer
WHAT?
Business Needs
WHO?
Target Customer

WHERE:
HOW? Organizational Strategy
Competitive Advantage

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 Creating and Using a Product Vision (Next big thing)

“If you are working on something exciting

that you really care about,
you don’t have to be pushed.
The vision pulls you.”

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 Defining a Minimum Viable Product

Minimum
Buyable
Product *

* Thanks to Rohit Sharma for this insightful expression.

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 Preparing to Be a Lean BA

Managing the logistics

Preparing the right questions

Deciding how to capture the responses

Finding the right people

Clearly communicating the
objective of the conversation

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 Choosing the Right Target and Tools

Swimlane Diagrams?
Data Flow Diagams?
Workflow Models?

Functional and
Non-Functional Dimensions

Targeting the right level of

questions to the other party

Using the right mode

Picking the best representation medium (visual, verbal, textual)
(flip chart, electronic, cocktail napkin)

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 Lean Communication Techniques

Formal F2F
Informal Conversation
Conversation

Email or IM

Workshop Teleconferencing

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 Lean Problem Analysis Reveals Business Needs

What is the problem?

What is the real problem? Whose problem is it?

Where does the problem come from?

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 Ambiguity and Subjectivity Feed Misunderstanding

Ambiguity: Subjectivity:
open to multiple legitimate based on or influenced by personal
interpretations feelings, tastes, or opinions
Resolved primarily through context Resolved by objectifying

I saw her duck!

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 Writing SMART Features, Requirements, User Stories, and Epics

Epic Alternative Meanings

Specific Simple, Strategic

Measurable Motivating, Manageable

Achievable Agreed, Attainable, Actionable, Ambitious, Aligned

Relevant Realistic, Resourced, Reasonable, Results -oriented

Time-bound Trackable, Timely, Time-sensitive, Timeframe, Testable

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 Using Cynefin to Manage Uncertainty

Complex Complicated

Disorder (kun-EF-in)
Framework

Chaotic Obvious

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 Right-Sizing Epics, Features, User Stories, and Requirements

Cynefin Function and Data

Recognize and leverage Discover to drill down
complexity to solutions

Story Splitting Decision Tables

Show business need of Reduce complexity
a group

Feature Slicing Lean Use Cases

Simplify features for Describe interaction
scheduling releases between people and
technology

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 Developing, Presenting, and Analyzing Visual Models

Generic Process Data Flow Diagrams Activity Diagrams Business Process

Models (DFD) (Swimlane) Modeling Notation
(BPMN)

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 Acceptance or Business-Facing Testing

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 Acceptance or Business-Facing Testing

Define Acceptance Tests

Use Examples and
Write Scenarios Consider Scenarios
Identify Scenarios Test Data
and Outlines for NFRs
Engineering

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 Engineering Lean Test Data

GIVEN Set-up Data

WHEN Execution Data

THEN Evaluation Data

The end result of good engineering

is reliable regression tests!
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 What Should You Do Now?

Apply your business analysis skills

to YOUR business analysis process

Implement lean principles in

your requirements discovery work

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 What Should You Do Now?

BusinessAnalysisExperts.com

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