Contents
Chapter 1 The Art of Agile Analysis and Planning
1.3 I Work for a Mainstream Company! What’s This Got to Do with Me?
1.4 Story 1: It’s Not My Problem
1.5 Story 2: The Cantankerous Customer
Chapter 2 Agile Analysis and Planning: The Value Proposition
2.2 What Is Agile Analysis and Planning?
2.3 Who Is a Business Analyst?
2.4 Why Agile Analysis and Planning?
2.5 The Parallel Histories of Agile and Business Analysis
2.5.1 A Brief History of Business Analysis
2.5.2 A Brief History of Agile Development
2.6 Two Diagnoses for the Same Problem
2.7 The Business Analysis Diagnosis
2.8 The Business Analysis Track Record
2.11 Why Agile Teams Should Include an Effective BA Competency
Chapter 3 Fundamentals of Agile Analysis and Planning
3.2 What the Agile Manifesto Means for Business Analysis
3.2.2 The Impact of the First Value on Analysis
3.2.3 The Impact of the Second Value on Analysis
3.2.4 The Impact of the Third Value on Analysis
3.2.5 The Impact of the Fourth Value on Analysis
3.3 What the Twelve Principles Mean for Business Analysis
3.4 Practices, Standards, and Frameworks
3.4.1 Business Analysis Standards
3.4.2 Requirements-Related Terminology
3.5 Overview of Agile Roles and the Business Analyst
3.5.1 The Product Owner’s BA Responsibilities
3.5.3 The ScrumMaster’s BA Responsibilities
3.5.5 BA Responsibilities of the Product Champion (Director)
3.5.7 When Are Dedicated Business Analysts Advised?
3.5.8 Business Analysts Provide Requirements Leadership
3.5.9 The Distinction between Business Analysts and Business Systems Analysts
3.6 Soft Skills of the Agile Business Analyst
3.6.1 Making the Unconscious Conscious
3.6.5 Works Well with Difficult People
3.6.9 Not Afraid to Ask Questions
3.7 13 Key Practices of Agile Analysis and How They Differ from Waterfall
3.7.1 A Competency, Not a Role
3.7.2 A Facilitator, Not a Messenger
3.7.3 Changes to Requirements Are Welcomed
3.7.4 Collaboration with Developers vs. Contractual Relationship
3.7.5 Just-In-Time Requirements Analysis
3.7.6 Conversation versus Documentation
3.7.7 Specification by Example: Acceptance Test–Driven Development
3.7.8 Small Requirements Units
3.7.9 Vertical Slices of Functionality
3.7.12 Mix of BA Classic and Agile BA Tools
3.7.13 Meet Them Where They Are
3.8 Agile Business Analysis Rules of Thumb
Chapter 4 Analysis and Planning Activities across the Agile Development Lifecycle
4.2 Overview of the Agile Analysis and Planning Map
4.6.1 Initial Preparation and Planning
4.6.4 Feature Closeout: Prepare for GA
4.6.5 Quarterly Inception, Iteration Inception
4.8.2 Scaled Quarterly Planning
4.8.3 Scaled Iteration Planning
4.8.4 Daily Planning and Analysis
Chapter 5 Preparing the Organization
5.3 What Is Initiation and Planning?
5.4 How Long Should You Spend Up Front on Initiation and Planning?
5.4.1 The Greater the Anticipated Risks, the Greater the Need for Upfront Planning
5.5 The Purpose Alignment Model
5.5.1 Differentiating Quadrant (Top Right)
5.5.2 Parity Quadrant (Bottom Right)
5.5.3 Partner Quadrant (Top Left)
5.5.4 Who Cares? Quadrant (Bottom Left)
5.6 Preparing the Infrastructure
5.6.1 Transitioning from Manual to Automated Testing
5.6.2 Timing the Automation of the Build and Distribution Processes
5.7 Organizing Development Teams
5.7.1 Guidelines for Forming Agile Teams
5.7.3 Feature Teams versus Generic Teams
5.7.5 Why Organizing by Competency Is Bad for the Business
5.8 Managing Stakeholder Expectations about Agile Development
5.8.1 The Negative Expectation That Requirements Delayed Are Requirements Denied
5.8.2 Productivity Expectations
5.9 Preparing the Customer–Developer Relationship
5.9.1 Customer’s Bill of Rights and Responsibilities
5.9.2 Developers’ Bill of Rights and Responsibilities
5.10.2 Discovery-Driven Financial Planning
5.11 Preparing the Marketing and Distribution Teams
5.12 Preparing Channels and Supply Chains
5.13 Preparing Governance and Compliance
5.13.1 Challenge Compliance Assumptions
5.13.2 Do Compliance After Process Design
5.13.3 Focus on Goals, Not Means
5.14 Preparing for Increased Demand on Resources
5.15 Preparing an Enterprise for Agile Development
5.15.3 Transition Activities at the Enterprise Level
5.15.6 Agile Enterprise Transition Team
5.16 Determine Organizational Readiness
5.16.1 Organizational Readiness Checklist
Chapter 6 Preparing the Process
6.4 Tailoring the Agile Practice to the Context
6.4.1 Costs of Agile Development
6.4.2 Benefits of Agile Development
6.4.3 Finding the Best Trade-Off of Costs and Benefits
6.4.4 Determining the Framework
6.5.1 Business Analysis Information Artifacts and Events
6.5.2 Checklist of Agile BA Information Artifacts
6.5.3 Defining Requirements Types
6.5.5 Determining Requirements Granularity Levels
6.5.6 Tracing Requirements and Other Configuration Items
6.5.7 Setting Process Parameters
6.6 Optimizing the Process Using Value Stream Mapping
6.7 Determining Process Readiness
7.3 Overview of Product Visioning and Epic Preparation
7.3.1 An Example of Product Visioning and Why It’s Important
7.3.3 Initial Stakeholder Identification
7.5 Specifying a Product or Epic
7.6 The Problem or Opportunity Statement
7.7.1 The Product Portrait Template
7.8 Crafting the Product and Epic Vision Statements
7.8.1 The Product Vision Statement
7.8.2 The Epic Vision Statement
7.8.3 Properties of Well-Crafted Product and Epic Vision Statements
7.8.4 Vision versus Mission Statements
7.9 Stakeholder Analysis and Engagement
7.9.1 Identify and Analyze Stakeholders
7.9.2 Plan Stakeholder Collaboration
7.9.3 Plan Stakeholder Communication
7.9.4 Facilitate and Conduct Ongoing Engagement and Analysis
7.10 Analyzing Goals and Objectives
7.10.1 Use Circumstance-Based Market Segmentation as a Basis for Goals and Objectives
7.10.2 Representing Goals and Objectives within the Story Paradigm
7.11 Analyze Leap of Faith Hypotheses
7.11.1 What Is a Lean Startup?
7.11.2 What Are Leap of Faith Hypotheses?
7.11.6 Hypotheses in Discovery-Driven Planning
7.11.8 Using a Milestone Planning Chart to Plan Assumption Testing
Chapter 8 Seeding the Backlog—Discovering and Grading Features
8.3 Overview: Seeding the Backlog
8.3.1 Definitions: Epics and Stories
8.3.2 How Many Features Should You Seed Up Front?
8.3.3 Whom to Invite to Backlog Seeding
8.4 Circumstance-Based Market Segmentation for Feature Discovery
8.5 Other Ways to Discover Initial Features
8.7 Using the Role-Feature-Reason Template to Represent Epics and Features
8.8 Specifying Emergent Features
8.9 Physical Representation of Features
8.11 Determining Customer and User Value with Kano Analysis
8.11.1 Select the Target Features
8.11.5 Test the Questionnaire Internally
8.11.8 Interpreting the Kano Grades
8.11.9 Satisfaction versus Fulfillment Graph
8.11.10 The Natural Decay of Delight (and Its Opposite)
8.12 Sequencing Epics and Features in the Backlog
8.12.1 Determining Cost of Delay
8.13 Writing Feature Acceptance Criteria
8.14 Analyzing Nonfunctional Requirements and Constraints
8.14.1 Do NFRs Go in the Backlog?
8.14.2 NFRs and Constraints Checklist
Chapter 9 Long-Term Agile Planning
9.3 Overview of Long-Term Planning, Epic Planning, and MVP
9.4.1 Phase 1: Define Bold Targets
9.4.2 Phase 2: Create a Detailed Plan
9.4.3 Phase 3: Deliver Quick Wins
9.4.4 The Business Analyst’s Contribution to a Successful Full-Potential Plan
9.5 Using MVPs to Validate the Assumptions behind the Plan
9.6 Capabilities for Effective MVP Implementation
9.6.2 Deployment and Delivery Approach
9.6.3 Deployment Options and Potential Issues
9.7 Overview of the Product Roadmap
9.8 Planning the Interim Periods
9.8.1 Specify the Interim Timeline
9.8.2 Craft Interim Goals and Objectives
9.8.3 Specify Assumptions and Metrics
9.8.4 Specify Events and Milestones
9.9 Using the Product Roadmap for Shorter Planning Horizons
Chapter 10 Quarterly and Feature Preparation
10.3.1 Examples of Feature-Length Change Initiatives
10.4 Benefits of Feature Preparation
10.5 Feature Preparation Activities
10.6 Timing of Feature Preparation
10.7.1 Using the Feature Definition of Ready (Feature DoR)
10.8 Accounting for Preparation Work: Tasks and Spikes
10.9 Specifying Features and Their Acceptance Criteria
10.9.1 Specifying Epic Acceptance Criteria
10.9.2 Specifying Feature Acceptance Criteria
10.9.3 The Analyst Contribution
10.9.4 Analyze AC During Triad Meetings
10.9.5 Specifying AC in the BDD Gherkin Syntax
10.9.6 Specifying UAT for End-to-End Workflows
10.13 Overview of Journey, Process, and Value Stream Maps
10.14.1 Overview of the Customer Journey Map
10.14.2 Customer Journey Map: Mortgage Example
10.14.3 Components of a Journey Map
10.15.1 Developing a Value Stream Map
10.16 Business Process Modeling
10.16.1 Bring Process Participants Together
10.16.2 What Situations Call for Process Modeling?
10.16.3 Screenshots Do Not a Process Model Make
10.16.4 Do Just Enough Analysis for Your Purposes
10.16.5 Models with and without Swimlanes
10.17.1 Use-Case Modeling Example: Claims
10.17.2 Use-Case Modeling Elements
10.18 User-Role Modeling Workshops
10.19.2 UML Communication Diagram
10.19.4 Architecture (Block) Diagrams
Chapter 11 Quarterly and Feature Planning
11.3 Overview of Quarterly Planning
11.4 Overview of Flow-Based Feature Planning
11.5 When Is Planning at This Level Advised and Not Advised?
11.6 When to Use Quarterly Planning versus Flow-Based Feature Planning
11.7 How to Conduct Quarterly Planning with Agility
11.7.1 Create a Culture of Change
11.7.2 Use Data-Informed Decisioning
11.7.3 Specify Outcomes, Not Outputs
11.7.4 View the Plan as a Hypothesis, Not a Contract
11.8 XP’s Planning Game Guidelines
11.8.1 Overview of the Planning Game
11.8.3 Overview of Planning Principles
11.9 Quarterly Planning: Timing Considerations
11.10 Preparing for the Planning Event
11.10.1 Verify Entry Conditions
11.10.2 Prepare Invitation List
11.10.3 Determine the Planning Horizon
11.10.4 Prepare Inputs and Deliverables
11.10.5 Refine Features and Acceptance Criteria Incrementally
11.11 Planning Topics (Agenda)
11.11.4 Planning Retrospective
11.12 Reviewing the Quarterly Plan, Once the Quarter Is Underway
11.12.4 The Plan Becomes Obsolete
Chapter 12 MVPs and Story Maps
12.3 MVPs and Story Mapping: How the Tools Complement Each Other
12.4.3 Venues for MVP Experiments
12.4.5 MVP’s Iterative Process
12.4.7 Incrementally Scaling the MVP
12.4.8 Using MVPs to Establish the MMP
12.5.1 Jeff Patton’s Story Map
12.5.2 Benefits of a Story Map
12.5.3 The Anatomy of a Story Map
12.5.4 Dependency Relationships on the Map
12.5.6 Tips for Writing Stories on the Map
12.5.7 Constructing the Backbone
12.5.9 Other Forms of Story Maps
13.3 Overview of Story Preparation
13.4.2 Alternative Terminology
13.6 Who Is Responsible for User Stories?
13.6.2 The Analyst Value Added
13.7 Physical versus Electronic Stories
13.8 Specifying Values for Story Attributes
13.9 Writing the Story Description
13.9.1 When to Use a Story Template (and When Not To)
13.9.2 Role-Feature-Reason (Connextra) Template
13.10 Specifying Story Acceptance Criteria
13.10.1 Examples of Story Acceptance Criteria
13.10.2 Who Writes Acceptance Criteria?
13.10.3 When to Create and Update Acceptance Criteria
13.10.4 Specification by Example
13.10.5 How Extensive Should the Acceptance Criteria Be?
13.10.6 How Many Acceptance Criteria per Story?
13.10.7 Characteristics of Well-Formed Acceptance Criteria
13.10.8 Emergent Acceptance Criteria
13.10.9 Using the Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) Gherkin Format
13.10.10 Who Tests Acceptance Criteria and When?
13.11 Stories That Aren’t User Stories
13.11.1 What Is a Spike or Enabler Story?
13.12 Guidelines for Writing High-Quality Stories
13.13 Patterns for Splitting Stories
13.13.1 How to Use the Patterns
13.14 Analyzing Business Rules and AC with Decision Tables
13.14.1 Behavioral Business Rules
13.14.2 Decision Table Example
13.14.3 Benefits of a Decision Table
13.14.4 How to Elicit Rules Using the Table
Chapter 14 Iteration and Story Planning
14.3 Overview of Iteration and Story Planning
14.6 Inputs for Iteration Planning
14.7 Deliverables of Iteration Planning
14.7.1 The Iteration Goal and Iteration Backlog
14.7.2 The Developer Task Board
14.9 Part 1: Forecast What Will Be Accomplished
14.9.3 Review Ready and Done Definitions
14.9.4 Craft the Iteration Goal
14.9.6 Forecast the Stories That Will Be Delivered
14.10 Part 2: Plan the Implementation
14.10.1 Should You Invite the PO to Part 2?
14.11 Setting Up the Kanban Board
14.11.1 Columns on the Kanban Board
14.12 Scaling Iteration Planning
14.13.1 Feature Preview Objectives
14.13.3 Why Two Iterations Ahead?
Chapter 15 Rolling Analysis and Preparation—Day-to-Day Activities
15.3 Overview of Rolling Analysis
15.3.1 A Day in the Life of the Agile Analyst
15.3.2 Overview of Analysis Tasks
15.6 Actions That May Be Taken against a Developer Task
15.7.3 Updating the Developer Task Board
15.7.4 Updating the Kanban Board
15.7.5 Monitoring Progress with a Daily Burndown Chart
15.7.7 What Should You Use: Burndown or Burnup Charts?
15.7.8 Cumulative Flow Diagrams
15.8 Story Testing and Inspection (Analyze-Code-Build-Test)
15.8.1 Overview of the Analyze-Code-Build-Test Cycle
15.9 Managing Scope Change during the Iteration
15.9.1 When Progress Is Lower or Higher than Expected
15.9.2 When the PO Wants to Add Stories After the Iteration Begins
15.10 Updating Business Analysis Documentation
15.10.2 Feature Documentation: Organize by Features, Not Stories
15.10.3 Updating the Use-Case Model
15.10.4 Other Analysis Documentation
15.10.5 Tracing Analysis Artifacts
15.11 Ongoing Analysis of Upcoming Epics, Features, and Stories
15.11.1 How Long Should You Spend on Preparation?
15.11.2 Overview of Rolling Preparatory Analysis
15.12 Accounting for Progress at the End of the Iteration
15.12.1 Accounting for Stories That Are Not Done
15.12.2 Accounting for Progress When an Iteration Is Canceled
15.13.1 Inputs and Deliverable
15.13.3 Iteration Review—Artifacts for Forecasting and Tracking Progress
15.14 The Iteration Retrospective
15.14.3 Inputs and Deliverables
15.14.5 Iteration Retrospective Games
Chapter 16 Releasing the Product
16.4 Releasing to the Market: Timing Considerations
16.4.1 Should You Reserve a Hardening Iteration for Prerelease Activities?
16.6 Quarterly (Release) Retrospective
16.6.1 Facilitation Guidelines
16.6.3 Walkthrough of a Quarterly Retrospective
16.7 Pivot-or-Persevere Meeting
16.7.1 Data-Informed—Not Data-Driven
16.7.4 Walkthrough of a Pivot-or-Persevere Meeting
17.3 Why Do We Need a Scaled Agile Approach?
17.3.1 Why Scaled Agile Teams Are Interdependent
17.4 Planning: Choosing an Approach That Supports Inter-team Collaboration
17.4.1 Review of the Two Approaches
17.4.2 Which Approach Should You Use at the Frontend?
17.4.3 Overview of the Analyst Contribution to Scaled Planning and Implementation
17.5 Continuous Delivery: Delivering Software Continuously, Safely, and Sustainably at Scale
17.5.1 Overview of Automation in the Test-Build-Deploy Steps
17.5.3 Test-Driven Development
17.6 Scaled Agile Culture: Creating a Culture That Supports Innovation at Scale
17.6.1 Effective Agile Leadership
17.6.3 Remove Silos; Foster Collaboration
17.6.4 Foster a Culture of Rapid Learning
17.7.5 One Backlog at the Whole-Product Level
17.7.9 One Definition of Done (DoD)
17.8 Scaling the Agile Organization
17.8.1 Scaling by Subproduct and Product Area: MyChatBot Case Study
17.8.3 Portfolio and Program Structure
17.8.4 Forming the Feature Teams
17.8.8 The Product Owner Council
17.8.10 Release Management Team
17.9 Scaling the Agile Process
17.9.1 Scaled Agile Frameworks
17.9.2 Overview of Scaled Activities and Events
17.9.4 Scaled Quarterly and Feature Planning
17.9.5 Scaled Iteration (Sprint) Planning Meetings
17.9.6 Big Room Iteration Planning
17.9.11 Product Owner Council Meeting
17.9.12 Scaled (Quarterly) Feature Preparation (Multiple Teams)
17.9.13 Team-Level Story Preparation
17.9.14 User Task Force Meetings
17.9.15 Scaled Iteration Review or Feature Review
17.9.16 Scaled Iteration Retrospective
17.9.17 Scaled Quarterly/Feature Retrospective
17.10 Agile Requirements Management Software Tools
17.10.1 Requirements Management Tool Checklist
17.10.2 Overview of Agile Requirements Management Tools
17.11 Lightweight Tools for Supporting Inter-team Collaboration
17.11.7 Implement Work Items Sequentially, Not Concurrently
17.11.8 Enforce a Definition of Ready
17.12 Potential Issues and Challenges in Scaling Agility
17.12.1 Guidelines for Non-colocated Teams
17.12.2 Guidelines for Working with Waterfall Teams
17.12.3 Inability to Deploy Frequently and Reliably
17.12.4 Recurring Integration Errors and Dependency Issues
17.12.5 Conflicting Priorities
17.12.6 Insufficient Business Resources
Chapter 18 Achieving Enterprise Agility
18.3 Overview of Enterprise Agility
18.3.1 Definition of an Agile Enterprise
18.3.3 The Business Analysis Contribution
18.3.4 Drivers for Enterprise Agility
18.3.5 Agility in Heavily Regulated Sectors
18.4.3 Circumstance-Based Market Segmentation
18.5 Overview of the Agile Process for Developing Innovative Products
18.6.1 Definition of Corporate Culture
18.6.2 Definition of Agile Corporate Culture
18.7 Overview of Principles and Practices for an Agile Corporate Culture
18.8 Three Principles for Applying Agile Practices
18.8.1 Tailor the Approach to the Circumstance
18.8.2 Protect Islands of Innovation
18.8.3 Invest Aggressively in Enterprise Agility
18.9 The Thirteen Practices for an Agile Corporate Culture
18.9.1 Iterative Experimentation (Fail Fast)
18.9.5 Responsible Procrastination (Last Responsible Moment)
18.9.7 Let Those Who Do the Work Estimate the Effort
18.9.9 Commit to Outcomes, Not Outputs
18.9.12 Data-Informed Innovation
18.9.13 Monitor Adjacent and Low-End Markets
18.10 Agile Financial Planning
18.10.2 Discovery-Driven Planning
Appendix A Additional Resources and Checklists
A.1 Mapping of Book Chapters to IIBA and PMI Guides
A.2 Rules of Thumb in Agile Analysis and Planning
A.6 NFRs and Constraints Checklist
A.7 Readiness Checklist for Quarterly Planning
A.8 Checklist of Invitees for Quarterly Planning
A.9 Checklist of Quarterly and Feature Planning Inputs
A.10 Checklist of Quarterly and Feature Planning Deliverables
A.11 Checklist of Quarterly (Release) Retrospective Questions
A.11.1 DevOps and Supporting Practices Perspective
A.11.3 Productivity Perspective
A.11.4 Quality Assurance (Testing) Perspective
A.11.5 Program/Portfolio Perspective
A.11.6 Marketplace Perspective
A.12 Checklist of Invitees for Scaled Quarterly and Feature Planning
A.13 Overview of Agile Requirements Management Tools
A.13.4 Other Requirements Management and Collaboration Tools
Appendix B Discovery-Driven Planning Case Study: BestBots
B.1 Background: BestBots Case Study
B.2.1 Market Estimates (Past and Future)
B.2.2 Compound Annual Growth Rate
B.3 Determine Constraints (Required Outcomes)
B.4 Create Draft of Reverse Income Statement
B.4.1 Conclusions from the Reverse Income Statement Draft
B.5 Create Pro Forma Operations Specifications
B.6 Create Assumptions Checklist
B.7 Revise Reverse Income Statement