©2008 Protegra Inc. All rights reserved.

Agile and the Business Analyst

Mindset shift :: Practical Agility

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www.protegra.com blog.protegra.com

How agile are you?

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Learning Outcomes

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1. Understand one facet of “why agile?”

2. Describe some mindset shifts for Business Analysts

3. Two agile analysis practices you can

use tomorrow

4. An improved understanding of

agile

About.us

@tbunio bornagainagilist.wordpress.com

@srogalsky winnipegagilist.blogspot.com

Continuous Improvement

Process Hacker Family Agile Helping others learn

People First Application

Architect Inclusive Models Problem Solving Coaching

Test First Making change

happen Lean

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"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." 

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Money, money, money

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Practical Agility – Practice #1

• Printing company- We will have a 3% discount for quantities over

1,000. And we will discount by 3% if they have more than 50 pages in the book.

- Unless it’s a digital book. Then we will do a 2 % discount, which will jump to 3% if they have more than 1,000 quantity. Except in the case of more than 1,000 books and more than 50 pages, which is 4%.

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Specification By Example

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Book Quantity Pages Type Discount

1,000 50 Regular 0.00%

1,001 50 Regular 3.00%

1,000 51 Regular 3.00%

1,000 50 Digital 2.00%

1,001 50 Digital 3.00%

1,001 51 Digital 4.00%

• Regular books: 3% discount for quantities over 1,000 or over 50 pages

• Digital books: 2% discount. 3% if they have more than 1,000 quantity. 4% if they have more than 1000 and more than 50 pages.

Specification By Example – Attempt #2

User Story: As an employee I want to receive overtime pay• For each week, hourly employees are paid:

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a standard wage per hour for the first 40 hours

worked

1.5 times their wage for each

hour after the first 40 hours

2 times their wage for each

hour worked on Sundays and

holidays

(40 * $20) = $800.00

a standard wage per hour for the first 40 hours

worked

1.5 times their wage for each

hour after the first 40 hours

(40 * $20) +(5 * $20 * 1.5)= $950.00

2 times their wage for each

hour worked on Sundays and

holidays

(40 * $20) +(8 * $20 * 1.5) +(8 * $20 * 2)= $1,360.00

(40 * $20) +(8 * $20 * 1.5) +(8 * $20 * 2 ) = $1,520.00

*1.5

2 times their wage for each

hour worked on Sundays and

holidays

Executable Specifications

Credit: This example is from “The Role of Quality Assurance in Lean-Agile” – Allan Shalloway

Specification By Example - Conclusions

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Great communication

toolFocus on defect

prevention

Encourages good design

Moves towards a test first strategy

Practical Agility – Practice #2

• How do you typically gather requirements?• What are the types of sessions and situations that you

prefer?

• Take 3 minutes now and write down those ideas on stickies- One per stickie

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Discussion versus Dialogue

• Dialogue – Hearing each others words to gain understanding or meaning- Hearing others- Free flowing

• Discussion – Searching for the answers by proposing, interrupting, jumping to conclusions- Making ourselves heard - Directed- Competitive

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Silent Brainstorming

• Refers to the collaborative methods where ideas are created, gathered, organized, priorized, and voted on in silence.

• Benefits- Everyone has a voice- Early ideas do not prevent other contradictory ideas- Quick and efficient- No idea is too ‘out there’. Anonymity

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User Story Review

• As a [Role] I want to do [Action] so that I get [Value]

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Scenario

• We are going to build the new Facebook and Google+.• We are going to come up with the requirements for the new

application

• I’d like you to break up into teams of 4-6

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Trial #1

• Take 5 minutes and work as a team and collaboratively come up with User Stories.

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Trial #2

• Using Silent Brainstorming take the next 5 minutes and write down User Stories individually

• No talking at all.

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Trial #3

• Using Silent Brainstorming take the next 5 minutes and write down User Stories individually

• Each person will only write down one part of the story and then hand it off to the next person- One persons fills out the role- Next person fills out the action- Next person fills out the value- Start all over again

• No talking at all.

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Retrospective

• How did that feel?• How did the numbers compare?• Any surprises?

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Conclusions

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Short Feedback Loops

Mindset Shifts

Specification By Example

Silent Brainstorming

Prioritized Q & A

• What scares you the most about agile?OR

• What don’t you understand about agile?

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More questions?Terry.bunio@protegra.com steve.rogalsky@protegra.comBornagainagilist.wordpress.com winnipegagilist.blogspot.com

http://iiba.info/AgileExtension

Agile is a Direction

Individuals and Processes andInteractions Tools

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Working Comprehensive software documentation

Customer ContractCollaboration Negotiation

Responding Followingto change a plan