Business Analysis

Tutorials

MJ Stop Making Lists, Start Making Products NEW

David Hussman, DevJam

Janet Gregory, DragonFire, Inc.

Mon, 06/02/2014 - 8:30am

Many product backlogs are nothing more than glorified to-do lists. Teams have lost the idea of prioritizing real business value, focusing only on finishing stories and accumulating story points. If this sounds like your team, join David Hussman and Janet Gregory as they drive a stake into the heart of lame backlogs and breathe new life into test-driven thinking that is meaningful to testers, developers, product owners, and others. Using real-world examples, David and Janet combine their shared experiences to teach tools you can use to fuse centered product thinking with end-to-end testing.

MK Risk Management: Project Management for Grown-Ups NEW

Tim Lister, Atlantic Systems Guild, Inc.

Mon, 06/02/2014 - 1:00pm

Many organizations are childlike. They blithely plan the project as if nothing will go wrong. And then, when something does go wrong, they are shocked and dismayed. Risk management is not just worrying about your project, and it is not about running away from risk. Risk management for software projects is all about when you make decisions and when you take action. How do you deal with uncertainty? When do you decide to deal with a risk while it is still just a risk, and when do you decide to wait to see if the risk does turn into a problem and manage it then?

MQ The Role of the Agile Business Analyst

Steve Adolph, BootStrap Agile

Mon, 06/02/2014 - 1:00pm

The business analyst (BA) role seems conspicuously absent from most agile methods. Does agile make the BA role obsolete? Certainly not! But how does a BA exploit the short cycle times and collaborative nature of agile methods? Drawing from the principles of lean product development flow, Steve Adolph introduces five principles for the agile BA—Open the Channels, Chart the Flow, Generate Flow, Lean Out the Flow, and Bridge the Flow. As a communicator, the BA must Open the Channels and Chart the Flow to align all stakeholders.

TA Requirements Engineering: A Hands-On Practicum

Erik van Veenendaal, Improve Quality IT Services BV

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 8:30am

Identifying, documenting, and communicating requirements are key to all successful IT projects. Common problems in requirements engineering are How do we discover the real requirements?, How do we document requirements?, and How do user stories, use cases, and epics fit into requirements? Erik van Veenendaal answers these questions and more while helping you improve your skills in requirements engineering for both traditional and agile projects. With practical case studies and hands-on exercises, Erik illustrates requirements issues and solutions.

TL Get the Requirements Right―The First Time

Tim Lister, Atlantic Systems Guild, Inc.

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 1:00pm

One group—customers, users, and business—need a software system to help them work more efficiently or make more money, but they don’t know how to build it. Another group—software developers and testers—know how to build the system, but they don’t know what it is supposed to do. Bridging this gap is where requirements—the work products describing the system accurately and concisely while at the same time not missing important customer and user needs—are essential.

TP The Essential Product Owner: Championing Successful Products

Ellen Gottesdiener, EBG Consulting

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 1:00pm

Engaged and passionate product owners balance strategic and tactical activities to ensure that the right product is built—and built right. Yet how do these product owners guide planning toward longer-term goals while also ensuring that requirements are sufficiently understood for development and delivery? Join Ellen Gottesdiener as she shares techniques for setting context and collaboratively establishing a shared understanding of requirements. Discover methods to envision the product and identify the stakeholders and their value considerations.

Keynotes

K2 For Maximum Awesome

Joe Justice, Scrum, Inc

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 10:15am

An agile hardware and engineering company of 500 collaborators in twenty countries, Team WIKISPEED uses test-first development practices, is run by Scrum teams, and produces road legal cars, micro-houses, and social-good projects. Joe Justice shares how their 100-MPG road car was created in just three months through object-oriented design, iterative development, and agile project management.

Concurrent Sessions

AW2 Story Maps, Customer Journeys, and Other Product Design Tools

David Hussman, DevJam

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 12:45pm

Are you sure you are building the right product? Although agile methods help teams build products faster, many teams struggle to validate customer direction or product features. Some teams talk about “grooming the backlog” but still find their stories are not strong. If you’re struggling with bad backlogs or weak stories, this session is for you.

AW4 Patterns for Effective Use Cases: Unleashing Your System's Value

Steve Adolph, BootStrap Agile

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 12:45pm

Use cases are a powerful tool for modeling how a system delivers value by telling stories about how actors interact with it. User stories are an excellent tool for delivering a flow of value. Together, they offer an excellent strategy for modeling and delivering value. However, writing good use cases, like good user stories, is difficult. Steve Adolph presents pattern that can help use case writers and reviewers know what makes a good use case and judge their quality.

AW8 How Agile Helped a Business Analyst Discover Her True Value

Diane Zajac-Woodie, Erie Insurance

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 2:15pm

As companies introduce agile practices, the business analyst (BA) role is often left by the wayside. The BA title doesn’t exist in Scrum and other agile implementations, leaving many BAs wondering where—or if—they fit in. But fear not! The skills of a good BA are even more valuable in an agile environment. Diane Zajac-Woodie tells the tale of a new and struggling agile team, with no formal training, a resistant corporate culture, and unwilling team members. Diane shares how this team benefited from the communication, collaboration, and facilitation skills of an experienced BA.

AW12 Build the Right Product through Lean Canvas and Story Mapping Techniques

David Hawks, Agile Velocity

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 3:45pm

Too many organizations focus on maximizing output and often miss delivering the right product. Studies show more than 60 percent of system features are rarely—or never—used. You may deliver a pile of features, but if they aren’t being used, does it really matter how well or fast you do it? To deliver the right outcomes, you need to discover your customers’ real needs and validate your assumptions as early as possible. This means completing an early version of your product so you can begin testing, validating, and improving.