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. BAs can leverage traditional tools such as use cases to Generate Flow and feed user stories to fast moving agile teams. However, large backlogs of stories are wasteful, so lean principles are applied to Lean Out the Flow. Finally, BAs may need to Bridge the Flow between more traditional elements of the organization and its agile teams. Whether you are a BA new to agile or struggling to find the right fit in your team, join this highly interactive session to “get your flow” going.
Steve Adolph
As an agile coach with BootStrap Agile, and co-founder of e-learning publisher Development Knowledge, Steve Adolph pursues his passion for helping organizations get the job done. Steve has been creating and managing software development projects long enough to remember FORTRAN and PDP-11s. His professional career includes many exciting and critical projects—designing call processing software for digital telephone exchanges, design and development of leading edge network management systems, railway signaling, and telecom billing. Steve has diverse experience in job roles ranging from developer to chief engineer to CTO and coauthored the popular book, Patterns for Effective Use Cases.
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. Patterns such as Clear Cast of Characters and User Valued Transactions help evaluate the scope and size of a use case. Scenario Plus Fragments helps judge the structure of the use case, and Leveled Steps helps with the appropriate level of precision in use case descriptions. Use of the Adornments pattern avoids cluttering use case descriptions with non-functional issues. Finally Steve applies the Ever Unfolding Story to integrate use cases with user stories to detect any logical gaps.