Chicagoland IIBA presentation, March 3, 2010

1. Postcards from the Agile Frontier IIBA Meeting March 3, 2010 Elena Yatzeck

2. Agenda

3. Agenda

4. Agile Basics For purposes of this presentation, “agile” means an iterative software development process based on the Agile Manifesto, drafted in 2001 and signed by a set of people who have gone on to define significant additional details since then. Agile Manifesto We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. Kent Beck, Mike Beedle, Arie van Bennekum, Alistair Cockburn, Ward Cunningham, Martin Fowler, James Grenning,JimHighsmith, Andrew Hunt, Ron Jeffries, Jon Kern, Brian Marick, Robert C. Martin, Steve Mellor, Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland, Dave Thomas Visit: http://agilemanifesto.org/ for more!

5. Obligitory Blurry Photo of Manifesto Signers 5

6. Sample Agile Process (Scrum) 6

7. Full Project: the Agile Difference 7

8. Why is Agile Popular?

9. Agile Artifacts

10. Agenda

11. Classic Agile Roles

12. Where does the BA fit in?

13. Two Helpful Facts To Know Classic Agile “simplifies” by removing the BA role from the roster. Actual Agile Projects of Any Scale Always Use Business Analysts Standard role at ThoughtWorks (their roles are: PM, BA, Dev, and Test) Standard in WBS illustration used by Rally SCM trainers Standard in most classic texts on “Agile at Scale”

14. Agile BA Roles Attempted at NAVTEQ Role 1: Business Analyst Role 2: Part of 4-Headed Product Owner Team Role 3: Representative for Product Owner (“Product Proxy”) Role 4: Scrum Master Role 5: Tester/QA (not tried, but we’re intending to)

15. Role 1: Business Analyst

16. Agile Artifacts at Scale

17. Role 2: Part of “Product Owner Team”

18. Role 3: Representative for Product Owner (“Product Proxy”) At NAVTEQ, Product Management is not available for daily scrum For our 2010 Pilots, we have created a “Product Proxy” role PO is available at product inception, and for start and end of sprints PP is 100% dedicated, and stays in frequent contact with PO

19. Role 4: Scrum Master Ferry versus Bridge Fowler describes the relationship between business and technology as the “Yawning Crevasse of Doom” The traditional BA might be described as building a ferry (over the crevasse) between business and technology through written requirements Fundamentally, the SCM is a person presiding over a process which builds a permanent bridge over that chasm—same function, different technique

20. Role 5: Tester/QA Role “Post-Agile” Techniques Include: Test Driven Development User Acceptance Test Driven Development At simplest: BAs write unit, system, and user acceptance criteria for each story, and QA approves BA/QA role melds: the user acceptance criteria IS the requirement set BA/QA/Dev role melds: automated testing tools allow the requirements to be actually encoded as part of the code base. BA/QA/Dev are all able to do this tool-based encoding.

21. What You Found …what has worked at your company?

22. Agenda

23. The Bottom Line First principle of the Agile Manifesto: We Value…“Individuals and interactions over processes and tools” In our experience, the BA is often the individual who makes a project make sense. That is not going away!

24. Three Classics for More Reading Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products (2nd Edition) by James A. Highsmith (Paperback - July 20, 2009). Agile Project Management with Scrum (Microsoft Professional) by Ken Schwaber (Paperback - Feb. 11, 2004) Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game (2nd Edition) by Alistair Cockburn (Paperback - Oct. 29, 2006)

25. About Elena Elena Yatzeck is Director of Software Specifications within the Architecture and Software Engineering group at NAVTEQ. She has 25+ years of experience in IT software engineering, mostly in the education and digital data industries. Elena is PMP and Scrum Master certified. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Dartmouth College, she earned her MA and PhD at the University of Chicago, as well as completing 8 of 20 courses towards her MBA at the Chicago Booth School of Management. Reach her at eyatzeck@gmail.com