Business Analysis in an Agile (Scrum) Environment

This course has a good balance of theoretical and practical, case study based exercises designed to get you comfortable with the radically different approach. All aspects of Scrum are covered and you will get the chance to discuss the issues with an experienced tutor and with the other delegates.

Target Audience

As a traditional Business Analyst you are now required to change your world-view because you are moving into an Agile, Scrum environment. You are worried because:

• There seems to be no BA role in Scrum
• There is no 'Business Requirements Document'
• There is no traditional functional spec or use cases
• It all sounds a bit chaotic

This course is aimed at you. It will give you a thorough grounding in the Roles, Activities and Work Products of Scrum while demonstrating that the traditional BA skills of effective communication, analytical thinking, good documentation and sheer common sense are vital to the Scrum effort.

At the end of this course you will be able to:

• Contribute to the overall Scrum environment using BA skills
• Create the Product Backlog from a business scenario
• Contribute to Product Backlog prioritisation
• Contribute to Product Backlog estimation
• Help plan a sprint
• Take part in / facilitate the Daily Scrum meeting
• Control and monitor the burn-down charts
• Take part in / facilitate the Scrum Review meeting
• Take part in / facilitate the Scrum Retrospective meeting

Ideally, you should have some Business Analysis experience

Traditional vs Agile Development

• Project Frameworks
• Waterfall Lifecycle
• The Unified Process
• Agile

Overview of Scrum

• Scrum from 10,000 feet
• Scrum Roles
• Scrum Work Products
• Scrum Activities
• Summary of Roles, Activities and Work Products
• The Artefacts
• The roles a Business Analyst can perform in Scrum

Creating the Product Backlog

• The Product Backlog
• User Stories
• Use Cases and User Stories
• User Story Environments
• Trawling for User Stories
• Business Analysis and Product Backlog creation

Estimating and Prioritising The Product Backlog

• Determining the Sprint Length
• Preparing the Stories for Estimation
• Estimating Stories
• Story Points
• Task Hours
• Delphi Workshops
• Prioritising User Stories
• Business Analysis in Prioritisation and Estimation

Sprint Planning, Execution and Review

• Sprint Planning
• Sprint Execution and the Daily Scrum
• Sprint Reviews and Retrospectives
• Business Analysis in Sprint Execution and Review

Review of the Business Analysis Contribution to Sprint

• A Dramatic Change of Environment
• The BA Contribution