In this presentation from the recent BA World Conference, EK Consultants Yanko Ivanov and Tatiana Cakici explain Agile and discuss the differences between Agile and Waterfall approaches.

1. BA ROLE: AGILE VS. WATERFALL
Yanko Ivanov and Tatiana Baquero Cakici
November 13, 2017

2. HIGHLIGHTS
Agile BA performs similar core activities as traditional BA.
Mental shift: Continuous improvement and feedback.
Mental shift: Imperfect is OK.

3. TABLE OF CONTENTS
OVERVIEW
THE BA ROLE IN AN AGILE PROJECT
MANAGING REQUIREMENTS
CHALLENGES FOR THE NEW AGILE BA

4. WATERFALL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
▪ Months of planning before development begins.
▪ Months before your customers are interacting with what was developed.
▪ No time to change course along the way. By the time people provide
feedback, it is too late.

5. AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT
▪ Time boxed and iterative product delivery.
▪ Incremental product development.
▪ Continuous delivery:
▪ Analysis
▪ Design
▪ Code
▪ Test

6. THE BA ROLE IN AN AGILE PROJECT

7. THE BA IS NOT THE PRODUCT OWNER
Business Analyst
Primary focus is:
• Requirements management,
analysis, and timely clarification;
• Relies on the PO for priority and
other product decisions.
Product Owner
Primary focus is:
• Prioritizes requirements;
• Gathers information iteratively;
• Develops the team;
• Facilitates requirements
elicitation (sometimes is a BA by
title)

8. BA ROLE COMPARISON - TIMELINE
AGILE WATERFALL
BA
BA
BA

9. BA ROLE COMPARISON - WATERFALL
▪ Stakeholders
▪ Requirements elicitation
▪ Business process definition
▪ Focus groups
▪ JAD sessions
▪ Analysis
▪ Market research
▪ Requirements management
BA interacts with:
▪ Dev Team
▪ Requirements hand off

10. BA ROLE COMPARISON – AGILE
Stakeholders Product Owner BA Dev Team
• Demos
• Questions
• Prioritization
• Roadmapping
• Vision
• Requirements
• Requirements
clarification
• Questions
• Validation
• Backlog grooming
• User stories

11. INDUSTRY TRENDS
▪ Industry trends – we have seen BAs playing these roles:
▪ user experience
▪ information architecture
▪ change management
▪ takes over some of the “PM” role
▪ user acceptance testing

12. MANAGING REQUIREMENTS

13. GATHERING REQUIREMENTS
AGILE
▪ Focus Groups
▪ Technology demos
▪ Workshops (e.g. taxonomy)
▪ Interviews
▪ Story Mapping
▪ Personas
WATERFALL
▪ Focus Groups
▪ Technology demos
▪ Workshops (e.g. taxonomy)
▪ Interviews

14. FOCUS GROUPS, INTERVIEWS, DEMOS
Focus Groups /
Workshops
Interviews Demos

15. PERSONAS
• Realistic
representations of the
key audience
segments for
reference.
• Represent major user
groups
• Give a clear picture of
the user's
expectations

16. COMMUNICATING REQUIREMENTS
AGILE
▪ Communication Tools
▪ Backlog
▪ User Stories
▪ Story Mapping
▪ User Acceptance Criteria
WATERFALL
▪ Communication Tools
▪ Requirements Traceability Matrix
(RTM)
▪ Requirements documents
▪ Use cases
▪ Process diagrams

17. As a [specific role]…
I need to [specific task]…
So that I can [specific goal or purpose]
USER STORIES
Acceptance Criteria

18. USER JOURNEY
Source: http://wireframes.linowski.ca/tag/user-journey/

19. REQUIREMENTS/PRODUCT BACKLOG
• Prioritized list of product
features
• It is revised and updated
throughout the whole
project
• Break down work into
sprints
• Only requirements that will
be implemented during the
next sprints are defined in
greater detail
• Ongoing backlog grooming
sessions to determine
which tasks should be
prioritized.

20. Release
REQUIREMENTS/PRODUCT BACKLOG

21. REQUIREMENTS/PRODUCT BACKLOG
• Product backlog
• Next Up
• Doing/ In Development
• Needs Revisions
• Code Complete
• Ready on Dev

22. VALIDATING DELIVERY
AGILE
▪ User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
▪ Rigorous and timely
WATERFALL
▪ User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
▪ “end of project” UAT
▪ Detailed Test Scripts

23. UAT

24. UAT
Definition
of “Done”
User Stories
(Sprint X)
Product Owner and the
Development Team
(Backlog Refinement)
DONE: When it fulfills the
customer need, has the
feature that the customer
wanted and meets all the
acceptance criteria.
• Product Owner (accept a
user story -> Done)
• Stakeholders (feedback)

25. POST VALIDATION
AGILE
▪ Ongoing feedback at the end of
each sprint.
▪ Keep, stop, start doing.
▪ Feedback is leveraged in the next
sprint.
WATERFALL
▪ Feedback and Lessons Learned at
the end of the project.
▪ Feedback may be leveraged in
another project.

26. ONGOING FEEDBACK

27. CHALLENGES FOR THE NEW AGILE BA

28. MENTAL SHIFT
AGILE IS THE
SAME AS
SCRUM
AGILE IS ONLY
FOR
TECHNICAL
TEAMS
AGILE IS A
METHOD OR
PROCESS
“HYBRID”
METHODS ARE
AGILE
TRAINING
WILL MAKE
YOU AGILE
@KATYSOUTHPAW

29. AGILE IS VERY JARGON RICH!
@KATYSOUTHPAW

30. CHALLENGES FOR THE NEW AGILE BA
Facilitating timely
decision making
Ongoing Product
Reviews/demos –
Tool: scrum
ceremonies.
Involving them into
exploratory testing
Work with the
Product Owner to
develop an agile
(iterative) roadmap.
Ongoing clean up
and grooming
Ongoing prioritization
Flexibility for each
sprint
Being available all the
time
Facilitating decision
making on
requirements on time
Being comfortable
with delivering half-
baked stuff
TIMELINE
MANAGING
STAKEHOLDERS’
EXPECTATIONS
TASKS PLANNING
INTERACTING WITH
THE DEV. TEAM
DELIVERABLES

31. HIGHLIGHTS
Agile BA performs similar core activities as traditional BA.
Mental shift: Continuous improvement and feedback.
Mental shift: Imperfect is OK.

32. CONTACT US
HTTPS://WWW.LINKEDIN.COM/IN/YANKOIVANOV
TCAKICI@ENTERPRISE-KNOWLEDGE.COMYIVANOV@ENTERPRISE-KNOWLEDGE.COM
HTTPS://WWW.LINKEDIN.COM/IN/TATIANA-BAQUERO-
CAKICI-PMP-610123/
Yanko Ivanov Tatiana Baquero Cakici