Business Analysis Agility

Uncovering the Essence of the Problem 61
Ask Why Again and Again and Again 62
Referred Pain 63
Disguised Problems 64
The Real Scope of the Problem 66
Are You Solving the Problem That You Want to Solve? 68
Now You Need a Solution 68
The Solution Is a Hypothesis 69
Off-the-Shelf Solutions 69
Options for Solutions 70
How Might We? 71
Willingness to Be Creative 72
Techniques for Generating Ideas 72
Innovation Triggers 73
Constraint Removal 74
Combining Ideas 75
The Slogan 76
Personas 76
Portraying Your Solutions 78
Safe-to-Fail Probes 78
Right Outcome? 82
“Failed” Probes 83
Double Loop 84
Outcome and Impact 85
Systems Thinking 87
Choosing the Best Option 88
Summary 89

Chapter 4: Investigate the Solution Space 91
Why Are We Investigating? 92
Defining the Scope of the Solution Space 92
Business Events 95
Scoping by Business Event 97
Finding All the Stakeholders 99
Investigating the Business Events 101
Prioritize the Business Events 102
Using Models for Your Investigation 103
Modeling Business Processes 104
Live Modeling 107
Business Rules 107
Why Don’t I Skip Analysis and Just Write Stories? 109
Contextual Inquiries 111
Creative Observation 112
Consider the Culture 113
Summary 115

Chapter 5: Designing the Business Solution 117
Designing 118
Designing: An Example 118
Useful, Usable, Used 121
What Is Design? 121
Making Decisions 122
Meeting the Essence 122
Meeting Constraints 123
Meeting Architecture 123
Good Design 124
What Are You Designing? 124
Designing the Information 126
Designing the Interaction 128
UX Design 130
Designing Convenience 132
Incremental, Iterative, and Evolutionary Design 134
Enabling Technology 135
Recording Your Design 136

Chapter 6: Writing the Right Stories 139
Business Events 140
Writing Stories 144
“As a …” 144
Try Not to Write “I Want” 144
Ask “why?” again and again 145
The Two-Line Story 146
Story Maps 146
Functional Stories 148
Given-When-Then 149
Breaking Down the Functional Stories 149
Detailed Tasks 151
Developing the Map 153
Enhancing Your Stories 155
Acceptance Criteria 155
The People Involved 156
Wireframes 157
Prioritizing the Map 158
Dependencies Among Business Events 160
Prioritizing the Tasks 160
Periodic Reprioritization 160
Kanban 161
Minimum Viable Product 162
Quality Needs 163
Qualities: What Do They Look Like? 165
Qualities at the Product Level 168
Fit Criteria for Quality Needs 169
The Volere Template 170
Look & Feel 170
Usability 171
Performance 171
Operational and Environmental 171
Maintainability and Support 171
Security 172
Cultural 172
Compliance 172
Exceptions and Alternatives 173
Stories and Development Cycles 174
Summary 177

Chapter 7: Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be Quick 179
Jack Be Nimble 179
Wicked Problems and Gordian Knots 180
The Next Right Answer 182
Looking Outwards 183
Continuous Improvement 183
Why Are They Complaining? 185
Enlightened Anarchy 186
Jack Be Quick 187
Hour 1: Customer Segments 187
Hour 2: Value Propositions 188
Hour 3: Solving the Right Problem 189
Hour 4: Safe-to-Fail Probes 191
The Rest of the Day and Some of Tomorrow: Design the Solution 192
Jumpin’ Jack Flash 193
Jack and Jacqueline Jump over the Candlestick 194
Jumping the Silos 194
Avoiding Sign-Offs 196
The Blue Zone 197
Agile Business Analysis and Iterative Development Cycles 198
The Product Owner Coordinates 199
The Discovery Activity Responds to Priorities 199
And Jill Came Tumbling After 201
Documentation 202
Knowledge Artifacts 202
Project Goals 202
Solution Scope 204
Story Maps 205
Jack Sprat Could Eat No Fat 205
Traditional Business Analysis 208
Traditional Process 209
Routine Problems 210
Complicated Problems 211
Complex Problems 211
The Requirements Document 212
They Have Licked the Platter Clean 214

Glossary 217
Bibliography 223
Index 227