Agile Guide to Business Analysis and Planning, The: From Strategic Plan to Continuous Value Delivery

Agile projects require extensive direct communication between developers and the business. This means they depend more than ever on individuals who can structure those conversations for maximum benefit, and apply appropriate business analysis techniques wherever these offer value. Whatever your title or project role, this guide will help you perform these crucial tasks.

Howard Podeswa walks you through an integrated case study project from inception through to completion, offering detailed, step-by-step guidance for performing analysis across the entire agile lifecycle. You'll learn which tools to use, when to use them, how to "stage" agile analysis, and how to adapt analysis for agile projects while protecting the chain from business needs to solutions.

You'll learn how to engage more productively with the business by applying a wide range of analysis tools, including use cases, user stories, Business Process Modeling (BPM), decision tables, traceability matrices, and structural modeling. Podeswa shows how to write effective acceptance criteria for agile projects using the powerful BDD (Behavior-Driven Development) Given/When/Then template. He covers analysis for release plan preparation, sprints, backlog management, and retrospectives; and offers a full chapter of guidance on scaling analysis for large agile projects.

If you're already an analyst, Podeswa will help you transition to agile. If you're an agile project owner or developer, he'll help you leverage analysis techniques to deliver far more value to your business customers.