Category: Agile & Scrum

Agile was introduced to the world in 2001 after 17 men had met in Utah and devised the Agile Manifesto (agilemanifesto.org).  It was created with a focus on software delivery projects and this is evident by its given title: Manifesto for Agile Software Development.  However, in the intervening years, Agile has grown into something that […]

If you’re thinking that the Agile methodology doesn’t make clear the business analyst’s job…well, you’re not wrong. However, you may be looking in the wrong place. “A Guide to the Business Analysis Book of Knowledge (BABOK)”, says that a business analyst is (emphasis added):  …any person who performs business analysis tasks…no matter their job title or […]

Agile in general, and Scrum in particular, relies for success on self-organizing teams. The eleventh of the principles behind the Agile Manifesto states that “the best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams”(1). Empowering the team is one of the seven principles of Lean. One of the central Scrum patterns is ‘Stable Teams’ (2). […]

If business analysts were just people who”analyze businesses” they would have, at most, a passive role that wouldn’t contribute to their organizations’ achieving their goals. The real role of the business analyst is a far more active one and provides the essential link between the organization’s goals and its IT projects. Business analysts who adopt […]

Fortunately for the organizations they work for,  development teams are smart enough not to build the original project’s design — which is why we have Scrum and Agile. But, even with Scrum, good estimating may be the least important thing you have to do: Adopting Scrum, Kanban, or any Agile methodology means that you have […]