Accelerating Business Analysis User Stories Process

This Powernoodle Solution was developed with the help of Powernoodle Expert: Larry Simon Larry Simon and his company the Inflection Group provide business analysis, IT management advisory, e-business and enterprise architecture services to a broad range of companies, public sector organizations and early stage businesses. Before founding the Inflection Group, Larry was a senior partner at Ernst & Young Canada Consulting where he had national responsibility for E&Y’s facilitation and solution delivery centres. While at E&Y he also served as the firm’s Chief Methodologist and Chief Information Officer. He was also previously the Head Judge of the Canadian Information Productivity Awards and on the faculty of the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management. He has over 2,000 classroom hours of experience teaching IT strategy, business analysis, project management, TOGAF and IASA Foundation courses. He is currently on the Ontario Board of CIPS (Canada’s association of IT professionals) and is the IT Infrastructure and Cloud Computing research lead for IT Market Dynamics. Connect with Larry on LinkedIn: ub/larry- simon/0/147/26 2

Powernoodle sessions help you bridge the gulf between business people’s understanding of their business and the specialist knowledge of IT people. Using Powernoodle, groups quickly and respectfully make decisions that everyone understands, supports and is willing to implement. Powernoodle is an effective communication tool whether your group is down the hall, across the street or around the world. Powernoodle is an Accelerator for Business Analysis. 3

4 Powernoodle Enables Effective Virtual Work C HALLENGES Physical Distance Operational Distance Affinity Distance R ESPONSE Leverage Technology to Build Virtual Work Spaces That Surpass “Real” Ones Real-time or asynchronous Participate when convenient Anonymous input drives focus to the issue Improves buy-in Reduces travel Eliminates time lag to action & decisions Improves productivity

This guide will provide you with clear guidance on how to organize and facilitate the collection of user stories using Powernoodle. You will learn how to:  Accelerate involvement by stakeholders.  Produce better, more valuable outcomes by including more stakeholders and building consensus as you go. Incorporating Powernoodle 5

Intuitive Design and Familiar Process You can customize every Powernoodle session to generate the outcome you need. 6

Using this Guide: A Powernoodle session has an Organizer and any number of Participants. This guide is designed for an Organizer and discusses some features of Powernoodle that are available only to the Organizer. This guide also contains information about the role of Participants in a Powernoodle session. 7 Looking for more detailed directions? Watch the Organizer Training Series videos Looking for more detailed directions? Watch the Organizer Training Series videos

It Starts with the Right Question. 8 Using Powernoodle to collect user stories will provide you with richer, more useful outcomes in a comprehensive report. You will be able to involve more people at key points in the process, regardless of their geographic location. You will benefit from feedback that is: :. ConvenientCandidConfidential More DiverseEfficientOrganized

The Powernoodle Organizer’s Job  The Organizer creates the session, invites Participants, and leads the group through the Powernoodle steps: Brainstorm, Categorize, Combine, Vote, Rate, Prioritize, and Action Plan.  Depending on the session’s purpose, the Organizer is able to customize the Powernoodle as needed.  Every Powernoodle creates a Powernoodle Report, a complete record of the viewpoints expressed in a downloadable Excel spreadsheet. 9

What are some examples of great customer service that we’ve provided recently? What are some examples of poor customer service we’ve delivered? Questions for Collecting User Stories 10

Question: What is your Favourite TV show from the following list. Participants enter a sticky note for each TV show in your list. Powernoodle Illustration IDEA: 1 Modern Family IDEA: 4 Two and a Half Men (Kuchar) IDEA: 5 The Office (with Carrell) IDEA: 2 Big Bang Theory IDEA: 3 Two and a Half Men (Sheen) IDEA: 6 The Office (w/o Carrell) Rating: E veryone rates each show based on 3 weighed criteria W AYS TO F ILTER I DEAS Voting Single Criteria Rating (one rating scale) Multi-Criteria Rating (weighted scales) Prioritize INITERNAL DRAFT V411 R OLE OF Q UESTIONS Powernoodle is question-centric Value of outcome is driven by how the question is worded

Create two Powernoodle Questions. Invite your Participants to input their answers in the Brainstorm step. Work through each question concurrently. Finish the Brainstorm step in each, then move to the Rating step. Ask your Participants to Rate each idea in importance on a scale from 0=disagree to 10= strongly agree. Download the Powernoodle Report. The User Story Powernoodle. 12

 The Report is created automatically after your session ends, saving hours of transcription and interpretation.  It is available in Excel spreadsheet format for you and your participants.  It captures every discussion thread for future reference and action. Saving Time with the Powernoodle Report. 13

For detailed examples and directions, you can:  Watch the Powernoodle Organizer Training Series videos.  Log in and visit the Help section.  Contact us at  Join the Powernoodle user groups online. Powernoodle Help and Support 14

15 Website: Twitter: Join Larry in the Powernoodle Group on LinkedIn.com

Powernoodle Template: Accelerating Business Analysis User Stories Process by Larry Simon and Powernoodle Inc is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at and