1. © ThoughtWorks, 2007 Getting Agile or How I learned to stop worrying and love the index cards CIPS Business Analysis SIG Event JOHN JOHNSTON ThoughtWorks

2. 40

3. 4

4. 1

5. 100

6. I have not always been as I appear to you now

8. waterfall and structured methods Web developer COBOL 12 years in IT 5 years in college

9. August 2005

10. First exposure to agile

11. What’s changed?

12. I thought my job was to write specifications

13. Now it’s the delivery of working software into production

14. for real end users

15. Eh?

16. a change of emphasis

17. delivering business value

18. agile makes this easier

19. business analysis

21. Business Analysis

23. delivering business value

24. not fetishising requirements on paper

25. solving business problems

26. may involve software

27. just a means to an end

28. do what you need to do to deliver

29. implementation over documentation

30. agile focuses on outcomes not artefacts

31. 1 of 4 agile makes it easier to focus on business value

32. getting started

33. i saw a lot of these

34. and people doing this

35. Where the wild things are working with stories

36. BAs write stories

37. developers write code

38. Therefore stories are requirements, right?

39. WRONG!

40. (a bit) WRONG

41. (a bit) WRONG (sometimes)

43. i am a consultant

45. a unit of planning not documentation

46. agile mindset

47. implementation over documentation

48. road-map over end-state

49. Ron Jeffries - 3 Cs http://www.xprogramming.com/xpmag/expCardConversationConfirmation.htm

51. cardconversation confirmation

52. stories have a lifecycle

53. become documentation at the end

54. stories are a roadmap towards implementation

55. MartinFowler.com: RollerSkateImplementation

56. 2 of 4 stories as a unit of planning helped me understand the agile mindset

57. good practice

58. INVEST

59. Independent

60. I N V E S T Negotiable

61. I N V E S T Valuable

62. I N V E S T Estimate-able

63. I N V E S T Small

64. I N V E S T Testable

65. effective stories define user, goal and business benefit

66. As a [user] I want [to do something] So that [I achieve a valuable goal]

67. tell me what, not how

68. keep stories business focussed and implementation neutral

69. find out why that story matters

70. challenges

71. “All stories should deliver business value”

72. releases deliver business value

73. “we must do the login story first”

74. new dimensions

75. user centred design

76. customer proxy & user champion

77. contextual inquiry

78. “you can observe a lot, just by watching” Yogi Berra

79. Joe – Contract Engineer Day to day: Supervises the construction of the new plant. Works 8 days, followed by 4 days off in a remote location. TIM Usage: Grudgingly submits time reports on a weekly basis Priorities: Finishing the plant construction on time and safely. Focused on his fellow engineers. Needs: A simple data entry system. The computer Joe uses is shared by all site engineers. He hasn’t spent a lot of time working with computers, and doesn’t want to ‘waste his time’ learning. Joe is a contract engineer assisting in the construction of a new plant. He’s worked with the company for 30 years. Joe was semi-retired but had some necessary expertise; he was convinced to come back and oversee this project. “I just want to finish this job so I can get back to building my retirement cottage.”

80. low fidelity prototyping http://www.alistapart.com/articles/paperprototyping

81. usability testing

82. “on 10 cents a day” Steve Krug http://sensible.com Don’t Make Me Think

83. visual models

84. “We’re agreed then?”

85. “Ah!”

86. “We are agreed then”

87. common understanding

88. 3 of 4 Now I consider how I can visually share what I’ve learned so I can get feedback

89. and finally

90. one french egg

92. just un oeuf

93. just enough

94. doing just enough

95. breadth then depth

96. work at the lower levels challenge assumptions made higher up

97. how much is just enough?

98. what do we need to know next that we don’t know at the moment?

99. 4 important points to remember 1.Agile makes it easier to focus on business value 2.Understanding stories as a unit of planning helped me understand the agile mindset 3.Now I consider how I can visually share what I’ve learned so I can get feedback

100. 4 of 4 getting agile took good coaching and trying it out

101. Resources Books “User Stories Applied” Mike Cohn “Lean Software Development” Mary & Tom Poppendieck “Don’t Make Me Think” Steve Krug Blogs Marc Mcneill - http://www.dancingmango.com/blog/http://www.dancingmango.com/blog/ Jeff Patton - http://www.agileproductdesign.com/blog/http://www.agileproductdesign.com/blog/ ThoughtBlogs – http://blogs.thoughtworks.com/http://blogs.thoughtworks.com/ Me! - http://cardsahoy.wordpress.com/http://cardsahoy.wordpress.com/ Websites Ask Tog (Interaction Design) - http://www.asktog.com/http://www.asktog.com/ Jakob Nielsen (Web Usability) - http://www.useit.com/

102. Photo Credits The following images are used with thanks under the Creative Commons licence; Important Documents from jon.t’s photostream http://flickr.com/photos/titusjon/1216912767/ Kermit from pictureclub_2000’s photo stream http://flickr.com/photos/andy-germany/2047566335/ Money from Tracey Olson’s photo stream http://flickr.com/photos/tracy_olson/61056391/ Butterfly from Dystopian_Optimist’s photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/dystopian/37004247/ Rollerskates from the Flooz’s photostream http://flickr.com/photos/flooznyc/839704353/ Coach from dsanden’s photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/daphid/148844023/

103. what questions do you have?