The term, ‘agile’, in the context of creating products for customers was originally created by the self styled ‘Agile Alliance’ to describe an approach to software development based on an agreed manifesto that proposed a set of values and principles. The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) describes business analysis as the practice of enabling change in an organizational context, by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders. Many, perhaps most, of the practices typically associated with agile predated the Agile Alliance. Many, probably most, of the techniques used by business analysts, predated the IIBA and similar organisations. So what is Agile Business Analysis?

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Characteristics of Agile Business Analysis

• Focused on business value
• Uses and iterative and incremental approach to product development
• Participates in multi-disciplinary teams
• Respects and incorporates essential principles from various recognised agile approaches
• Develops close partnerships with self organising agile teams who are building and testing the software products
• Restricts the number of items in ‘work in progress’ to achieve greater throughput (Kanban inspired principles)
• Initially focuses on requirements to deliver the minimum viable product, reducing time to market and increasing speed of assessment of market reaction
• Demonstrates high visibility and transparency

Why agile business analysis?

Agile analysis can counter tendencies for teams to:

• Commence projects that have no agreed vision, prioritised goals or clearly understood business value
• Work in silos
• Initiate projects with too ambitious a scope
• Make the development process impenetrable and unnecessarily bureaucratic
• Define and develop over engineered solutions
• Spend time and money on projects whose feasibility, within given constraints, has not or cannot be demonstrated
• Continue too long without any real evaluation of progress or likely value to be delivered

What the agile business analyst brings to development

• Develops close partnerships with business stakeholders, where the analyst’s skills can support the product owners and product managers in defining business problems and identifying options for business solutions
• Shares an interest with the business architects in understanding the bigger picture and encouraging increasing long term business agility, helping agile techniques to scale up to deal with the largest problems
• Builds close partnerships with the agile teams responsible for the development and testing of valued solutions
• Creates easy to understand models that help manage, explore and understand complex situations
• Displays expertise in communication and negotiation
• Ensuring that the product being developed supports the objectives of the organisation and its business stakeholders