The Rope ApproachIntertwined Project Navigation

A Team of “1”

Heartland IIBA Presenter:Samuel Osborne

June 21, 2016

The Agenda• Session Description• The Opportunity• Learning Objectives• The Concept• The Behavior• Business Case Development• Business Analyst artifacts• Intertwined Activities• The Results• The Conclusion

Session Description

Breaking News!• BAs, PMs, QA Analysts, and Developers work

together to improve each others’ artifacts!– While each has her/his own artifacts, and only one

is ‘officially’ a QA Analyst, each brings specific insights to the project and enable improvement of each others’ artifacts.

– So…. Let’s– Plan, Do, Check, Improve!

The Opportunity

To leverage the knowledge, experience, and perspectives of each of the leads and deliver

more complete, better quality artifacts, products, and services

BA

PM

DEV

QA

Learning Objectives

• You will have learned– An integrated approach to navigating your projects

to improve• Business Case artifacts• Analysis artifacts• Coordination artifacts• Downstream artifacts

The Concept

https://www.google.com/#q=picture%20of%20colored%20cable%20intertwined

The Behavior

Business Case• Perform analysis and generate raw case

content• Review case content with stakeholders• Write the Business Case• Present the Business Case• Acquire Approval• Proceed to Gate 1

Requirement Planning, Elicitation, Documentation, Ratification

• All leads join the project, each representing their unique stakes in the project

• The Lead Business Analyst drives, while others come along for the ride

• While riding, PM, QA Lead, Dev Lead assess and validates requirements, in effect, QAing the requirements (Business, Functional, Non-Functional, Implementation) as they are written

Development and QA Plan/Design • All leads continue to work the project, each

representing their unique stakes in the project

• The Lead Developer drives, while others continue the ride along, however

• The QA Lead is planning while continuing to assess the requirement artifacts, and adds assessment of Development artifacts

• The Dev Lead continues to assess and validate requirements while using them to build Development artifacts, and QAing the QA artifacts as they are written

PM• The PM uses BA, Developer, and QA analyst

artifacts to build out the project plan• The PM assesses artifacts while building out

project plan• The BA, Developer, and QA Analysts ‘QA’ the

project plan and the other artifacts

Business Case

• Business Driven/Focused• Expertise/Experience Enhanced• Strategy Bounded

Business Analyst Artifacts• Plan– Who will be needed to do what is to be done– What will be done, when, how, by whom, AND how

much is enough• Do– Document the Requirements, Rules, Assumptions,

Constraints• Business• System• Environment

• Check• Improve

All Artifacts• Plan

– Who will be needed to do what is to be done– What will be done, when, how, by whom, AND how much is

enough• Do

– Document the requirements, rules, assumptions, constraints• Business• System• Environment

• Check– Review documented Requirements, Rules, Assumptions, Constraints against

• Business Case• System Design Docs• Environment Models, Documentation

• Improve– All processes and their components

Intertwined Activities• Project Management

– Project Plan– Implementation Plan

• Analysis– Requirements Planning– Elicitation/Documentation/Coordination/UAT

• Development– Design– Build– Unit/Integration – Code Review

• Test– Test Planning– Functional/System– UAT

• Implementation

Results

• Better artifact quality• Faster artifact delivery• Improved process(es)• Improved knowledge/knowledge sharing• Better products and services

Conclusion• Initiate BA, PM, Dev, and QA activities earlier• All: ‘QA’ all artifacts– Business Case– Project Plan– Requirement/Business Rule Plan(s)– Requirements/Business Rules– Development Plan– Development Design/Code Reviews– QA Plan– Test Cases– Implementation Plan

• Get IMPROVED artifacts, processes, products