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Agile Business Analysis is not the usual IT business analysis process that happens prior to the development phase. Since the business environment is always changing so are the user requirements in response and the challenge is to keep on accepting the changes and hence deliver the highest value application to the customer. Also when a new application is being built, how does an end-user know exactly what he/she needs when they have never used the application before? The end-user knows what they want beforehand but they will really know what they need once they get some experience using the application. Therefore change is continuous and agility is the key if these applications are to be developed to deliver maximum efficiency and act maybe even as a competitive advantage for a firm. Traditional business analysis thinking is outdated for business software development as it always relied on the hope that all the requirements have been captured to the finest level of detail prior to development and that nothing will change for the next 12 months (or for how long the development and testing will take). Both these premises are invalid, as it is impossible to capture all the details and requirements upfront in a realistic timeframe and the law of diminishing returns kicks in quickly when you are writing requirements for something usually completely new and inexact like business software – unlike when creating architectural analysis of a new building for example.
Agile business analysis is such that it welcomes and enables changing requirements. It is so adaptable (agile) as it is based on a minimalistic principle – do as much analysis as necessary and not more. It puts paramount emphasis on collaboration between the business customer, other business stakeholders and the whole project team.
The objective of this article is to explain the components of agile business analysis and what is involved. The structure of this document is such that it firstly considers what is good business analysis practice in general, a project appraisal. This is fundamental of all business software projects, they should be creating business value otherwise they shouldn’t be done. Secondly, high level analysis the agile way is described. This is followed by a section on project planning, which is a management discipline but the main activities in which an agile business analyst should be involved are explained. Finally, a section on the analysis that happens before the iteration
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