Fundamentals of Agile Business Analysis

Course summary

The course is run in the style of an agile project during which the delegates will attend daily stand-ups, produce a product vision and user stories, perform poker planning and interview product owners and engage with other stakeholders. A simple case study is used throughout the course enabling attendees to experience the lifecycle of an agile project and the deliverables produced.

Course delegates should return to their working environments and be able to work as an effective agile business analyst, immediately adding value and building effective relationships with project stakeholders.

This version of the course does not include an exam which means that the focus of training is entirely on practical application in the workplace.

Suitable for

The course is aimed at business analysts who are new to the role and are working within an agile project environment. Around half a day is spent providing background and an overview of general Agile and Scrum principles.

The course will also be suitable for those working as project managers, scrum masters, developers and product owners who want an insight into the role of business analysts within an agile environment.

This non exam-based course is particularly suited to those who may not speak English as a first language and/or anyone who wants to build an understanding of business analysis without the distractions around passing an exam.

The focus of the course is on working within an IT project environment recognising that most agile projects will relate to the development or enhancement of IT systems. IT or technical knowledge is not a prerequisite.

Those seeking a formal accreditation should consider APMG AgileBA or BCS Requirements Engineering.

Delivery Method 

Classroom and virtual (although classroom is recommended wherever feasible).

This course is not available in our public schedule but is available for on-site delivery.

Our virtual classroom training courses are delivered via Zoom.

Course Tutors

Our course tutors are practising business change professionals who have been using and teaching agile business analysis techniques for over 5 years.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course the delegate will be able to:

• Integrate into an agile project or team environment with an understanding of their role, key responsibilities and relationship with fellow project members
• Understand the principles of Agile and Scrum
• Work with stakeholders to define the Product Vision
• Apply 80:20 and end-to-end thinking to deliver early business value and ‘right first time’ solutions
• Work with stakeholders to gather and document epics, user stories/features and acceptance criteria
• Work with stakeholders to define the MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
• Work with stakeholders to prioritise and manage the product backlog
• Perform sprint planning
• Understand the use of, and contribute to retrospectives
• Build relationships with stakeholders to develop optimal solutions to defined requirements
• Confidently present findings to business stakeholders and their project team
• Understand and apply modelling techniques that support business analysis (including process modelling, use cases and entity/class models)
• Adopt an agile mindset
• Understand and use elicitation techniques such as interviewing, workshops and prototyping to gather information and requirements from stakeholders

Course Content

This agile business analysis course is split into a number of different sections. After initial context setting and understanding basic rules of business analysis, the principles of agile and scrum are introduced. Delegates then start work on the case study initially producing the project vision and a product backlog. Work then starts on developing deliverables for sprints. Each day always starts with a daily stand-up to discuss the day ahead and includes role-play sessions to illustrate the various activities undertaken by an agile business analyst.

• Module 1 – The role of the Agile Business Analyst
• Module 2 – Starting an agile project
• Module 3 – Moving through the sprints
• Module 4 – Business Analysis Tools and Techniques

There is no examination for this course, so the focus is entirely on practical use of data modelling in the workplace.

Additional course information

Course timings depend on the client’s individual needs but are recommended to run from 09:00 to 17:00 each day.