Agile for Business Analysts

Unlock the potential of Agile Business Analysis with our comprehensive course designed for business professionals aiming to transition from waterfall to agile frameworks and excel in dynamic project environments.

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Essential Skills Gained

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Understand the role of a business analyst within an agile team.

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Explain differences between agile and waterfall business analysis.

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Learn techniques for integrating business analysis in agile environments.

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Prepare for IIBA-AAC certification to advance your agile career.

Format

  • Instructor-led
  • 2 days with lectures and hands-on labs.

Audience

  • Business Analysts transitioning to agile
  • Project Managers adopting agile methodologies
  • Product Owners on agile teams
  • Professionals preparing for IIBA-AAC certification

Description

As more organizations are moving to agile delivery, it is becoming increasingly important for business analysis professionals to understand how to adapt their current skills to support different delivery frameworks. Even when organizations have not fully embraced agile, research shows that many teams are embracing ‘some’ agile practices.    Traditional waterfall business analysis skills are still important, but so is professionally developing to understand how to adapt your processes and skills as delivery frameworks evolve.     Project success is dependent on effective business analysis, therefore business analysis professionals must continue to evolve their skillsets to keep up with the needs and expectations of agile teams. Many traditional project teams run into trouble when they try to define all of the requirements up front. The reality is that stakeholders often cannot articulate their requirements and the best design is not known until some prototypes are built.  Every project and program can benefit from adopting some agile practices. Agile for Business Analysts Course Overview: In this course, you will develop your understanding of agile business analysis and the role of the business analyst on an agile team. You will learn how business analysis on an agile project is ‘the same’ and ‘different’ than business analysis performed on waterfall projects.  You will understand how the business analysis role changes on an agile team. A number of business analysis techniques suited for supporting agile teams will be introduced as will the various standards available to the community to help teams and organizations transition.   Since few organizations are pure agile, you will also learn about delivery approaches that use a combination of practices from waterfall and agile and will also be introduced to the important concept of business analysis tailoring – the key skill used to adapt business analysis skills to all environments – regardless of the delivery life cycle selected. Added Bonus – Support for Pursuing your IIBA®AACTM Certification Since demonstrating your agile competencies is important when pursuing your next role on any agile team; this course introduces the newest agile analysis certification in the marketplace IIBA-AAC. The IIBA-AAC credential enables you to identify yourself as someone who has mastered a firm understanding of agile business analysis and who has obtained a few years of experience in the process.  You will obtain important information that defines the credential, explains the experience required to apply for the exam, the exam structure, its costs, and a thorough overview of what the exam covers and what you need to understand to sufficiently prepare to take the exam. You may not have considered obtaining an agile certification before, but should you decide, this course will provide you all the information you need to successfully begin your studies.

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Upcoming Course Dates

September 2-3, 2025

9:00 AM - 4:30 PM

Virtual: Online - US/Eastern

Enroll

$1295

Course Outline

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Module 1 – What is Agile?

  1. What is agile

  2. The Agile Manifesto

  3. Agile principles

  4. Agile benefits

  5. Hands-on activity

Module 2 – State of Agile

  1. The current state of agile

  2. Agile trends

  3. Agile skills

  4. Value proposition

  5. The business case for agile

  6. The BA role changes on an agile project

  7. Hands-on activity

Module 3 – Project life cycles

  1. Project life cycle

  2. Product life cycle

  3. Incremental versus Iterative

  4. Hybrid approaches to delivery

  5. Choosing a project life cycle

Module 4 – An in-depth look at Agile

  1. The agile development life cycle

  2. A sequence of iterations

  3. Essential concepts

  4. Inside each iteration

  5. Iteration goal

  6. Iteration planning

  7. Sequence of tasks

  8. Work period

  9. Testing

  10. End of iteration activities

  11. Evaluation and feedback

  12. Structured walkthroughs

  13. Evaluation guidelines

  14. The BA role in structured walkthroughs

  15. Scripting scenarios

  16. Defect list

  17. Retrospectives

  18. Hands-on exercise

Module 5 – Types of Agile Delivery Approaches

  1. The flavors of agile

  2. Scrum

  3. Scrum roles

  4. Extreme Programming (XP)

  5. Dynamic System Development Method (DSDM)

  6. Feature Driven Development (FDD)

  7. Testing

  8. Best practices used by FDD

  9. Kanban

  10. Kanban Boards

  11. Agile Unified Process

  12. Scaling Frameworks

Module 6 – An Introduction to Agile Business Analysis

  1. What is business analysis?

  2. What is agile business analysis?

  3. Framework for agile business analysis

  4. Business analysis components

  5. International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA®)

  6. Project Management Institute (PMI®)

  7. Context to business analysis

  8. Our industry BA standards

  9. Our industry Agile BA standards

  10. Product Owners

  11. What stays the same

  12. What is expected to change

  13. Agile requirements deliverables

  14. Lightweight documentation

  15. Requirements repository

  16. Where business analysis fits in

  17. The BA workload

  18. Hands-on exercise

Module 7 – Business Analysis Tailoring

  1. Business analysis tailoring (defined)

  2. Tailoring considerations

  3. What tailoring looks like

  4. The PMI Guide to Business Analysis

  5. Determining the ‘best’ BA approach

  6. Methodology vs Standard

  7. Why use methodologies

  8. Determining your methodology

  9. Business analysis impacts

Module 8 – Tools and techniques for agile business analysis

  1. Agile BA techniques

  2. Backlog refinements

  3. Behavior Driven Development (BDD)

  4. Burndown chart

  5. Collaborative games

  6. Definition of done

  7. Definition of ready

  8. INVEST

  9. Iteration planning

  10. Kanban board

  11. Minimum marketable features (MMF)

  12. Minimum viable product (MVP)

  13. MoSCoW

  14. Narrative writing

  15. Persona analysis

  16. Product roadmap

  17. Progressive Elaboration

  18. Prototyping

  19. Purpose alignment model

  20. Retrospectives

  21. Story slicing

  22. Hands-on Exercise

Module 9 – Prioritization Techniques

  1. Requirements prioritization

  2. Prioritizing on agile projects

  3. Prioritization criteria

  4. Business benefit

  5. MoSCoW

  6. Pair-choice comparison

  7. Setting priorities with multi-voting

  8. Cost to acquire and operate

  9. Determining business value

  10. Story point estimating

  11. Planning poker

  12. Project velocity

  13. Hands-on activity

Module 10: Preparing for the IIBA-AAC

  1. IIBA-AAC Explained

  2. The IIBA-AAC Exam

  3. 7 Agile Principles Guiding Business Analysis

  4. Scope of the Exam

  5. Planning Horizons Defined

  6. Exam Blueprint

  7. The IIBA-AAC Exam Process

  8. Agile Mindset

  9. Required Proficiency Level

  10. Strategy Horizon (Explained)

  11. Level of Proficiency Required in Strategy Horizon

  12. Initiative Horizon (Explained)

  13. Level of Proficiency Required in Initiative Horizon

  14. Delivery Horizon (Explained)

  15. Level of Proficiency Required in Delivery Horizon

  16. IIBA-AAC Terminology

  17. IIBA-AAC Techniques

  18. Are you Ready for the IIBA-AAC?

Module 11: Course wrap-up

  1. Making the transition to agile

  2. How my role will be different

  3. Course summary

  4. Retrospective

  5. Questions

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