Comments for Agile Analysis

Comment on Project documentation by Navtej Kohli

Navtej Kohli — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:05:53 +0000

thanks for highlighting the nuances of project documentation. It really helps.

Comment on Project documentation by facts funny

facts funny — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 11:00:55 +0000

Really makes you think, doesn’t it?

Comment on Insourcing for IT organizations by dancingmango » Duplication and lack of clarity: That’s most corporations right?

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:41:28 +0000

[...] Undoubtedly she needs IT support. Here comes more inefficiency. Whilst a similar technology may be used by another part of the business, it does not entirely meet her requirements. So a new product is built. Throw in outsourcing and inefficiencies are abound. It is not in the interests of the vendor to strive for simplicity. (Read PG’s excellent analysis of the problem with outsourcing IT). [...]

Comment on Project documentation by Alexandre

Alexandre — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 20:53:36 +0000

Great summary! Quite objective.
I have one question related to the “How are the stories organized ?”
When you organize your stories on wiki, what do you put? The status, priority, any other?

Comment on Seek value, not quantity by Jerome

Jerome — Thu, 31 May 2007 21:09:13 +0000

Let it be, let it be… What a strange place here.

Comment on Do you do emergent planning in your daily lives? by Ben Shaffer

Ben Shaffer — Thu, 03 May 2007 14:10:58 +0000

Very interesting. I can never get enough time management theories!

Comment on Seek value, not quantity by Kalpesh

Kalpesh — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:44:26 +0000

Hi Prashant,

I reached your blog hopping thoughtworks blogs.
One thing relevant to this post is as below.

I visited Israel for client handover. In a restaurant, there were 2 rates - one to eat here & one to take out. Take out was a little less than eating there.

I asked my colleague, what is the reason for such a thing?
He said, in the lunch period, lot of people come to eat out & there is no place left to eat. So, people who want to sit in there, pay a little more. Others who don’t want to pay a little more, take it with them.

This way, it had some space available when new people come in to eat. And, they get the choice of whether they would like to eat there or carry.

Comment on Seek value, not quantity by Prashant Gandhi

Prashant Gandhi — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:09:12 +0000

I agree with you. The point I am emphasizing is that cycle time is not the most important metric - business value & customer satisfaction is.

Of course, if you know what you are going to build, emphasis should shift to increasing productivity and turnaround time, but not at the cost of figuring out what the customer really wants.

regards,
Prashant

Comment on Seek value, not quantity by Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 11:54:53 +0000

I agree completely. But I think you can pursue both paths. Give the business quality through helping them discover what they need or how to get what they know they need. But while you are doing that also work to quickly deliver what has been asked for. As long as deliveries are not chunked too big everyone is happy.

So don’t focus on creating alot of cards to deliver, but do focus on delivering what they need, quickly.

This assumes that plans are sufficiently short enough or flexible enough that changes in the business goals don’t get queued up behind previously scheduled deliveries that are now less valueable.

Comment on What is the business case for a disruptive business model / technology ? by Prashant Gandhi

Prashant Gandhi — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 00:18:59 +0000

Thanks for your comments and you are right. It does reaffirm what I said above.

The point I am trying to address to my fellow business analysts is that we are not always in the position to address the business benefits case. It is hard to define benefits for a startup or a new innovative practice or product. Given this, the value to be delivered should not be defined in monetary terms alone, but in the form of flexibility to the entrepreneur.

And yes, to answer your question, a business analyst should shoulder more responsibility than just defining the requirements. They have to be the conscience of the stakeholders to ensure consistency with the organizational strategy and ensuring that business value is delivered.