Soyhan Parlar - AgileBusinessAnalysis/01_TEAM GitHub Wiki

Background knowledge

The objective of this project was to take on the role of a business analyst in an agile project. Using the agile project management methods, to develop a solution in the field of Business Intelligence, Information Technology Business Architecture or Business Process Management was the aim of this project. Even though I worked as a Business Requirements Engineer at the Federal Office of Information Technology, I have never been part of a scrum team in an agile project. Neither did I have the opportunity to carry out such projects during my time in my Bachelor's degree. Therefore, at the beginning of this semester, I had absolutely no knowledge and no experience of how to carry out an agile project.

My experiences within the ABA project

In order to reflect my experiences, I have tailored the structure of my individual report to the structure of the organisation of this project. For each sprint, I will talk about my role, my contributions to the project and my learnings from the project.

Project start and goal – sprint 0

The only restrictions imposed by our lecturers for conducting an agile project in one of the areas mentioned in the "Background knowledge" section above is the number of sprints that have to be performed. Due to the more practical experience and knowledge my team colleagues have, one of them took the role of leadership at the very beginning and coordinated the whole setup and planning. I took an assisting role during the first steps of the ABA project, which involved setting the project scope, determining project methods and defining the goals of the upcoming three sprints.

The goal was to develop a minimum viable product (MVP) of our solution. Our solution shall lead unhappy couples to a happy relationship. First of all, we decided as a team that the project should be carried out according to the SCRUM methodology and defined following roles for each sprint: Product Owner, Scrum Master, Designer/Developer, Customer Representative and Content Creator. The roles were reassigned from sprint to sprint.

Sprint 1

In the first sprint, we used agile instruments such as Map the Challenge and Crazy 8's with the objective to get a better understanding of the customers and cover their needs by focusing on the customer's problem. Based on this, the first version of our prototypes was created. Potential first versions of our final solution were developed together in workshops with the following tasks being split up as follows: Development of the prototype, creation of the design and content.

Due to my experience at the start of the project, I was assigned to the role of designer/developer during Sprint 1. In this role, I set the focus for my activities on the content of the prototype. I was responsible for gathering customer needs in order to understand the customer's problem better, contributing to the creation of ideas for the content of our app, and working on the design of the first prototype, which included paper drawings. Creating a wireframe using the software was not part of my job. We all took on the role of Product Owner together, by jointly managing the product backlog and prioritizing the backlog.

Early in this project, I helped David to set up the wiki page on GitHub. For the first sprint, my primary contribution was to help organize and conduct the first workshop in which we conducted the "Map the Challenge" method. Recording this method with our work in the "Sprint 1 – Understand" on the Wiki page on our GitHub was one of my tasks.

The first experience and participation in an agile project, as a member of a scrum team and the performance of a scrum role, was the main learning factor in Sprint 1. Buzzwords such as Scrum Master, Product Owner, Backlog and many more from the Scrum method, makes it easier for me to understand. Furthermore, the applied techniques to better understand the customer's problem and to meet their needs were also unknown concepts for me before this project was launched. I already was familiar with GitHub from previous projects, but Trello was definitely the software I learned the most about. I was never on our project page on Trello during the Sprint 1. I became aware of this flaw during the first Sprint Retro, in which each team member was supposed to show negative aspects as well as positive aspects in the first sprint. Even this part of an agile project was new for me. It' s obvious that during the first sprint, I became familiar with the basic principles of an agile project which I also can better understand.

Sprint 2

Based on feedback from our potential customers regarding our solution and the critical review by our supervisors regarding the project management, the goal in the second sprint was to integrate these feedbacks, which led to an improvement of our prototype. In this sprint, we gathered feedback from our users in order to cover the customer needs in the best possible way.

For the second sprint, my role was simply to gather customer information that was evaluated by our improved prototype, which then generated a recommendation for our users based on these evaluations. I also collected feedback on the design of the prototype, which again led to an improvement in our solution.

My main contribution to Sprint 2 was the collection of customer information on content and design.

Following my statement that I am not so familiar with Trello, I was introduced in detail by one of our team members in Trello. This task in the backlog was created in Sprint Retro 1. Therefore, the confident use of Trello is my main learning experience in Sprint 2 which allowed me to visit our project page on Trello several times in order to better understand the structure and overview of open and completed tasks. I also got to know the potential of Trello better, so that I was able to work with Trello independently.

Sprint 3

In the final sprint, the goal was to improve the functionality or logic on which our application is based. The user interface was improved in the previous sprints based on user feedback.

In Sprint 2, I took on the role of a business analyst. In Sprint 2, I took on the role of a business analyst. My job was to carry out market research with the aim of finding the best possible prototype software that would lead us to meet the needs of our customers. As we wanted to generate a recommendation automatically in our prototype, the prototype software should not only focus on the user interface but also provide the possibility to develop the logic. I documented my findings on the "Sprint 3 - Diverge" and "Sprint 3 - Decide" on our Wiki page.

The analysis, evaluation and determination of a prototype software was my main contribution in Sprint 3 as well as collecting data from our users to test the recommendation logic.

Doing research or conducting market studies with a focus on a company's business services was a learning factor for me. The targeted analysis of a specific product, based on criteria and parameters that I defined, helped me to turn a specific weakness of mine into strengths: the targeted search for something specific.

Summary

Back in the days of my Bachelor's degree, I had difficulties in presenting a specific area of interest to many people, especially in English. As I try to benefit from every opportunity that arises to enhance a weakness of mine, I consciously decided to take over the presentation and also the final pitch of our project or idea. These small achievements, such as overcoming my fears, have strengthened my self-confidence. However, I still have to learn to answer the questions from the audience without relying on my team members. I also realized why an agile approach is so appreciated. We have always had weekly objectives, trying to adapt the suggestions for improvement and feedback from each Sprint Retro to the next iteration.

I also noticed that social competences of an individual are also strengthened by the fact that the person can reflect with himself/herself, as well as by the fact that he/she can criticize in general or individually.

Technically, I was able to deal intensively with the role of a business analyst in theory as well as in practice. In the end, I was taught the basic principles of an agile approach.