This session covers a successful transition to a new business model in a limited time span. Typically, Iowa Student Loan (ISL) sells bonds to fund the creation of private student loans. As financial markets deteriorated in 2008, the potential of successful bond sales diminished to the point of nonexistence. Heretofore, our systems assumed ISL as the only lender. Collaborative bank relationships changed this assumption to one of multiple lenders. A redesign of the loan program/loan type structure of our software followed to make the funding model very configurable.

The business analyst role seems conspicuously missing from most agile methods. Do agile methods make business analyst an obsolete role? Certainly not! But how do you integrate what is sometimes portrayed as a plodding and documentation driven role into an agile project? This tutorial provides participants practical guidance for how the business analyst integrates and collaborates with all members of the team. During this workshop the participant will learn how to construct and evolve an agile business analysis process that is appropriate for their specific project environment.

Despite what you may have heard, analysis is still an important aspect of projects done in an agile manner. Teams still need to understand what they are delivering in what order. The trick is to how to utilize traditional analysis techniques without introducing the corresponding waste that can be experienced with those techniques. In this session, we introduce Feature Injection and demonstrate how it combines traditional analysis techniques and the agile technique Behavior Driven Development to identify the business value delivered by a project without introducing analysis paralysis.

One of the most common questions asked of practicing Agile teams is:

How can we increase velocity?

Many teams have had to answer this question, but is it the right question? Velocity is an excellent measurement for determining project timelines and progress towards them but doesn’t give us any indication about the overall value of the features being delivered. All too often poor prioritization and solutioning are ignored because velocity is the KPI for the team. This session shows how to use value as a tool to ensure that you get more of the right things done.