6 Agile Skills Which Are Rated ‘U’

In case you are wondering what the rating of ‘U’ means…it stands for Underrated. This article presents 6 critical skills which are often ignored, thus making Agile more difficult than it should be.

A colleague had to staff a Business Analyst position for an Agile project recently. He wondered if all the skills needed to be successful in Waterfall environments were transferable to an Agile project. He asked me to list the most critical but overlooked competencies a BA needs to be successful on Agile projects.

I believe, his question and my response applies to ALL Agile roles.

AGILE MANIFESTO

Let us revisit the Agile Manifesto (www.agilemanifesto.org) to remind ourselves of some of the primary differences between Agile and Waterfall projects. Agile values:

1.Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

2.Working software over comprehensive documentation

3.Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

4.Responding to change over following a plan

IMPLICATIONS OF AGILE SDLC

When applied to real life project situations these Agile principles result in the following unique characteristics:

1. Constant Change

Allowing the business user group to change their mind every 2-3 weeks (typical sprint duration) about what they want and when they want it instead of asking them to “draw a line in the sand” and then holding them accountable to it.

2. Closer Collaboration

Team members are expected to collaborate and communicate much more. Furthermore, the emphasis on “working software” changes the purpose of collaboration to “let’s make sure we all have the exact same understanding of what you want” paradigm instead of ”you tell me what you want, I will write it up and pass it along…and if it is not written it will not be delivered” paradigm. Level of collaboration with business stakeholders is more extensive, and remains fairly consistent throughout the project.

3. Self-Organizing Teams

Self-empowered team members are expected to regulate their actions and move away from the “Project Manager will make all the important decisions and move things along because his/her neck is on the line” approach.

CRITICAL AGILE BA SKILLS

These unique characteristics require a BA to employ the following skills:

1. Change Oriented Thinking

• Employing an attitude that you can improve the product over time, and that your deliverable is not fixed but evolves with effort
• Demonstrating a change-driven approach i.e. “let’s do work in small iterations, and then learn from it and adapt” rather than “lets plan everything in advance and try our best to stick to the plan”
• Understanding that it is futile to predict the future too far in advance because the future will change after every action we take

2. Adaptability / Flexibility 

• Ability to adapt to change quickly, including the ability to modify plans, goals, approach, and/or behavior as desired – depending upon the situation, and learn new ways to achieve goals

3. Working through Uncertainty

• Ability to start a task or initiative even if all “ducks are not lined up in a row”
• Inherent belief in “progress over perfection”
• Ability to process inadequate & unstructured information, make intelligent assumptions and manage them effectively

4.Collaborative Mindset and Techniques

• Natural inclination towards working pro-actively with others to accomplish tasks and achieve common goals
• Firm belief that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts
• Knowledge of techniques and best practices for effective and efficient collaboration
• Willingness to offer unsolicited help to other team members

5.Managing Self

• Holding self accountable, and ability to regulate one’s actions and behavior without any external motivation or threats
• Taking responsibility and ownership of tasks

6.Modeling and Prototyping

• Ability to utilize visual models and prototypes to elicit, analyze and validate requirements
• Ability to quickly create models and prototypes on whiteboard and paper- should not have to rely on the support and structure of a Modeling Tool, or at least use it minimally

CONCLUSION

Most competencies a BA needs to be successful are SDLC-agnostic. And yet the “Agile-way” of developing software does require the BA – or any other IT role for that matter- to use a slightly different skillset. Does that mean an IT professional who is not proficient in these 6 skills cannot be successful on Agile projects? Of course not. It just makes it more difficult than it needs to be.

What are your experiences with these skills?

Author

Ronak Sanghavi

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Ronak Sanghavi is a passionate entrepreneur and thought leader with the vision to shape the future of Business Analysis as a strategic asset for organizations and individuals. He is the Managing Partner & Co-Founder of ValueBASE. 

He is an avid speaker, and has presented papers at several BA forums. He particularly enjoys conceiving, developing, selling and delivering game-changing, innovative solutions that serve customer needs.

Ronak has 22 years of experience in Business consulting and IT-enabled business solutions. This includes 16 years in all aspects of business analysis including process consulting, requirements engineering, developing & delivering training, and setting up & managing Business Analysis Center of Excellence (BA COE). He is certified by IIBA® as a Certified Business Analysis Professional™ CBAP since 2007.

Ronak will be running the online course Crafting Effective User Stories which will be run in August 2018.  Ronak will also be running a workshop in South Africa on the 27th of September called Agile Business Analysis Workshop.