Agile Training

Agile Requirements Gathering & Release/Sprint Planning

OBJECTIVES

The Agile Requirements Gathering & Release/Sprint Planning training focuses on the project team skill set needed to successfully participate on Agile Projects. The workshop provides training in collaborative techniques needed for:

• Project initiation to identify the agile project goals, epics and functional requirements using high level use cases and user stories
• Defining product backlog stories derived from epics, prioritizing and estimating the high level use cases and stories for the release/sprint planning
• Conducting daily scrums
• Performing analysis and design for the sprint using UML techniques
• Defining detailed requirements for outsourcing Agile Projects as needed

The seminar also focuses on the Agile Project Management Phases Roles and Essential Tasks from planning to deployment. The objectives of the training are to provide:

• Requirements eliciting techniques for defining the project goals, scope and functional requirements
• UML techniques using use case diagrams to identify the epics, how to use the high level use cases to identify sprints and user stories
• Sprint planning and estimating for creating the product backlogs
• Practical experience in facilitating for agile requirements gathering and building collaborative models for analysis and design during the sprint development phase
• How to define detailed requirements when outsourcing for agile projects
• An Agile Project Simulation or real life Agile Project to give each seminar participant the opportunity to conduct collaborative workshops using agendas provided in the class to define the product vision, functional requirements and plan the release and sprints. The participants are provided with feedback and an evaluation by the instructor.

AGILE TRAINING AGENDA

Day 1 am

Introduction

Agile Concepts and Fundamentals

• What is Agile and Iterative Development?
• How does Agile differ from Waterfall Methodology?
• Agile Manifesto and Principles
• Strengths and weaknesses of Waterfall vs. Agile methodologies
• What is Scrum and what are the key practices?
• Principles and practices for Agile project management
• Roles for Agile Development with Scrum
• Factors to consider when deciding on the methodology and practices to use for your projects
• Exercise - Conduct a Scrum Meeting
• What are some common mistakes?

Agile Best Practices

• Tactics for success
• Collaboration Techniques
• JAD workshops
• Focus Groups for Iterative Requirements
• Role of JAD and Focus Groups in Agile Projects
• Timeboxing for Agile Projects
• What is the environment needed to succeed for the agile development approach?
• Agile Project Management Phases Roles and Essential Tasks from planning to deployment
  • Project Initiation
  • Release and Sprint Planning
  • Daily Scrums
  • Sprint Retrospective
  • Demo
  • Product and Sprint Release

Communication techniques for Agile Projects

• Workshop approaches
• Storyboarding
• Kit Reviews
• Prototype walk-through and end of iteration demos
• Key Agile Requirements Techniques

Day 1 pm
Facilitation skills and collaboration techniques for Agile Projects

• Key components of an Agile Workshop
• Basic facilitation skills
• Active listening skills
• Exercise- Practice interviewing skills exercise
• Leadership styles
• Basic facilitation rules
• Managing conflict
• Tips and techniques for handling group dynamics
• How to handle problem behaviors
• Presentation skills
• Techniques for creative thinking
• Building a workshop agenda

Agile Facilitation Exercise-

Each student is asked to build a workshop agenda and facilitate a short meeting using the creative thinking and consensus building techniques taught in class.  Feedback is provided from both the Instructor and class participants.

Day 2 am
Agile Facilitation Experience (continued)

Overview of the Agile Requirements Gathering and Analysis Techniques

Discovery Phase- Defining the Project Vision & Scope

• Agile principles for discovering the Project Vision and Scope
• Defining the product vision
• Capturing the success criteria
• Exercise- Facilitating a workshop to capture the product vision
• How to capture the scope using a high level context diagram
• External objects
• Data stores
• Import and export views
• What is Use Case 2.0?
• Principles of successful application of use cases
• What is a high level use case outline?
• Use Case slices for identifying the sprints
• What is a User Story?
• Building the Use Case Diagram for scope management and release planning
• Identifying the user roles/actors- user roles, system interfaces and personas
• Techniques for identifying the stakeholder’s goals and system features
• Identifying the epics and themes
• JAD Agendas, scripts, facilitation techniques for conducting Scope Management and Iteration Planning Workshops
• Case Study Exercise- Facilitating a collaborative scoping workshop for building the Context Diagram and the Use Case Diagram to define the project scope

Day 2 pm
Discovery Phase- High Level Requirements & Release/Sprint Planning

• Agile principles for discovering the high level requirements and identifying the project slices/iterations
• Creating the High Level Use Case Outline
• Pre and Post Conditions (dependencies)
• Basic Flow Outline
• Brainstorming the Alternate Flows
• Exercise-  Conducting a workshop to create the high level use case outline
• How to slice up the use case outline to plan the iterations
• How to write the requirements using the user stories technique
• Story writing workshop
• Identify and write the test cases for the user stories
• How to capture user stories for a use case
• Exercise- Conducting a requirements workshop to create the user story for a use case

Release & Sprint Planning

• Reviewing and validating the solution and final acceptance with the business
  • Defining the priorities for the product releases and iterations
  • Estimating the size and complexity of the slices- using popular estimating techniques
  • Tracking project success criteria to requirements and use cases for requirements traceability
  • Methods for Tracing and Tracking Releases and Sprints
    • Status Tracking on a Product Backlog
    • Scrum Product Backlog
    • Use Case Tracking
  • Exercise- Building a backlog for prioritizing, estimating and defining the product release
• Capturing and writing the project requirements features lists and business rules with product sheets (exercise is optional)
• Guidelines and Checklists for writing effective requirements features lists
• Non-Functional requirements for defining the architectural impacts
• What are the “ilities” requirements?
• How to define the qualities the software must have to be acceptable
• Exercise- Writing non-functional requirements
• JAD Agendas, scripts, facilitation techniques and requirements document template for conducting Agile Requirements Analysis Sessions

Day 3 am
Collaborative Analysis Modeling Techniques used for Agile Projects

• Storyboarding the activity diagram with swimlanes for a use case
• Exercise- brainstorming and storyboarding an activity diagram with swimlanes
• Storyboarding techniques for GUI navigation
• Site Maps
• State Charts
• Exercise- storyboarding a site map for GUI navigation

Formal Requirements Specifications for Outsourcing

• Writing Detailed Use Cases for outsourcing development for agile projects
  • Guidelines and template for writing detailed system use cases
  • Storyboarding paper prototypes
  • Screen specifications
  • Report specifications
• Exercise- Capturing the detailed use case requirements and specifications

Day 3 pm
Collaborative analysis modeling techniques for Agile Projects

• How to read and build the Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)- Logical Data Model
• Exercise- Creating the Logical Data Model
• What is use case realization?
• Analysis and Design Models
• Communication Diagram
• Sequence Diagram
• Domain Object Model
• Exercise-  Creating the DOM and Sequence Diagram
• Methods for Tracking Requirements Across Iterations
• Status Tracking
• Scrum Product Backlog
• Use Case Tracking

Testing Considerations (optional)

• What deliverables are used to identify the scenarios and approach?
• How to identify the test strategy?
• Identify what will be tested more and less
• What techniques and methods of testing will be needed?

Packaged Software Evaluation & Selection (optional)

• Software Evaluation and Selection Steps
• Agendas and scripts for Software Evaluation and Selection
• Building a requirements matrix
• Vendor selection package rating
• Building a Vendor Compliance Report

Agile Project Simulation Preparation

Day 4
Agile Project Workshops Simulation
This simulation demonstrates how the entire life cycle of a project fits together and how the artifacts taught in class build on each other. Each student facilitates the different agile deliverables and techniques for scoping, high level requirements, iteration planning and collaborative analysis workshops learned in the class.  Each student is provided with feedback from the instructor and is given a written evaluation. 

Wrap up
     

AGILE TRAINING MATERIALS

Each training participant receives a Training Handbook with sample agendas and scripts for conducting scoping, requirements JAD workshops sessions, sprint release planning and detailed requirements focus groups. An Agile Project Management Checklist, QA checklists and Agile Project case study solution set.