Agile Methods for BI Delivering Higher ROI, Earlier Results, User Adoption
Michael Taylor – Practice Area Lead Business Intelligence With input from Gareth Cook – Agile Thought Leader and Project Mgr.
Agenda
▴ Who are Tridant?
▴ What has led us towards Agile
▴ Essence of Agile and Key Techniques for BI
▴ Agile BI lessons from the field
▴ Tools for Automation
▴ Agile Case Studies
▴ Q&A at our booth
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Who are Tridant?
▴ Established in 2007 as a Business Analytics Implementer
▴ 58 employees, 51 consultants nationally
▴ Facilities in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth
▴ Numerous awards for Project Success
▴ Breadth of competencies:
- Business Intelligence
- Financial Performance Management
- Information Management
- Project Management
- Predictive Analytics
- Helpdesk and Support Services
What has led us towards Agile
▴ Stating our requirements up-front can be difficult
▴ Quick wins, frequent deliverables; keep people engaged
▴ Workshops alone – not always engaging
▴ Agile Iterative Prototyping aids visualisation
▴ We’re becoming allergic to excessive documentation, say it on a card instead
▴ Embracing change
▴ Simplicity – 80% matters, 20% is low ‘bang for buck’
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5
Waterfall
Agile
ANALYSE
DESIGN
BUILD
TEST
ITERATION 0 ITERATION 1 ITERATION 2 ITERATION 3
Epic
-lev
el
req
uir
emen
ts
Bac
klo
g Analyse
Design/Build/Test
Deploy
Design/Build/Test
Deploy
Design/Build/Test
Deploy
Analyse Analyse
Gathering Requirements in Agile
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▴ Epic An epic is a large user story that needs to be broken down into smaller stories or a collection of user stories that can be grouped together.
▴ User Story Describes the basic need of a user and how it might be satisfied.
Perform Mortgage Book Analysis
I want to see details
on the Mortgage Holder(s)
Include Loan $ paid vs. owing
Graph of top/bottom
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Epic
User Stories
AS A :
I WANT :
SO THAT:
“Card Name”
Who the user is, what is their role, how they are related to the project?
What is the requirement?
How is this requirement going to be used or what will it enable?
AS A: Book Hirer I WANT: The Library to stay open until 9pm SO THAT: I can return my books after I finish work late
Late Returns of Books
This statement provides greater clarity on the reason behind the requirement, and potential alternate solutions (e.g. after hrs. return slot)
User suggesting the solution
AS A: Collections Officer I WANT: To see a full list of all customers that have mortgages SO THAT: I can identify those who are behind by 3 or more repayments
Mortgage Default Report
The “So That” is the critical statement
AS A: Conference Attendee I WANT: Friday afternoon to go quickly SO THAT: We can go to drinks already!
FST Conference Objective #4
The “So That” is the critical statement
Agile Snapshot – Prioritising Requirements
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Priority
1 First to
implement
Note: the axis measures swap from one Priority Map to another
Lead times and dependencies need to be considered
Priority
2
Priority
3 Priority
2
Hig
h
Low
Hig
h
Low
High Low High Low
TIM
E C
RIT
ICA
LITY
DEL
IVER
Y R
ISK
IMPORTANCE SOLUTION COMPLEXITY
Agile Estimation Techniques
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▴ Fibonacci sequence 1,2,3,5,8, 13,21
▴ T-Shirt Sizes
▴ Agile Heart Beat - Best guess for your first iteration
- Complete 2-3 iterations, then calculate average progress to develop your “Heart Beat” or “Velocity” – the number of story points per iteration or sprint.
S M L
XL
Too Large for a single Iteration and needs to be broken down (EPICS)
A combination can be used in an iteration as long as it does not equal or is greater than 8, or > Large.
Allows for more contingency the larger the work.
Team structure is vitally important
▴ Working closely with the business/customer allows for a better end-product
▴ “Get the right people on the bus”
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Core Team Extended Team
Backlog
USER STORY
USER STORY
You can mix techniques
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Testing
Build (Generic Steps for all Stories)
In progress In review Done
Analyse
Design
Build
Test Scheduled Time
The Daily Stand-up Meeting
▴ The ‘secret sauce’ of Agile
▴ Should be run by an experienced Agile Practitioner
Each and every person answers three questions:
▴ What did I achieve yesterday?
▴ What am I going to achieve today?
▴ What will stop me from achieving my goals?
▴ No more than 1/2 an hour
▴ Everyone must participate to be effective
▴ Held standing up so that they are kept short and everyone is visible
An effective method of doing a stand-up is in front of a card wall.
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Leverage Tools for automation
▴ Trello for online multi-user Agile tracking
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Come to our Booth for a demo
Leverage Tools for automation
▴ Balsamiq for rapid Requirement Gathering mockups
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Come to our Booth for a demo
Smart People - Win an i’m Watch
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Come have a chat at our booth & enter our competition to win the latest in smartwatch technology an i’m Watch
“Smart Watch Smart People”
Breaking News! At our booth…
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On display, IBM’s new Business Analytics Visualisation engine currently in the labs for future release!
To learn more contact [email protected]