Webinars in Product Ownership and Agile Analysis: (Public, scheduled)

Agile Analysis and Planning: Fundamental Principles and Best Practices for POs and Team Analysts, hosted by Pearson/O’Reilly Learning

Format: Webinar, online

Duration: 4 hours

Next session: March, 2025 (exact date TBD).

Description: Join Howard Podeswa and get actionable guidance for improving your agile analysis and planning. Learn key tools and techniques to apply across your organization, including how to choose the best agile framework, prepare features to maximize value delivery, increase team productivity, reduce rework and delays, use hypothesis-testing and MVPs to direct investment, and use story maps to plan release cycles. If you are a Product Owner, Product Manager, or Team/Business Analyst this course is for you. No prior experience necessary. Download PDFs of the templates and artifacts from this session to use in your organization.

For full description of the above Webinar and registration information, click here.

Story Mapping for Agile Release Planning - Maximize product value through incremental delivery, hosted by Pearson/O’Reilly Learning

Format: Webinar, online

Duration: 3 hours

Next session: January , 2025 (exact date TBD)

Description: Join subject-matter expert and author Howard Podeswa to learn how to create and use Story Maps for agile release planning. In this course, you will learn how to facilitate story-mapping workshops and to leverage existing analysis artifacts, such as process models and use-case models, to help build the map. You will learn how to plan quick wins and test hypotheses in the first rows of the Map, and to then use story-splitting patterns to populate the remaining rows and deliver a coherent set of features every sprint. You will also learn to use the Map to highlight and communicate dependencies between stories and workflow gaps (frequent causes of delays, errors, and rework) so they can be addressed before they become problems.

Story Maps are a powerful and effective tool for agile release planning. They help actualize one of the key goals of agile planning: deliver a deployable, working version of value to the customer on a frequent basis (every 1- to 2-week sprint). Many agile organizations struggle with this and become feature factories churning out stories that don’t add up to useful, marketable functionality. Story Mapping addresses this problem in a single graphic by depicting both the sequence in which stories are to be developed and the sequence in which customers use the functionality the stories enable. This combination enables planners to ensure that the stories delivered each sprint add up to meaningful improvements in the customer’s workflow.

For full description of the above Webinar and registration information, click here.

Courses in Product Ownership and Agile Analysis: (IRL or Virtual)

Available in-house (client location) internationally and online (virtual classroom). Please contact us to learn more.

The Product Owner (PO) Crash Course (POOC)

Level up your product ownership (PO) skill set by learning foundational practices in product backlog refinement and planning, in this highly interactive workshop. This course is delivered in-house at the client site or online.

Format: This course can be delivered IRL or live online. Training is interspersed with coaching during practical team workshops on a live project or case study.

Duration: 8 hours (delivered in 1 day IRL; 2 half-days when virtual)

Next session: On request.

Description: Are you a Product Owner, Product Manager or Business Analyst in an agile organization? Attend this course to level up your product ownership (PO) skill set. Learn to apply key tools and techniques, including:

• how to prepare features to minimize errors, rework and delays,

• how to structure change requests into epics, features and stories,

• how to specify acceptance criteria using ATDD/BDD, and

• how to split stories using SAFe and Lawrence patterns

The templates and artifacts from this course will be made available for use in your organization.

For more information on the above course, click here

Story Mapping Deep Dive: How to Use Story Mapping in Agile Release Planning for Validated Learning and Continuous Delivery of Customer Value

Format: Webinar, interactive

Duration: 3 hours

Next session: On request

Description:

Join subject-matter expert and author Howard Podeswa to learn how to leverage Story Maps for agile planning. In this workshop, you'll follow a case study, gaining hands-on experience using story maps to plan the frequent delivery of a coherent set of features (e.g., every sprint); plan quick wins; test hypotheses with MVPs; and split work into small, valuable stories that deliver value. You will also learn to use the Map to highlight and communicate dependencies and workflow gaps so that they can be addressed before they lead to delays, errors, and rework.

Objectives

• Use Story Maps to plan MVP hypothesis-testing and to highlight dependencies and gaps so they can be addressed before becoming impediments.

• Use Story Maps to plan the frequent delivery of real value to the customer.

• Integrate Story Mapping with use-case analysis, Lean Startup, Weighted Shorted Job First (WSJF) and Story-Splitting Patterns.

Why this course?

Take this workshop if you are seeking to optimize your or your organization's ability to plan and deliver deployable, working versions of value to the customer on a frequent - one of the key goals of agile release/quarterly planning: .

Many agile organizations suffer from the 'feature factory' syndrome - successful at churning out stories while failing to frequently deliver useful, marketable functionality. In this workshop you'll learn how to avoid this pitfall by using Story Maps to visualize the real value that will be delivered throughout the planning period (e.g., each 1-2 week sprint). You'll also learn how to combine story mapping with other powerful techniques such as use-case analysis, Minimum Viable Product and story-splitting patterns, and how to use Story Maps to discover and manage dependencies.

Who is this for?:

Product Owners (PO), Product Managers, Business Analysts (BA), Proxy POs and anyone involved in agile release planning or quarterly planning.

To inquire about this course and you can have it delivered to your organization order it for your organization, click here.

The Story Mapping Workshop: How to use Story Maps for Agile Release (Quarterly) Planning (SMW)

Are you a Product Owner, Product Manager or Business Analyst in an agile organization? Take this workshop to gain hands-on experience building story maps for release planning or epic planning. You’ll learn how to use Story Maps to: visualize the implementation and operational sequencing of stories; ensure a coherent set of features is delivered frequently; test product and feature hypotheses; plan MVP experiments and quick wins; identify gaps and visualize dependencies between stories.

Format: This course can be delivered IRL or live online. Training is interspersed with coaching during practical team workshops on a live project or case study.

Duration: 8 hours (delivered in 1 day IRL; 2 half-days when virtual)

Next session: On request

For more information on the above course, click here

(BA123) The Agile Guide to Business Analysis and Planning Workshop for the BA & PO – from Strategic Plan to Continuous Value Delivery

Learn how to apply the agile Business Analysis toolkit to agile projects.

Format: This course can be delivered IRL or live online. Training is interspersed with coaching during practical team workshops on a live project or case study.

Duration: 3 days (May be delivered in 2 days with select content.)

For more information on the above course, click here

Courses in Business Analysis: (IRL or Virtual)

Available in-house (client location) internationally and online (virtual classroom). Please contact us to learn more.

(BA001) The Business Analyst's Crash Course™

Our flagship Business Analysis course, providing a quick start for the BA practitioner. Take this course if you need a quick immersion course in core Business Analysis techniques, including process analysis, data modeling, use cases, business rules analysis and more. Training is interspersed with coaching during practical team workshops on a live project or case study. This course is IIBA-approved and qualifies for 14 CDUs (Career Development Units) towards CBAP accreditation.

Format: This course can be delivered IRL or live online. Training is interspersed with coaching during practical team workshops on a live project or case study.

Duration: 2 days

For full description, click here.

(BA001X) The Practical Guide to Business Analysis and Planning for the Business Analyst and Product Owner (Agile and Legacy Tools)

Our foundational course in Business Analysis and Product Ownership, covering all of the tools you’ll need to be an effective BA or PO in an agile or traditional environment - including agile and legacy analysis tools. Take this course if you are responsible for business analysis or product ownership activities in a software development organization, e.g., as a Business Analyst, Product Manager, Product Owner, or Proxy PO. The course covers all the key tools and competencies of business analysis and planning – with one full day on legacy BA techniques that add value to agile and traditional projects, as well as an entire day on agile analysis and planning tools particularly effective in agile development contexts. Training is interspersed with coaching during practical team workshops on a live project or case study.

Format: This course can be delivered IRL or live online. Training is interspersed with coaching during practical team workshops on a live project or case study.

Duration: 2 days

For full description, click here.

(BA002) Eliciting and Documenting Requirements with Use-Cases

This course walks the trainee through requirements-gathering and documentation starting from the early stages of a project employing the 'use-case' approach - an approach gaining renewed popularity as a complement to User Stories in agile development. This course is IIBA-approved and qualifies for 14 CDUs (Career Development Units) towards CBAP accreditation.

Format: This course can be delivered IRL or live online. Training is interspersed with coaching during practical team workshops on a live project or case study.

Duration: 2 days

For full description, click here.

(BA004) Data and Object Modeling Workshop for the BA: Analyzing Business Rules with Class Diagrams and ERDs (with UML 2)

Learn how to use structural analysis techniques to elicit and model business rules, concepts and definitions for a business domain. This is a non-technical course with a solid BA perspective: The focus is on modeling the real-world business, not on database design. This course is IIBA-approved and qualifies for 14 CDUs (Career Development Units) towards CBAP accreditation.

Format: This course can be delivered IRL or live online. Training is interspersed with coaching during practical team workshops on a live project or case study.

Duration: 2 days

For full description, click here.

(BA005.2D) Business Process Modeling Over the SDLC with BPMN

Learn to model the workflow of business processes using popular standard, BPMN. This is a hands-on practical workshop: Trainees step through a complex real-life case study, learning how to draw the diagrams and when to use the techniques effectively during the development lifecycle. The course focuses on the most popular standard for business process modelling, Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) and includes guidance on transitioning from the business process model to the requirements model. This course is IIBA-approved and qualifies for 14 CDUs (Career Development Units) towards CBAP accreditation.

Format: This course can be delivered IRL or live online. Training is interspersed with coaching during practical team workshops on a live project or case study.

Duration: 2 days

For full description, click here.

(BA006) Testing and Quality Assurance for the BA and QA Professional

Description: Testing and Quality Assurance for the BA and QA professional. Covers Six Sigma, use-case scenario testing, structured and other QA tools and techniques employed by a BA and QA professional during an IT project.

Format: This course can be delivered IRL or live online. Training is interspersed with coaching during practical team workshops on a live project or case study.

Duration: 2 days

For full description, click here.

(BA101) Mastering the Business Analysis Process over the System Development Life Cycle

This is our most extensive BA course. Take this course to be able to perform the activities that BA is responsible for over course of the systems development life cycle (SDLC) and to be conversant in the methodologies, concepts and techniques expected of a practicing BA. This course is IIBA-approved and qualifies for 28 CDUs (Career Development Units) towards CBAP accreditation.

Format: This course can be delivered IRL or live online. Training is interspersed with coaching during practical team workshops on a live project or case study.

Duration: 5 days (may be delivered in 4 days based on coverage.)

For full description, click here.