Slides from a presentation given by Steve Thomson to a meeting of IIBA UK's Scotland branch on 11 June 2015.

1. Agile with
a small ‘a’
A bit about what we’ve done
and what we’ve learnt as BA’s
in LBG Digital Banking
Steve Thomson
Head of Business Analysis for Digital Banking at LBG

3. Agile; what’s the point?
When is Agile not Agile?
It wouldn’t work here
OK.. What did work?
Q&A

4. Agile – What’s
the point?

5. Some reasons why projects fail
1. The world outside moving on, which forces a project to be
redefined during its course so it never really ends, but just runs
out of steam
2. The administrative burden imposed on the IT team eats more
resource than technical development work.
3. Business sponsorship and participation start off strong and then
tail off, leaving the IT project drifting;
4. Red herring stakeholders frustrating a project by raising numerous
side issues and minor concerns;
5. Lack of robust business requirements at the outset, leading to
unrealistic IT project budgets and timescales;
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2
3
4
5

6. Lean Startup

7. “Like an agile peacock”
When is Agile
not Agile?
…what are the different flavours of iterative and what can we learn from them?

8. Agile
RUP
DSDM
Service
Design
Scrum
Feature
Driven
Development
Kanban
Lean
Extreme
programming

10. 1. Customer satisfaction by rapid delivery of useful software
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development
3. Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)
4. Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers
5. Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted
6. Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-location)
7. Working software is the principal measure of progress
8. Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
10. Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential
11. Self-organizing teams
12. Regular adaptation to changing circumstance
The Agile Manifesto is based on 12 principles:
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2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

11. Agile-ish
concepts

12. It wouldn’t
work here
…the practicalities in a bank; how can we work round constraints to get some advantages

13. Agile-ish
concepts

14. It wouldn’t
work here

15. Agile-ish
concepts

18. Ask - “How do
we get more
certainty around
what we need to
build to deliver
value?”

19. Agile-ish
concepts

20. We either break
the project down
into smaller ones
(MVP+uplift) or
we pretend to

21. Agile-ish
concepts

22. OK – What did
Work?
What are the key take aways from the years of iteration?

23. Co-locate
cross
functional
teams
Know
when to
stop
analysing
Daily
standups
Stop
writing so
much
down
Act like
it’s your
business
Small is
beautiful