- 10.3 Overview of Features
- 10.4 Benefits of Feature Preparation
- 10.5 Feature Preparation Activities
- 10.6 Timing of Feature Preparation
- 10.7 Assessing Readiness
- 10.8 Accounting for Preparation Work: Tasks and Spikes
- 10.9 Specifying Features and Their Acceptance Criteria
- 12.4 MVP Planning
- 17.3 Why Do We Need a Scaled Agile Approach?
- 17.4 Planning: Choosing an Approach That Supports Inter-team Collaboration
- 17.8 Scaling the Agile Organization
- 18.6 Agile Corporate Culture
- 18.7 Overview of Principles and Practices for an Agile Corporate Culture
- 18.8 Three Principles for Applying Agile Practices
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
10.5 Feature Preparation Activities
This chapter focuses on preparation, while the next chapter focuses on planning. There is no strict line between the two, but in general, planning is about commitment—determining what features and goals will be delivered and gaining the commitment of collaborating teams to do the work. Preparation is the work to make an item ready for planning and implementation.
The outcome of feature preparation is a ready feature—one that is suitable for quarterly planning and able to be implemented without undue delay or rework. For example, a ready feature is prioritized and can be accomplished in three months or less by one or more teams.
Feature preparation activities include analysis and technical preparation. The analysis activities may include the items summarized in the following checklist.
Checklist of Feature Preparation Analysis Activities
Specification of features and AC- Context analysis
- Stakeholder analysis
- Persona analysis
- Journey mapping
- Value stream mapping
- Process modeling
- Use-case modeling
- User-role modeling workshops
- Initial splitting into stories
This chapter covers all of the items in the preceding list except for the last. The decomposition of features into stories (aka story splitting) is covered in Chapter 13, “Story Preparation.”
To be clear, you don’t perform all of the preparatory activities in the preceding checklist for every feature. The chapter provides guidance on activities to consider doing—but only do what’s necessary for the situation.
Guidelines for splitting features into user stories are provided in Chapter 13, section 13.13. Additional guidelines for preparing features on a scaled initiative can be found in Chapter 17, section 17.9.12.
Technical preparation involves the drafting of a solution design, creation and testing of proofs of concept and prototypes, and readying the architectural runaway—a task that includes the specification of service communication protocols, identification of components, and creation of infrastructure. While this book focuses on analysis issues, we do review some of the models used in technical preparation that you should be familiar with as an analyst. These include the following:
Context diagrams
Communication diagrams
Data-flow diagrams
Block diagrams