The principle of See the Whole guides business analysis practitioners to analyze the need in the context of the big picture, focusing on the business context and why a change i s necessary. Business analysis practitioners examine the context in which the need exists and how the context influences the solution.

Agile business analysis assesses how the solution delivers value when satisfying stakeholders’ needs. The value for the solution is created through gaining an understanding of the context, the solution, and t he stakeholders. The ideas behind See the Whole are influenced by systems thinking.

The principle of Think as a Customer guides business analysis practitioners in ensuring solutions incorporate the voice of the customer through a clear understanding of the expected user experience.

A customer can be any stakeholder that interacts with the solution. Business analysis practitioners generally start with a high-level view of customer needs and progressively decompose these viewpoints into an increasingly detailed understanding of the needs the solution must satisfy. Agile approaches incorporate feedback loops to continuously validate this learning. As solution delivery progresses, both the customer’s and the organization's understanding of the needs evolve. Feedback and learning is central to ensuring these changes are incorporated into future iterations of the solution.

The principle of Analyze to Determine What is Valuable guides business analysis practitioners to continuously assess and prioritize work to be done in order to maximize the value being delivered at any point in time.

Determining what is valuable involves understanding the purpose of requirements and ensuring solution options and solution components continue to support the desired outcome. This includes avoiding waste by maximizing the amount of work not done and delivering valuable solutions early and continuously.

The principle of Get Real Using Examples guides business analysis practitioners in building a shared understanding of the need and how the solution will satisfy that need.

These examples can be used to iteratively develop and elaborate analysis models to explore multiple dimensions (for example, user role, user actions, data, and business rules) of a need. This practice continuously engages stakeholders and supports a shared understanding of needs.

The level of abstraction of examples and models varies depending on the audience and the outcome being sought. For example, when planning the product, examples or models can be used to set context and identify scope. These models are more abstract and provide a broad perspective of the need. When delivering the product, the examples or models can be progressively elaborated to identify specific details of the need and the solution.

Examples can also be used to derive acceptance criteria, help design the solution, and provide a foundation for testing the solution.

The principle of Understand What is Doable guides business analysis practitioners to understand how to deliver a solution within given constraints. Constraints can include the capabilities of the technology used to deliver the solution, the skills of the team, and the time in which you have to deliver a valuable solution.

Understanding what is doable involves continually analyzing the need and the solutions that can satisfy that need within the known constraints. It also involves considering measures such as team capacity and velocity trends to maintain reasonable expectations on an ongoing basis.

The principle of Stimulate Collaboration and Continuous Improvement guides business analysis practitioners in creating and contributing to an environment where all stakeholders contribute value on an ongoing basis.

Agile approaches emphasize the usefulness of continual collaboration between those with a need and those who are delivering a solution to meet that need.

A key aspect of the agile mindset is continuous improvement. Business analysis practitioners seek to continually improve the solution as well as the processes used to deliver the solution. Continuous structured and unstructured feedback allows business analysis practitioners to adapt the solution and its processes in order to increase the value being delivered.

Retrospectives are also used to examine processes and solutions, and identify opportunities for improvement. Healthy, collaborative teams have the trust and safety necessary to transparently identify opportunities for improvement and implement them.

The principle of Avoid Waste guides business analysis practitioners in identifying which activities add value and which activities do not add value. Agile business analysis seeks to understand the need and to deliver a solution that satisfies that need. Any activity that does not contribute directly to this goal is waste.

Waste can be divided into two sets of activities:

• those that have value but do not directly contribute to satisfying the need, and
• those activities that do not add value at all.

The aim is to completely remove those activities that do not add value, and minimize those activities that do not directly contribute to satisfying the need.

When avoiding waste, agile business analysis practitioners

• avoid producing documentation before it is needed, and when documentation is needed do just enough,
• ensure commitments are met and there are no incomplete work items that adversely impact downstream activities,
• avoid rework by making commitments at the last responsible moment,
• try to elicit, analyze, specify, and validate requirements with the same models,
• make analysis models as simple as possible to meet their intended purpose,
• ensure clear and effective communication, and
• pay continuous attention totechnicalexcellence andaccuracy. Quality defects (such as unclear requirements) result in rework and are waste.