Matthew Rossete

Agile or Waterfall

In the project for this national grocery store chain, the best approach would be Agile in this case.
“Agile is about having a flexible mindset, embodied in a set of values and principles and exhibited by a
variety of complementary practices” (International Institute of Business Analysis, 2015, p. 368). This
approach is better suited for the project because there needs to be a mix of tools and techniques that
will be used for this project. It is not necessarily a project that will be a simple “black and white”
solution. It will need to be modified especially since the old system was 10 versions behind, there will a
probability for need of improvement in the system even though it is new. There might be some minor
tweaking of the system that will be needed so the project will need an approach that can adapt with
possible changes to the new GUI interface.

In order to get the project going, there should be a backlog list in place. “This process
contributes to the refinement and redefinition of scope in order to meet the evolving and emerging
business need” (International Institute of Business Analysis, 2015, p. 369).This list will be a good tool to
always reference back that the scope aligns with the needs of the business and modify the backlog list
when it does not match with those needs. Another thing that should be done to keep the flow of the
project is to use iterations. “An iteration is an agreed period of work time” (International Institute of
Business Analysis, 2015, p. 369). Having these small changes will be positive toward making the agile
teams more efficient. These iterations will make the teams more focused on their tasks and not feel as
overwhelmed. They can also be more efficient in terms of organizing their work by order of importance.

One of the individuals that should be on the project team are business analysts. They are vital in
terms of the success of the outcome of a project in many aspects. They have an important role in
analyzing the requirements of the solution, collaborating with stakeholders about managing the
projects, and working with all departments to ensure that they are working as a cohesive unit. In
addition, developers should also be a part of the agile project. They play a huge role in rolling out the
interface because they will have the expertise in making sure all the bugs and issues are resolved before
the new system is deployed. They have the technical skills to work and address any potential problems
that the GUI interface might have. A project manager is also needed to make sure there is a person
assigned to lead the project. They will be the main individual who will oversee the project and monitor
the departments to see if there are any concerns or problems that need to be addressed. They will be
the ones responsible as the final “nod of approval” in the review phase of the system rollout.

One of the techniques that would be beneficial to the project would be story mapping. It
“provides a visual and physical view of the sequence of activities to be supported by a solution”
(International Institute of Business Analysis, 2015, p. 376). The national grocery store chain has a story
map of its current pricing management system and it is a very helpful tool for people to visually see how
the different parts are connected. It makes it more visually appealing to see the arrows and see how the
flow of the process starts from the HQPM and goes outward in some instances. In other cases, it starts
from the outside and works its way through the flow of the process to the HQPM data warehouse. The
new GUI interface will also need a story map in order to serve the same purpose that the story map for
the old system did. It will be a good reference for the grocery store to have to make sure the solution is
working the way it should be and serve as a visual “blueprint”. Another technique that would be useful
to utilize in this project would be story decomposition. That technique “ensures that the requirements
for a product are represented at the appropriate level of detail and are derived from a valuable business
objective” (International Institute of Business Analysis, 2015, p. 376). This technique will help aid the
groups involved to see how their involvement in their departments help with the overall solution. It is
sort of like a narrow version of the story mapping technique. The difference, however, is that the story
decomposition could be more detailed at a department or group level. Story mapping is more at an
overall general view of the solution.
 References

International Institute of Business Analysis (2015). A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of
Knowledge. Toronto, Canada: International Institute of Business Analysis.