Agile Business Analysis Process 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In Agile BA, what is the primary purpose of a Sprint Retrospective from a process improvement perspective?
- To plan next sprint's user stories
- To inspect the team's way of working and identify improvements (Correct answer)
- To demonstrate completed features to stakeholders
- To update the product backlog with new requirements
Correct answer: To inspect the team's way of working and identify improvements
The Sprint Retrospective is a dedicated ceremony for the team to inspect its own processes and create a plan for improvements to be enacted during the next sprint.
Question 2: A business analyst notices that stakeholders keep changing acceptance criteria after sprint planning. Which process adjustment best addresses this?
- Lock all acceptance criteria before the sprint starts
- Introduce a Definition of Ready requiring stable acceptance criteria before backlog items enter a sprint (Correct answer)
- Cancel the sprint when criteria change
- Remove acceptance criteria from user stories entirely
Correct answer: Introduce a Definition of Ready requiring stable acceptance criteria before backlog items enter a sprint
A Definition of Ready establishes entry criteria that user stories must meet before they can be pulled into a sprint, including stable acceptance criteria.
Question 3: In the Agile BA process, 'Elaboration' of user stories typically occurs at which point relative to the sprint?
- During the sprint when coding begins
- Only after the sprint ends in a review session
- Just-in-time, shortly before or during sprint planning (Correct answer)
- At the very start of the project before any sprints
Correct answer: Just-in-time, shortly before or during sprint planning
Agile favors just-in-time elaboration, where stories are refined and detailed shortly before they are needed to avoid wasted effort on items that may change.
Question 4: What Agile process technique involves the team estimating effort by simultaneously revealing cards to avoid anchoring bias?
- T-shirt sizing
- Planning Poker (Scrum Poker) (Correct answer)
- Dot voting
- Affinity estimation
Correct answer: Planning Poker (Scrum Poker)
Planning Poker has team members simultaneously reveal their estimate cards to prevent early estimates from anchoring or influencing others' judgments.
Question 5: Which process best describes how a BA should handle a large, vague stakeholder request in an Agile context?
- Document it fully in a BRD before development begins
- Decompose it into an Epic and progressively break it into smaller Features and User Stories (Correct answer)
- Reject it until stakeholders provide full details
- Assign it directly to the development team without further analysis
Correct answer: Decompose it into an Epic and progressively break it into smaller Features and User Stories
Agile BA practice involves decomposing large vague requests into Epics, then Features, then User Stories, progressively adding detail as the work approaches a sprint.
Question 6: In Agile process flow, what is 'WIP (Work In Progress) limit' primarily designed to achieve?
- Limit the number of requirements a BA can document
- Reduce multitasking and improve flow by capping active items at each workflow stage (Correct answer)
- Prevent new user stories from entering the backlog
- Set a maximum team velocity per sprint
Correct answer: Reduce multitasking and improve flow by capping active items at each workflow stage
WIP limits constrain the number of items in any single workflow stage, reducing context-switching and exposing bottlenecks to improve overall throughput.
Question 7: A BA is facilitating a process where the team reviews a completed user story against its acceptance criteria before marking it done. This is best described as:
- Sprint Planning verification
- Definition of Done validation (Correct answer)
- Backlog refinement
- Risk assessment
Correct answer: Definition of Done validation
The Definition of Done is a shared checklist—including acceptance criteria—that must be met before a user story or increment is considered complete.
Agile Business Analysis Process 2
In Agile BA, what is the primary purpose of a Sprint Retrospective from a process improvement perspective?