As a business analyst (BA) starts engaging stakeholders for a user story writing workshop, an executive sponsor questions why the Commerce Cloud project is creating user stories rather than standard requirements.
What is one benefit of creating user stories that the BA can share with the executive sponsor?
Creating user stories helps save time when prioritizing and implementing functionality. This is because user stories are typically written in a way that focuses on the needs and perspectives of the end-users, which makes it easier for teams to understand, prioritize, and implement features that deliver the most value quickly. Unlike traditional requirements, user stories are more flexible and easier to manage in an Agile framework, which often leads to more efficient project execution.
The project team at Universal Containers has started to review the existing Salesforce manufacturing solution that has low adoption and a variety of customizations including custom objects, custom fields, renamed standard objects, and renamed standard fields.
What should the business analyst recommend to the project team to increase understanding when documenting requirements, processes, and potential solutions?
To increase understanding when documenting requirements, processes, and potential solutions, it is crucial to use customer terminology and language. This approach ensures that the documentation is easily understood by all stakeholders within the customer's organization, thus minimizing the risk of misunderstandings and fostering better communication and collaboration. Using the customer's terminology helps build trust, as it shows a deep understanding and respect for their specific business context.
The Salesforce development team is strictly following scrum to govern its releases. An executive trying to plan a vacation wants to know when work on the feature will begin so they can be available for additional implementation questions. After consulting with the product owner, the business analyst (BA) learns the team has decided to adopt Kanban instead for all future releases.
What should the BA tell the executive?
In Kanban, work starts based on the available capacity of the team, not on fixed schedules or executive approvals. Unlike Scrum, which operates in fixed-length iterations called sprints where work is planned in advance, Kanban focuses on continuous delivery and prioritizes tasks dynamically as capacity becomes available. Therefore, the BA should inform the executive that work on the feature will begin when capacity becomes available.
A business analyst at Universal Containers has begun user acceptance testing for a new Experience Cloud implementation with the project team. A major gap for one of the personas was identified in the documented scenarios.
What went wrong?
A major gap for one of the personas during user acceptance testing indicates that the requirements for that particular persona were not correctly identified or captured initially. This kind of issue typically arises when not all relevant stakeholders, including representatives of all user groups or personas, are involved in the requirements gathering process. Without their input, some requirements may be overlooked or inadequately documented, leading to gaps that become apparent during later stages such as user acceptance testing. Therefore, the failure to include all stakeholders in the requirements gathering process is the most likely cause of the problem.
Northern Trail Outfitters has a large Salesforce org with sales, marketing, and billing teams pushing for the development of a large number of items in the backlog.
Which management process should the business analyst suggest to help the teams align on their competing priorities?
The Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures (V2MOM) management process would be the best choice to help the teams align their competing priorities. V2MOM is a strategic planning tool designed to clarify what the organization wants to achieve, why it wants to achieve it, how it will achieve it, and what obstacles might stand in the way. This process includes defining the vision, which helps create a shared understanding of the goals among different teams, and setting values and methods to ensure that everyone is working toward the same objectives. This structured approach fosters alignment and collaboration, making it effective for resolving conflicts among teams with competing priorities. In contrast, Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and Integrated DEFinition for Process Description Capture Method (IDEF3) are primarily focused on process modeling and documentation rather than on aligning priorities and managing competing demands.