In this episode, Luke Johnstone helps us to eliminate waste in our BA practices using Lean Business Analysis.
After listening to this episode, you'll understand:
- Why the four values of the Lean Business Analysis Manifesto are so important
- The 8 forms of waste in analysis
- How to combat those forms of waste
Show Notes
Lean business analysis is about doing the right thing at the right time and removing things that don’t add value. Those non-value add activities are referred to as waste.
To help business analysts better align to Lean principles, Luke and his organization created the Lean Business Analysis Manifesto with the following four values.
- Producing what is needed when it’s needed versus doing all of the analysis upfront
- Working with the right people at the right time versus working in silos
- Building quality in from the outset versus checking for quality at the end
- Avoiding unnecessary steps that don’t add value versus following a prescribed process
Having a Lean mindset helps us to avoid some anti-patterns that lead to waste. These eight forms of waste are:
- Unfinished work – Analysis or requirements completed but not implemented
- Unnecessary features – Features customers don’t need or want
- Silos and handoffs – Working without a shared understanding and transitioning work items
- Unnecessary processes – Steps that don’t add value
- Context switching – Moving from one task to another without focus
- Waiting – Delays due to waiting for an answer or availability
- Rework – Work that needs to be done over
- Knowledge hording – Keeping knowledge to yourself
In this interview, Luke discusses these forms of waste in detail and shows us some tools and techniques to eliminate the waste.
Listen to the full episode to hear all of Luke’s advice for eliminating waste in your BA practice.
Your Homework
Reflect on your analysis practices and create a value stream map of your process. Doing so helps you to identify value add and non-value add activities. Then, try to eliminate of reduce the amount of non-value adding activities.
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Luke’s company website Assurity
- Impact Mapping
Luke’s Presentation from Agile NZ
Luke Johnstone
Lean Business Analysis at Assurity
Luke has led Assurity’s Christchurch-based Lean Business Analysis Service for three years and has recently been appointed their National BA Service Owner. He is an outcome-focused, commercially astute Agile Business Analyst with significant experience in Business Analysis, Software Development projects, leading IT projects/teams and organization-wide Change Management.
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