The BAT Certified Pragmatic Product Owner/Business Analyst course is an exceptional opportunity for professionals seeking to elevate their skills in product ownership and management. Unlike traditional Agile training, this comprehensive and interactive three-day program delves deep into both the outward and inward orientations of a product owner, equipping participants with essential tools and techniques. You’ll gain a thorough understanding of market trends, competitor analysis, and internal environmental assessments such as PESTEL and Porter’s Five Forces. This knowledge will empower you to conduct effective value chain analyses, SWOT analyses, and develop compelling value propositions.
By attending this course, you’ll learn to identify and articulate needs, problems, and opportunities through practical methods like writing problem statements and performing root cause analyses using techniques such as Fishbone diagrams, 5 Whys, and Pareto analysis. The course also covers the product life cycle, from crafting a clear product vision to managing product backlogs and writing quality user stories. Participants will engage in hands-on activities to create user personas, empathy maps, and user journey maps, ensuring a deep understanding of stakeholder needs and user experiences. Additionally, you’ll explore advanced topics like prioritizing and estimating backlogs, handling change requests, and structuring requirements using various techniques.
This training is ideal for anyone looking to enhance their pragmatic approach to product ownership and business analysis. With BAT’s unique emphasis on practical application, you’ll leave equipped with the knowledge and skills to navigate complex business environments and drive successful product outcomes. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or new to the field, the insights and expertise gained from this course will significantly impact your ability to deliver value and innovation within your organization.
| Learning Topics – (3 days for full agenda) |
| The outward orientation of a product owner/product manager – Market Analysis (Market trends and events, benchmarking, competitor analysis) – Enternal environment analysis (PESTEL Porters 5 forces, value chain) |
| The inward orientation of a product owner – Value chain analysis, SWOT, Value proposition cavas |
| Identifying needs in the form of problems and opportunities – Definition of needs, problems and opportunities – Writing a problem statement – Root cause analysis techniques (Fishbone diagram, 5 whys, Pareto analysis) |
| The product as a solution to a problem – Definition of a requirement – Types of requirements (business, stakeholder, functional, non-functional, transition) – Definition of a solution and design |
| The product life cycle – The diffusion curve and the product life-cycle |
| The product vision (north star) – Writing the product vision – Elevator pitch statement – Vision board by Roman Pitchler – Postcard from the future – Vision video |
| Writing business requirements (Goals, Objectives and key results of the product) |
| Stakeholder Analysis – Stakeholder list, maps (RACI, Onion diagram, Mendelow’s matrix) |
| Empathy – Conducting and empathy interview – Creating an Empathy mapping canvas |
| User personas – Definition of a context – Users in different contexts – Creating a user persona |
| User journey mapping |
| Product Backlog Management – What is a product backlog – Product Backlog Items and the DEEP backlog – Progressive elaboration |
| Writing functional requirements of a product – Writing a functional requirement involving a user as a User Story using the ‘user-voice’ format (With practical activities) – Writing a functional requirement without a user as a Job Story (JTDB) |
| Writing quality user stories – INVEST criteria by Will Wake – 3 C’s of a User Story by Ron Jefferies |
| Acceptance Criteria – What are acceptance criteria – Writing acceptance criteria as objective statements (bullet points) – Writing acceptance criteria using Gherkin Syntax (Given-When-Then) |
| Techniques to better structure requirements – Data dictionary to capture entity and attributes related information (fields and validations) – NFR catalogue to capture NFRs – Business Rules Catalogue to capture Business rules – Brief discussion about using process diagrams, state chart diagrams, prototyping and other techniques – Good practices when structuring requirements using user stories and all above-mentioned techniques |
| Splitting user stories by Richard Lawrence (with practical activities) – 10 user story splitting patterns (with practical activities) |
| Identifying work to be done by technical team members as Enabler Stories (work that is not a functionality but of significant magnitude) – POC, R&D work as exploration enablers – Enhancing/maintaining the architectural runway using architectural enablers – Infrastructure work using infrastructure enablers – Documentation, legal/regulatory work using compliance enablers |
| Identifying large pieces of work as Epics |
| Prioritizing backlogs of work – What is priority – 8 prioritization criteria – Prioritization techniques (Grouping, Ranking, Timeboxing/Budgeting) |
| Estimating backlogs of work – Cone of uncertainty – Absolute estimation vs relative sizing – Criteria to consider when doing relative sizing (relative sizing is more than effort estimation) – Identifying a base story – Estimating backlog items using story points – Playing planning poker to gain team concensus on bigness of backlog items |
| Creating a user story map with prioritized backlog items |
| Handling Change Requests, Enhancements, Defects, and Spillovers (with discussion around definitions, capturing such work, etc.) |
