Development and testing

- During the build and testing activities on projects, Pat the PM, and Bailey the BA collaborate to ensure the team has a shared understanding of what features and aspects of each feature are the highest priority and will be most valuable to the users in the organization. First, let's look at the build activities, which is all about collaborating with the developers on their questions and ensuring they have the right priorities and shared understanding. Here, the intent of the requirements is to be the focus. Pat and Bailey provide the delivery team context of what the user's reason for using the system and features are. Pat and Bailey want the team to see the bigger picture of the user journey and goals, and the developers want and need this too. There are always questions about the requirements and what's being built from developers, and developers feel under pressure to work fast. Pat and Bailey worked together to provide an environment of trust and communications to the delivery team that fosters an openness to discuss the what and the why behind what's being built. The budget and schedule that Pat cares about is typically top of mind during these activities, as the team looks towards implementation. So there can be a natural conflict on the team. Pat and Bailey provide an environment to not just meet deadlines but to make sure the team builds what's intended. It's also easy during these activities to neglect focus on the value and outcomes of what's being delivered. The team's understanding of what the desired outcomes are is where Bailey plays a big role and Pat needs to support this as well. Bailey also needs to support the budget and schedule conditions the team is working under. Next are the testing activities, and much like development, there's a lot of pressure on the team to meet deadlines. This means that the team needs to be focused on the most important areas and aspects that deliver value. We can't test everything and every possible scenario. So how does the team know where to focus? Well, Bailey provides critical context and dialogue for the testing activities to help the team focus on the right areas to test and collaborates with Pat and the team to make sure the schedule and budget are used in the right places. Both the BA and PM play critical roles in communicating and supporting the shared understanding together. And this makes the build and testing phases go much smoother.