EXIN BCS Agile BA Professional study plan

Define the eight principles behind agile business analysis in your own words and map each to a concrete behaviour you can observe in a real team

Contrast predictive and adaptive approaches to scope, change, and documentation, listing at least five decision criteria for choosing between them

Explain how the business analyst role shifts from gatekeeper of requirements to facilitator of shared understanding, with three examples

Draft a one-page comparison of a product backlog, a sprint backlog, and a work item list, stating the purpose and owner of each

Distinguish outcome, output, and solution, and rewrite five weak requirement statements so each expresses a measurable outcome

Apply the INVEST heuristic to critique six sample user stories and justify each verdict

Construct a story map for a small end-to-end customer journey, slicing it into at least three delivery increments

Explain how value, risk, and dependency influence backlog ordering, and reorder a ten-item backlog with written rationale

Write acceptance criteria in both rule-oriented and scenario-oriented formats for four user stories

Decompose three large epics into stories small enough to complete inside a single iteration

Define a definition of ready and a definition of done that a team could adopt unchanged, and test them against two edge cases

Describe how to handle non-functional requirements and constraints inside a backlog without losing them

Map stakeholders by influence, interest, and impact on the solution, and select an engagement approach for each quadrant

Prepare a facilitation plan for a backlog refinement session including purpose, timings, and decision points

Explain how to make requirements visible and negotiable to a non-technical stakeholder without reverting to a signed-off specification

Identify three signs of a backlog that has become a hidden specification and state the corrective action for each

Describe the responsibilities of product owner, scrum master, and team in shaping and ordering requirements, and where the analyst adds value

Practise three feedback techniques for eliciting input in short cycles and note when each is appropriate

Design a lightweight approach for capturing decisions and assumptions so they remain discoverable across iterations

Explain how to handle conflicting stakeholder priorities using transparent, criteria-based trade-offs

Select appropriate elicitation techniques for four contrasting situations and justify each choice against cost, speed, and richness

Apply a visual modelling technique to capture a process or data flow and annotate it with the questions it raises

Explain how to use examples and specification by example to remove ambiguity from acceptance criteria

Describe how to analyse a large option set quickly using a simple, transparent scoring model

Explain how to evaluate a solution against its intended outcome using measures agreed before delivery

Describe how to give and receive feedback on analysis artefacts so they improve rather than merely get approved

Identify the analysis activities that continue after release and how they feed the next iteration

Review your week 1 checklist and evidence which behaviours you have now changed

Consolidate all four domains into a single concept map showing how mindset, collaboration, backlog, and technique interlock

Answer timed practice questions across all domains and analyse every error by domain and by cause

Rehearse explaining three tricky distinctions aloud, such as outcome versus output and ready versus done

Produce a personal weak-area list with a specific corrective action for each item