Agile Business Analysis Initiative Horizon Planning 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A BA is running a horizon planning session with a cross-functional team. Which facilitation technique helps the team avoid defaulting all work to Horizon 1?
- MoSCoW prioritization
- Explicit time-boxing for Horizon 2 and 3 discussion (Correct answer)
- Affinity mapping of all backlog items
- T-shirt sizing of user stories
Correct answer: Explicit time-boxing for Horizon 2 and 3 discussion
Explicitly time-boxing discussion for each horizon prevents operational bias from crowding out strategic conversations about emerging and future work.
Question 2: In a large organization, how should a BA handle an initiative that simultaneously serves Horizon 1 (efficiency) and Horizon 2 (new market entry)?
- Assign it arbitrarily to one horizon
- Split the initiative into two workstreams, each tracked under the appropriate horizon (Correct answer)
- Reject the initiative as too ambiguous
- Classify it as Horizon 3 due to complexity
Correct answer: Split the initiative into two workstreams, each tracked under the appropriate horizon
Dual-purpose initiatives can be decomposed into workstreams, each aligned to the correct horizon for appropriate investment and measurement.
Question 3: Which risk does an organization face if it neglects Horizon 3 investment entirely?
- Over-reliance on emerging technologies
- Inability to adapt when Horizon 1 markets decline or are disrupted (Correct answer)
- Excessive experimentation costs
- Too many products in the pipeline
Correct answer: Inability to adapt when Horizon 1 markets decline or are disrupted
Without Horizon 3 bets, an organization has no pipeline of future opportunities if its core business is disrupted.
Question 4: A BA is helping an executive team use horizon planning to allocate the annual innovation budget. Which allocation principle is most commonly cited in portfolio planning?
- 50-40-10 across Horizon 1, 2, and 3
- 70-20-10 across Horizon 1, 2, and 3 (Correct answer)
- Equal thirds across all horizons
- 100% to Horizon 1 until profitable
Correct answer: 70-20-10 across Horizon 1, 2, and 3
The 70-20-10 rule (70% core, 20% adjacent, 10% transformational) is a widely referenced portfolio allocation framework for balancing horizons.
Question 5: How does initiative horizon planning support the Agile principle of 'responding to change over following a plan'?
- It locks initiatives into fixed long-term roadmaps
- It creates a flexible strategic scaffold that is revisited and adapted regularly (Correct answer)
- It replaces all roadmaps with rolling backlogs
- It eliminates stakeholder input from planning
Correct answer: It creates a flexible strategic scaffold that is revisited and adapted regularly
Horizon planning is revisited regularly, allowing teams to reassign, pivot, or retire initiatives as new information emerges — fully consistent with Agile adaptability.
Question 6: A BA uses opportunity mapping as part of horizon planning. What is the primary purpose of this activity?
- To assign story points to initiatives
- To identify and classify where each potential initiative sits relative to strategic time horizons (Correct answer)
- To create a sprint backlog from business requirements
- To conduct competitive benchmarking
Correct answer: To identify and classify where each potential initiative sits relative to strategic time horizons
Opportunity mapping visually plots initiatives against horizons to give stakeholders a shared picture of the portfolio's strategic distribution.
Question 7: Which characteristic best distinguishes a Horizon 2 initiative from a Horizon 1 initiative in Agile business analysis?
- Horizon 2 has lower cost and risk than Horizon 1
- Horizon 2 involves scaling into new but adjacent markets or capabilities not yet in the core business (Correct answer)
- Horizon 2 is always technology-driven
- Horizon 2 requires more sprint ceremonies than Horizon 1
Correct answer: Horizon 2 involves scaling into new but adjacent markets or capabilities not yet in the core business
Horizon 2 initiatives target adjacencies — opportunities near but outside the current core business — that require investment to scale.
Agile Business Analysis Initiative Horizon Planning 5
A BA is running a horizon planning session with a cross-functional team.
Which facilitation technique helps the team avoid defaulting all work to Horizon 1?