Team 06 - 2026
Our team represents six countries, five time zones, and a wide range of levels of experience.
When we formed, we were a group of strangers - now we are a working team.
Team Mentor & Product Owner
Eimal Dorani
Albany, New York, USA
Eimal Durrani (PMP®, CBAP®, PSM II) blends technical expertise with empathetic leadership to create effective, human-centered solutions. As Mentor and Product Owner for Team 6 in the SDLC Experience Workshop, he guided product visioning, solution design, and team collaboration, supported by advanced studies in Computer Engineering, HCI, and Text Mining.
Project Manager
Stella Maina
Kericho, Kenya
Stella C. Maina, CBAP, CSPO, CSM, LSSGB, is an Agile Project Manager and Business Analyst with 20+ years of experience in education systems. She led SMIS and LMS digital transformation initiatives in Kenya.
Serving as Project Manager on this SDLC program, she aspires to reduce administrative inefficiencies in K–12 schools through process automation and sustainable technology adoption.
Business Analyst
Janefrances Ezeala
Liverpool, United Kingdom
Uchechi Janefrances Ezeala is a Business Analysis Consultant with a background in accounting and finance. Currently pursuing an MSc in Financial Technology and Business Analysis, she combines financial expertise with practical experience in requirements elicitation, stakeholder engagement, process improvement, and data analysis.
Proficient in Jira and Power BI, she is passionate about leveraging technology to deliver impactful business solutions.
Quality Assurance
Macarena Espinar Lopez
London, UK
Operations and Business Analyst professional with more than 6 years of experience helping non-profit and philanthropic organisations make their systems, processes and team workflows more scalable. I have previously managed CRM improvements, large-scale data migrations, and implemented automation solutions across cross-functional teams.
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User Interface / User Experience
Gargi Gaur
Uttarakhand, India
Gargi served as the UI/UX Designer for Team 6, translating project requirements and user needs into clear, intuitive digital experiences. Her work included user flows, wireframes, responsive desktop and mobile designs, and interactive prototypes, with a focus on usability and consistency.
Her contribution helped turn the team’s ideas and requirements into a clear, cohesive experience that could be easily understood and developed further.
Developer
Kehinde Carmen Khourie
Lagos, Nigeria
A software developer with 3+ years of experience building scalable, production-ready enterprise applications that improve operational efficiency and streamline workflows for government and commercial organizations.
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Business Analyst
Olutoke Ogunkola
Lagos, Nigeria
Olutoke Ogunkola is a Certified Business Analyst in Lagos, Nigeria. With over 10 years of experience, she collaborated on problem statements and business cases, led requirements gathering, and coordinated deliverables across 5+ cross-functional team leads in Agile/Scrum environments. Active throughout the SDLC, she created user stories, backlogs, and test plans prospectively improving the project’s SLA tracking and performance by 39.4%.
Team Observer
Shanna Fillmore
Houston, Texas, USA
Shanna Fillmore is a Senior Business Analyst specializing in SAP data warehousing, reporting, and translating business needs into scalable, compliant solutions.
She is an active LinkedIn content creator and member of the Houston Business Analysts group, supporting learning, collaboration, and professional development within the Business Analysis community.
Business Analyst
Blessing Polu
Blessing Poku is a Business Analyst in Accra, Ghana, dedicated to problem-solving and process improvement. She was recognized as the Best Participant in Cohort 6 at the Centre for Business Analysis and received the Business Analyst Rising Star Award in 2026. With background in administration and operations, she values continuous learning and collaboration, and has spoken at IIBA Argentina Chapter on Human Leadership and Impact Skills.
AdviseHub
Clarity for Advisors, Confidence for Students
Problem Statement
Business Problem
Students and academic advisors currently rely on fragmented systems and processes for scheduling, advising notes, institutional information, and degree tracking. This creates administrative delays, unclear academic progress, duplicated effort, and difficulty ensuring students receive timely support.
Proposed Solution
Develop a unified academic guidance platform that centralizes advising activities, institutional knowledge, scheduling, student records, and degree progress into one accessible system.
The platform will provide students with clear visibility of their academic journey while enabling advisors to deliver timely, informed, and personalized support.
Product Vision
To empower students and advisors through a unified academic guidance platform that eliminates administrative friction, centralizes institutional knowledge, and provides crystal-clear degree visibility—ensuring every student receives the right support at the right time to confidently achieve their next academic milestone.
Target Users
Students: Need clear visibility of degree progress, requirements, and next academic steps.
Academic Advisors: Need efficient access to student information, advising history, institutional knowledge, and scheduling tools.
Key Benefits
Reduced administrative workload and friction.
Improved access to centralized and accurate institutional information.
Clearer visibility of student degree progress.
Faster and more effective academic advising.
Timely identification of students requiring support.
Improved student confidence, engagement, and progression toward academic goals.
Strategic Value
By replacing fragmented advising processes with a single, integrated platform, the institution can improve operational efficiency and deliver a more consistent and student-centered advising experience. The solution supports better decision-making, enhances advisor productivity, and helps students take informed action toward achieving their academic milestones.
Success Measures
The platform’s success can be measured through:
Reduced student and advisor wait times.
Increased visibility of degree progress.
Improved advisor productivity.
Higher student engagement and satisfaction.
Increased completion of academic milestones and student progression.
Business Case Summary:
The unified academic guidance platform addresses a critical gap in the current advising process by bringing fragmented systems into one solution. It creates value for both students and advisors by reducing administrative friction, improving access to information, and enabling timely, personalized academic support.
Kanban (Agile)
Project Deliverables - By the Project Manager
Project Plan
Project Manager: Stella Maina
1. Project Overview
1.1 Purpose of This Document
This Project Plan is the Project Manager's core deliverable, produced at Session 1 by interpreting the business case — before any elicitation with the Product Owner takes place. It follows a standard PMBOK-aligned structure (scope, schedule, cost, quality, resources, risk, communications, and stakeholders) so it can serve as a template for any project the team runs, in the workshop or otherwise.
1.2 Project Summary
Students and academic advisors currently rely on fragmented systems and processes for scheduling, advising notes, institutional information, and degree tracking. This creates administrative delays, unclear academic progress, duplicated effort, and difficulty ensuring students receive timely support. The current process is confusing, slow and inconsistent, with specific problems around appointment scheduling, advisor notes and students understanding their degree progress. The purpose of the project is to design the Minimum Viable Product of a new university advising portal that addresses the core problems in the current advising process. The unified academic guidance platform addresses a critical gap in the current advising process by bringing fragmented systems into one solution. It creates value for both students and advisors by reducing administrative friction, improving access to information, and enabling timely, personalized academic support.
1.3 Business Objectives
Objective 1: Streamline Appointment Scheduling
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Risk Mitigation
Project Manager: Stella Maina
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Project Scope
UNIVERSITY ADVISING PORTAL REDESIGN
PROJECT SCOPE
Minimum Viable Product (MVP) of ‘Advise-Hub’ student advising portal
1. Project Purpose
The purpose of the project is to design the Minimum Viable Product of a new university advising portal that addresses the core problems in the current advising process. The current process is confusing, slow and inconsistent, with specific problems around appointment scheduling, advisor notes and students understanding their university degree progress.
2. Project Scope
A. Appointment Scheduling
Students will be able to:
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View available advising times
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Book an advising appointment
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Receive appointment confirmation
Advisors will be able to:
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View upcoming appointments
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Avoid double booking
B. Advisor Notes
Advisors will be able to:
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Open a student profile
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Write advising notes
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Save notes in a shared location
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Retrieve notes quickly
C. Degree Progress View
Students will be able to:
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See completed credits
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See remaining credits
3. Users Within Project Scope
Students:
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Undergraduate
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Transfer
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Graduate
Advisors:
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Faculty
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Staff
Academic leadership:
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Deans
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Directors
4. Scope Constraints
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Prevent double booking
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Support advising notes
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Be accessible
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Work on mobile devices
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Be simple enough for new students to use without training
5. Success Criteria
6. Scope Boundary
The defined MVP scope is limited to the three capabilities stated in the business case: Appointment Scheduling, Advisor Notes, and Degree Progress View. The MVP must also meet the stated constraints and success criteria.
No additional features, technologies, integrations, or requirements have been added where they are not specified in the business case. Items not defined by the business case remain not specified and are not treated as part of the scope.
7. Project Scope Statement
The University Advising Portal Redesign project will design the Minimum Viable Product of a brand-new advising portal to address the university’s current confusing, slow and inconsistent advising process. The MVP will provide appointment scheduling, advisor notes and degree progress view. Students will be able to view available advising times, book appointments, receive confirmation and view completed and remaining credits. Advisors will be able to view upcoming appointments, avoid double booking, access student profiles, create and retrieve advising notes.
The MVP will support the identified student, advisor and academic leadership user groups and must prevent double booking, support advising notes, be accessible, work on mobile devices and be simple enough for new students to use without training. Success will be measured against the defined targets for double booking, scheduling speed, note retrieval, advisor adoption, and student ease of use.
8. Presentation Structure
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Purpose: Why does the project exist?
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Problem: What is wrong with the current advising process.
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Scope: the three MVP capabilities.
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Users: who the MVP is intended to support.
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Constraints: conditions the MVP must meet.
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Success Criteria: How successful delivery will be measured.
Product Owner: Eimal Dorani
Project Deliverables - By the Business Analyst
Current State to Future State
Business Analyst: Olutoke Ogunkola,
Janefrances Ezeala
Requirements List
Business Analyst: Janefrances Ezeala
VALUE-EFFORT MATRIX PRIORITSATION
Business Analyst: Janefrances Ezeala
Project Deliverables - By the QA/Tester
Test Strategy and Test Plan
Quality Assurance Engineer: Macarena Espinar Lopez
1 Document Purpose
This plan defines the testing scope, approach, responsibilities, prerequisites and completion criteria for the working advising application. Detailed QA cases, UAT scenarios, data, traceability and execution tracking are held separately in AdviseHub_QA_Artifacts.xlsx.
Functional / QA Testing checks specified system behaviour and defects as features become available. UAT checks whether students, advisors and other agreed stakeholders can use the solution for their intended tasks and accept the outcome.
2 Project Overview
The university needs a simpler advising portal because scheduling is slow and inconsistent, double-bookings occur, notes are scattered and degree progress is difficult to understand. The MVP combines appointment scheduling, centralised advising notes and a simple view of completed and remaining credits.
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Students view available advising times, book an appointment and receive confirmation.
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Advisors enter availability manually, view upcoming appointments, open student profiles and save/retrieve notes.
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Students see completed and remaining credits. Only Desktop tests are included in the scope.
3 Testing Objectives
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Verify the user stories and acceptance criteria against the working application.
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Find booking conflicts, incorrect record associations, persistence failures and recovery problems.
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Check agreed access rules and accessibility requirements.
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Measure scheduling under 120 seconds and note retrieval under 10 seconds under agreed conditions.
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Provide traceable QA evidence and business/user evidence for a separate UAT acceptance decision.
4 Testing Scope
Out of scope
External platform integrations, campus SSO integration, calendar synchronisation, email delivery, production monitoring, and hardware testing are excluded.
5 Testing Approach
QA/test analysts and developers run the relevant cases throughout development. Follow full journeys where needed to verify selections, saved records and correct outcomes. Use separate student sessions for conflicting bookings and Dev-supported inspection to verify persistence. There is no separate unit-testing workstream in these deliverables.
Prioritise conflict prevention and note integrity, then complete the remaining planned checks and device variants. Retest fixes and rerun affected booking/note checks before handing to UAT. Business representatives and the PO then execute or review UAT outcomes. BA clarifies criteria; UI/UX supports design/accessibility questions; PM coordinates readiness and dates.
6 Testing Types
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Test Cases
Quality Assurance Engineer: Macarena Espinar Lopez
UAT Scenarios
Quality Assurance Engineer: Macarena Espinar Lopez
Project Deliverables - By the UI/UX Designer
Student Flow
UI/UX Designer: Gargi Gaur
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Advisor Flow
UI/UX Designer: Gargi Gaur
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Initial Screen Designs
UI/UX Designer: Gargi Gaur
Final Screen Designs
UI/UX Designer: Gargi Gaur
Project Deliverables - By the Developer
Technology Stack
Developer: Kehinde Khourie
Data Model - Entity Relationship Diagram
Developer: Kehinde Khourie
AdviseHub Application https://advisehub-d37t.vercel.app/
Developer: Kehinde Khourie
To Test:
STUDENTS
rose.green@baforcemultiplier.com
zina.rose@baforcemultiplier.com
ADVISORS:
princess.carolyn@baforcemultiplier.com
carmilla.carmine@baforcemultiplier.com
PASSWORD: password1234
TEST USER LOGIN: https://advisehub-d37t.vercel.app/test-login
Impact of the SDLC Experience Workshop
Business Analyst
Janefrances Ezeala
The SDLC Experience Program has been an incredibly rewarding journey of learning, growth, and collaboration.
Beyond gaining hands-on experience with various tools, one of my greatest lessons was the value of commitment, consistency, and teamwork.
Staying dedicated and working alongside my teammates throughout the program has been particularly fulfilling. I also strengthened my communication skills, built confidence, and overcame my initial fear of facilitating meetings.
Overall, it has been a wonderful experience that has contributed significantly to my personal and professional development.
Project Manager
Stella Chemutai Maina
Throughout the SDLC, I have gained valuable experience in collaborating with fully virtual teams across different time zones and effectively managing projects. I am eager to apply these skills in cross-functional environments, in future projects. It also enhanced my project management skills in planning, communication, stakeholder engagement, risk management, and delivery governance.
Further, it sharpened my ability in balancing scope, schedule, quality, and stakeholder expectations while ensuring the team remained focused on delivering value. The experience also reinforced the importance of adaptability and continuous communication within the team.
While guiding the team through challenges, managing change, and fostering collaboration, the team successfully delivered Advise Hub signifying the delivery project outcomes within time, cost, and quality constraints.
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Business Analyst
Olutoke Ogunkola
Well done, Thea. Thank you for this amazing program. It has given me more confidence, when narrating my BA expertise during interviews.
Business Analyst
Blessing Poku
LESSONS LEARNED
1. Early Stakeholder Engagement Matters
Frequent feedback from stakeholders helped align the solution with user needs and reduced rework during development.
2. Clear Communication Improves Delivery
Regular team meetings and status updates ensured everyone understood priorities, responsibilities, and project progress.
3. Testing Should Start Early
Early testing identified issues sooner, reducing defects and improving the overall quality of the product before the demo.
4. Risk Management is Essential
Proactively tracking risks and mitigation plans helped the team address challenges before they impacted delivery.
5. Scope Control Prevents Delays
Managing change requests carefully ensured the project remained focused on agreed objectives and timelines.
6. Collaboration Drives Success
Strong collaboration between the PM, BA, UI/UX, Development, and QA teams resulted in a more polished and user-focused solution.
7. Demo Preparation Builds Confidence
Rehearsing the demo, validating data, and preparing contingency plans improved presentation quality and reduced technical issues.
