COEPD – Center of Excellence for Professional Development Happy Learning
Does a BA role fits into Agile/Scrum?
I would say, Business Analyst is Business Analyst irrespective of the project execution/delivery framework and methodology. The primary role of Business Analyst is to help the organization meet its objective, provide business solution, ensure complete requirement engineering for success of the project. So, this is the role of BA in agile.
It depends on the project you are going to handle, there is myth says Agile has no documentation, but we are going to do documentation but to a fewer level. Requirement gathering will be the same as any methodology, wire framing, Prototyping the design, flows, will take their place rather than BRD. In scrum we need to create Sprint, user stories, Epic, Product backlogs( If you are the only BA in the project ), Facilitating daily stand up meeting and trying to avoid or eradicate any roadblocks with Development team and QA team, giving demo to the client once sprint is done, as usual UAT (User acceptance testing ) ,preparing user manual and guide.
There are few roles plays by business analyst:
- Business Analyst is to take on the Product Owner Role
The Agile Product Owner Responsibilities: The new product owner often has to learn the new skills effectively play the role. This may include creating a valid product strategy, developing an actionable product road map, and aligning the stake holders-depending upon the individuals current skills set.
- Business Analyst as Team Member.
Business Analyst working in the team often help their peers Groom The Product Backlog. But grooming as team effort in the scrum, analyst working on the team take on additional responsibility, for example working closely with testers or the technical writer. As a business analyst you should be helping the team and learning the new skills that will help you expertise your skills
Conclusion:
Business Analysts also serves as the bridge between the stories, the requirements and the task list.. They also help in settings road maps and once the road maps are set, Business Analyst will help keep the team – including managers, developers, users and other analysts – focused on the end-game through retrospectives. Thus, a BA fits into a Scrum team.
At last word:
The need for quality analysis in a world of increasing change and technical complexity is very high. The BA title though not used within a Scrum team is valid but to paraphrase Mark Twain-“Reports of the BA’s death are greatly exaggerated.”
