Who is an AGILE Business Analyst? Do Agile Projects need a Business Analyst?
Context of Agile
Agile is the way to go!
This single sentence aptly covers the need of the IT industry as it has been grappling with the failure or lack of success of most of the software projects. Since the promulgation of Agile Manifesto in 2001, Agile methodologies have been gaining ground.
How did Agile came into picture? By 1970s, software experts were convinced that waterfall way of software development was flawed. Many methodologies popped up thereafter – right from Prototyping, Spiral, XP, pair programming, DSDM etc. Agile can be thought of as a culmination of many such attempts. It took concrete shape when 17 such experts came together and agreed on a common Agile framework in 2001. The key principles behind Agile manifesto has been:
- Early and continuous delivery of working software to encourage customer collaboration unlike other methodologies wherein working software is only available in the end for customer UAT.
- Finding a methodology to respond to the reality of changing requirements, rather than trying to stabilize the requirements through various means e.g. Change request process
Both these principles indicate that the Agile approach is adaptive rather predictive, whether it is planning or design or development. People don’t follow a plan, made by project managers, but continuously adapt based on the customer feedbacks and changing scenarios.
I guess, what I described above, is well-known and Agile Methodologies have proven their superiority already. Let's now examine the role of a business analyst before discussing the case of an Agile Business Analyst.
Context of Business Analysts
What is business analysis in software projects:
- It’s about collecting, analyzing & modeling customer requirements
- It’s about translating the business requirements into set of technical requirements, so that technical teams can design and code the system better
- Validate the software before handing over to the customer
- Managing the requirements (changing requirements, prioritization etc.)
In traditional projects, a business analyst performs these tasks. Over the last few years Business analysts have started to become an integral part of every project – specially large and complex projects. Why? The reasons are two-fold:
- Incorrect/mis-understanding of customer requirements has been one of the top reasons for failed projects and Business analysts are entrusted with the responsibility of getting the requirements right.
- Technical teams may write better programs if they can understand – “Why something is required”. Business analysts achieve this using modeling and close collaboration with the technical teams.
The above tasks become even more relevant with the increasing size and complexity of the projects.
Let’s shift our focus back to Agile Projects, they are like any other software projects except that they are being executed using a different process. Don’t they need a business analyst? Definitely they do. The reasons mentioned above are strong enough to justify such a role.
Where does Agile BA fit in?
Having established the need for a Business Analyst role in Agile Projects, it’s really a matter of choosing how to make that happen. Teams may have different strategies as suits them but having a BA is important specially for complex and large projects.
One of the possible ways is to strengthen the role of a product owner. The product owners not only create the product backlog, they also manage it with the help of team members. On the other hand, they also refine it based on Sprint reviews with the customer. They do perform a part of business analyst's role already, though in Agile Projects, the product owners are not selected based on business analysis skills but more on managerial skills. That definitely needs a change. So, what can be done is:
- To choose a product owner who is a qualified Business Analyst
- To get him the stakeholders mandate to be the single point of contact for all the requirements or changes.
- To make him/her responsible for all backlog development and refinement.
As we are moving towards an era, where majority of the projects will be carried out the Agile way, let's also make sure that it's carried out the right way. Get an AGILE BA in your team.....