The Role of a Business Analyst in a Scrum Team
With the rise in popularity of Agile architectures over the past decade, many industries, including software manufacturing, have adopted Agile in their businesses. As companies embrace the Agile way of working, there have been many benefits in terms of revenue, employee and customer satisfaction, the smooth running of product development processes, and the empowerment of organizational members. When companies used the traditional methodology, many of these benefits were not visible, and there were also many issues regarding time-to-market, employee satisfaction, and creativity. Thus, the transition of many companies from traditional to agile methodology has not only eliminated the problems caused in the usual way, but also improved the organization due to the benefits that it offers.
There are many roles in traditional software methodology that are not similar to those in the Agile sector. Many roles, such as the product manager, who had full responsibility for product development, have moved to the developer, where responsibility and ownership of the project is shared equally among team members. Many company members often ask questions about the role of a business analyst in a Scrum team and what the possible results of hiring one are. In such cases, it is important to understand what exactly the role of the business analyst in the Scrum team is, so that the business analyst, as well as all employees of the organization, clearly understand their responsibilities in the Agile team.
What is a business analyst?
Business Analysts are smart, deeply oriented professionals who are high performers and are empowered to build strong relationships and a deep understanding of the business in a way that delivers maximum value to the organization. Business analysts are responsible for conducting seminars and meetings, which provide a platform for members of the organization to communicate their ideas and concepts, such as detailed workflows.
The Business Analyst, also called the BA, plays an extremely important and significant role in the Scrum team, although it is not officially defined in the Scrum framework. They act as a link between the product owner/customer and the technical IT team. The main role of the BA is to make an assessment of the technical processes of the product and explain it to the developer. They don’t run business processes like a product owner would, but they play an important role in doing so. The role of the business analyst is not defined and can vary greatly. The BA has specific responsibilities and is an integral part of the Scrum team.
Responsibilities of a Business Analyst
The Business Analyst on the Scrum team has a number of responsibilities. Among them are the following:
Reviewing user stories created by the product owner to ensure they meet acceptance criteria. The BA must make sure that all business rules are respected and that the user story functionality meets the requirements.
Anticipating and analyzing customer needs to find solutions to solve their problems.
Product backlog organization based on priorities provided by the product owner.
Create user stories as required and ensure they meet acceptance criteria. (Must be done if not done by the product owner).
Proposing requirements or improving them, while working with the product owner and stakeholders (stakeholders), while fully understanding their scope.
The business analyst plays an important role in the brainstorming sessions for the upcoming sprint backlog. Sometimes a business analyst is required to approve the implementation of a product increment because they understand all the technical capabilities associated with it. They also help the developer understand the requirements for the product. The Business Analyst also works closely with the Quality Analyst and analyzes test coverage, converts real use cases into test cases, provides ideas and explanations for complex functionality text, etc. The Business Analyst’s responsibilities also include scheduling meetings to assist the team in assessments. , giving them a clear view of dependency, level of complexity, and product flow. The business analyst is always learning new market trends and continues to innovate while staying up-to-date with the business for which the product was created.
What should be the place of a business analyst in a Scrum team?
The business analyst does not have a specific permanent role in an Agile environment. Their responsibilities are dynamic and adjust according to the environment in which they work and the situation they are dealing with. Here are a few characteristics and work models of a business analyst in any organization that describe how a BA will fit into a Scrum team.
Business Analyst as Product Owner
In smaller companies, depending on the customer and enterprise, business analysts often fill the role of product owner. They become an intermediary between the team and stakeholders, being the contact person for all questions that arise regarding the product being developed. The BA must understand the requirements of the stakeholders and draw up a business development plan. They create user stories, documents, prioritize and help the team explore the product. BAs are required to be directly present in the company, as when moving to a different time zone, a communication gap may form.
The BA can act as a product owner by being readily available and owning the product on behalf of the stakeholders/customers. They must make appropriate decisions, learn new skills, and develop technical knowledge about the product being developed. If the company has a larger staff and is engaged in complex projects, it is advisable to hire two different specialists. However, for lighter projects, having a product owner is an added benefit because the business analyst has a good understanding of the product and can agree on scope and prioritize user stories.
Business analyst as a team member
A business analyst is someone who has excellent knowledge of the technical process of product development. A business analyst acting as a member of the team will help the developer to understand the product well and discuss new ideas for creating a product increment. The technical team feels more comfortable informing them about the difficulties they face in the process of work. It is easier for a team to collaborate with a person who is open to clarification and discussion of the technical side of the product. The BA can also help the team build the product backlog when the product owner is not available.
As members of the team, the Scrum business analyst can also work closely with the QA team to verify analysis and coverage, considered use cases, any hidden requirements, and dependencies or effects. The business analyst and developer can elaborate on the acceptance criteria and explain what is expected of them. If the team needs more information, they can provide it and help them gain certainty about the work being done. Creating Warframe Documents, Flow Documents, etc. can also help the team understand the developer’s product requirements.
In complex projects with multiple modules distributed across teams, having the same business analyst for multiple teams is an advantage. When the same business analyst works on different teams, he is able to think through the interaction of modules, i.e. how new features or updates will affect other modules. Therefore, companies should always consider this aspect of hiring a business analyst, instead of the usual approach to user stories or acceptance criteria.
Why is a business analyst important in a Scrum team?
The business analyst plays a critical role in the success of any Scrum project. His involvement with the project starts with understanding the customer’s needs and continues through to the sprint demo. The Scrum Business Analyst is the developer’s main point of contact when they encounter any obstacles in the process of creating a project. The importance of Scrum business analysts is increasing, especially in the early stages of a new project and when implementing large-scale projects.
The Product Owner does not always have a technical background, so the role of the Business Analyst is to understand the product requirements and write descriptions, acceptance criteria, and circuit diagrams that can be implemented by the technical team. While a Product Owner can write descriptions and a document in 2-3 lines in simple words and acceptance criteria in 1 line, the business analyst must dig deeper and get the team to better understand the user stories and specifications. In some other cases, product owners may write long user stories that need to be broken down by the BA to prioritize according to the sprint.
One example to understand the importance of business analysts is when there is no business analyst on the team and the product owner has created a user story such as “As a customer of an e-commerce website, I would like to do all of these things with my account.” And the specifications are:
The client must be able to log in.
The customer can view different categories of electronic equipment on different pages.
The customer must be able to pay the bill by linking their credit and debit card.
Such a user story will contain various milestones and cannot be completed in one go. Therefore, the Scrum Business Analyst should break it down, otherwise things will get worse for the developer by not presenting the proper flowcharts and UI screens. The result will be a failed sprint and a failed project. Therefore, if the product owner is not a qualified business analyst, the company is strongly encouraged to hire such a specialist to its team.
Conclusion
The Scrum Business Analyst is a highly effective professional who understands the technical side of the product development process. They help in various roles and carry more responsibilities than other members of the Scrum team. A business analyst can act as a product owner in many companies, depending on the size and nature of the project and the size of the organization. They are excellent professionals that the developer contacts to discuss the challenges the team faces during the design process. They also make excellent members of the Scrum team as they have excellent knowledge of the technical side of products. Having the same Business Analyst working on multiple teams at the same time can also be an added benefit, as they can interact with different features and updates and analyze the reliability of the product. Thus, the business analyst is an integral part of any Scrum team and an essential contributor to the success of any project.
We invite everyone to an open session. “Fixing Requirements with Use Case”, which will be held as part of the “System Analyst” specialization. In this lesson we will learn:
how to describe the interaction between the Actor and the System;
how to display all processes and all Actors and not get confused;
who in the team will thank you for the Use Case;
how to choose between Use Case and User Story.
Also come to tomorrow’s lesson “Choosing a technology for API”. In the lesson, we will see how you can work with classic REST and SOAP, we will try to replace them with gRPC and GraphQL. And also we will analyze several cases and decide in which of them which technology is better to apply. You can sign up on the online course page “Systems Analyst. Advanced”.
