Rethinking the Role of Business Analysts

    Why to have Business Analysis professionals, Business System Analysts, in particular?

    Today we'll figure out the role of a Business System Analyst in Waterfall environment and where should he be a good fit in an Agile (in particular Scrum) environment. Here are a few answers for the question above:

• Developers can't elicit requirements;
• Stakeholders can't model and document their own requirements;
• An organization needs analysis experts.

    Let's figure out now the traditional activities of a Business Systems Analyst:

• Scope the system;
• Translate business needs;
• Translate technical issues;
• Model and document;
• Act as a communication broker;
• Political mentor;
• Test and validation;
• Represent stakeholders.

    In an Agile environment (in particular Scrum) we can (re)think a Business Analyst as a Product Owner, since:

• Product owners bridge the communication between the team and their stakeholders;
• Product owners are empowered;
• Product owners facilitate communication;
• Product owners prefer direct means of communication;
• Product owners need many business analysis skills.

    Also, as I previously mentioned in a previous article, a Business Analyst already works in an Agile way, even if he acts in a Waterfall environment, due to his human related contributions. This is another reason to rethink the Business Analyst from Waterfall as a Product Owner in Scrum (Agile).

For more details on these thoughts and even more, please read this article.