What can a BA do in a Scrum Team?

Although no BA role is not mentioned in the Scrum Guide, a BA can add immense value to a Scrum Team making them a vital member of the team

I remember when I first came across the Scrum guide I eagerly looked for what a BA does and then to my surprise there was no BA listed in the Scrum team. Delving deeper helped me to understand that there is a role for the BA no doubt, the BA is very much part of the development team.

So what can a BA do in scrum or any Agile team? Lots! What I found from my experience is that the waterfall skills a BA has are transferrable. Remember as BAs we gather requirements and break these down for better understanding. We make use of artefacts to help stakeholders make decisions. In Agile you can still do this. There are stakeholders to build relationships with and you will continue to make use of investigation techniques such as interviewing, questionnaires, process mapping, mind maps, rich pictures, running workshops etc. However, you no longer have months to compile thick requirement catalogues and hold lengthy walkthrough sessions!

Requirements move from catalogues to cards. Remember in the catalogue where you managed your requirements in Levels? well, similar thing in Agile but now you will be working with themes, features, epics and user stories. With user stories you start looking at the lower level details of the requirement.

The BA will continue to be team player but now even more so. You will be having numerous daily conversations. If a day goes by with no conversation then something is not right! The BA has a strong relationship with the Product Owner to help shape/prioritise the product backlog, with the Tech Lead, Dev, Tester to break down the user stories and gain better understanding, the Scrum Master to discuss sprint planning, closing sprints, velocity charts etc.

I have mentioned how the BA becomes part of the development team. But note in some organisation a BA may take up the Product Owner role. There is different Product Owner roles some our outer facing and some are inner facing, one for another blog. Some BAs also move into the Scum Master role, making use of their facilitation and communication skills.

I have found the transition from waterfall to Agile for a BA to be fun. However, can any waterfall BA become an Agile BA? ............subscribe for the blog update!