The Agile Business Analyst: Working Toward Product Ownership

  Agile   Business Analysis   Requirements Management  

You’re a hardworking, successful business analyst (BA), and have just been told your organization is “going agile.” Perhaps you’ve heard a few details about the types of roles involved in an agile development environment, but nothing that really depicts how a BA fits into this new atmosphere. So what does this shift in your organization mean for you?

The good news is business analysis still plays a key role in agile projects--and it deals directly with Product Ownership. The concept of product ownership is the shared and cooperative responsibilities between a product owner (PO), a BA and others critical to delivering the right product. Business analysis must occur in every project, whether it is done by the PO, BA or someone else. Since BAs have specialized skills and experience; they are logical candidates to provide requirements management work on agile projects.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Product Owner: The product owner represents the needs of the business and has a responsibility to make sure the business value is delivered by the project.
• Business Analyst:The business analyst--with specialized skills in requirements analysis and management, and a close working relationship with the agile delivery team--also ensures requirements map back to the business value, and that the entire agile team understands that business value.
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