Can the business analyst replace the product owner and agile coach?

Dear Thomas
Thank you for participating in this exchange of views.
If we analyze well what the agile business analyst and the product owner do, we will see that there is a great redundancy in what they both do.
From the point of view of organizational management, taking into account the overlapping activities carried out by both functions, is the existence of both justified?

Hello Luis B.
yes business analyst can become Product Owner, and vice-versa.
Different perspective,
In complex and long projects, BA can backup PO, in weekly status meetings during vacations, like the days we are passing by. In case PO is in holidays, BA can back up their decisions, actions, etc. Note that BA activities can, and much care are, assured by the project manager

Dear Luis,

not sure what an agile BA is, only heard about BA, either from PMI or IIBA (which share similarities).

A BA would typically be involved in business problems and produce a business case with options for decision. Later the BA would support in testing and Go Live. BAs may work on different problems at a time. BAs understand the enterprise architecture and make sure that products follow it.

PO indeed is mostly seen as an agile role and they are in charge of one product.

I agree with Kiron. In theory, yes.
In practice, it depends. I tend to say yes.

A defining feature of the PO is accountability for decisions about the product. The official Scrum Guide goes so far as to say: "For Product Owners to succeed, the entire organization must respect their decisions". So the person suited to fulfill that role is likely to be determined by the model of accountability within the organization. It's also worth bearing in mind that BA's are often used to working within the limited-term scope of a project. Product owners typically require a wider remit: ongoing ownership of product development regardless of what projects (if any) are active at any one time.

The best agile teams are to some degree cross-functional and therefore the entire team can be responsible for business analysis. Designating one person alone as being responsible for both analysis and prioritisation doesn't seem very realistic if the team is larger than, say, three people.

Dear Thomas
You can consult more information at:
https://www.iiba.org/business-analysis-cer...agile-analysis/

Dear Thomas
You can consult more information at:
https://www.iiba.org/business-analysis-cer...agile-analysis/