Introduction
Most BAs have experience of traditional Waterfall development. Within the Waterfall framework there are the following sequential phases:
-> Analysis
-> Design
-> Development
-> Testing
-> Delivery
Waterfall projects kick-off with an “Analysis” phase. This is designed to assess the problem and scope out a solution (as-is and to-be analysis). The project will then progress through the remaining discrete phases – until the product is delivered.
In the same way that the “Design” phase had designers, the “Testing” phase had testers, the “Analysis” phases had analysts (BAs).
After working on a number of Waterfall projects – I noticed that 2 types of BA evolved.
TYPE A (“Specialists”/”Purists”)
• These individuals were lucky enough to work in a mature BA practice. The analyst role was well established – BA deliverables were often standardised (e.g. BRD templates/peer review)
• They focused primarily on the “Analysis” phase of a project – in the same way that designers focused on the “Design” phase
• When the “Analysis” phase was complete – they moved onto another project. It wasn’t uncommon for a BA to work on multiple projects/workstreams simultaneously
TYPE B (“Generalists”)
• These individuals almost had to define their own roles. They worked in organisations where the BA role/responsibilities weren’t fully understood
• BAs were treated as generalists. They were often asked to “do a bit of everything”
• Their deliverables stretched across the project lifecycle and included: requirement specs (“Analysis” phase), wireframes/low fidelity mock-ups (“Design” phase), clarifying queries from the dev team (“Development” phase), testing the product (“Testing” phase) and creating user guides/training end-users (“Delivery” phase)
• These individuals worked on individual projects – and were often influential
How can these 2 types transition into Agile?
TYPE A (”Specialists”/“Purists”)
• These individuals can continue to focus on specifying new features (i.e. requirements/acceptance criteria). In order to maintain a purist approach they will need to work 1 Sprint ahead of the developers. Most of the work they produce will go into the following development Sprint
• Career progression -> Senior BA role
TYPE B (“Generalists”)
• These individuals can continue to focus on a diverse range of deliverables: they can produce requirement specifications, provide design feedback, facilitate product planning, support development and perform ad-hoc testing. In order to provide the developers with a constant backlog of work – they will need to spend 50% of their time on the current Sprint and 50% of their time on the upcoming Sprint.
• Career progression -> Product Owner (possibly also Scrum Master role)
Thoughts/feedback?
What is your opinion? Are there TYPE As and TYPE Bs? Where do they fit in an Agile world?
Agile Analyst 
Reblogged this on Sutoprise Avenue, A SutoCom Source.