What’s the Role of a Business Analyst in Agile?

The Business Analyst role in Agile is the deconstruction of business goals and strategies into user stories that are development-ready and prioritized to meet business expectations. Business Analysts are always ahead of the team and making sure they have enough development-ready user stories for the upcoming sprints. BAs are always working several weeks ahead of the team.

Tip of the Iceberg

The Business Analyst is taking the product roadmap and figuring out the stories needed for the next iteration or release of the application or product. They are deconstructing the high-level capabilities outlined in the product roadmap into development-ready user stories and prioritizing them in the backlog for development.

Think of it as an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg is the next release. Everyone on the team can see the tip of the iceberg above the water, while user stories targeted at later releases are below the water level and not as visible. Just like icebergs, a majority of the ice is below the waterline.

Strategic Visionary

Being strategic and seeing the bigger picture is an essential part of the role of a Business Analyst in Agile. This is about seeing how all of the puzzle pieces fit together over a long period - a few months as an example. Teams focus on the latest sprint and rarely see the larger picture.

The Business Analyst is strategic in helping the Product Manager figure out the order in which user stories need to be developed. It’s like building a Lego race car. All the pieces are there, but putting them together in the right order will produce the best results. We need to start with the undercarriage to build the base so that we can attach the axels with tires. There is a lot of sequencing of user stories to ensure the team can move forward in development as quickly as possible and avoid rework.

User Story Organization

The Business Analyst works with the Product Owner on the product roadmap, story map, prioritization, and stakeholder analysis. All of those techniques need to align with each other and meet business expectations. Not an easy thing to accomplish at the same time you are trying to manage changes to expectations and priorities. As things change strategically, the Business Analyst will need to ensure they don’t derail the team or cause rework (if possible). Change may cause rework, but when held to a minimum, it will maximize the team output.