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New Post 1/7/2009 10:46 AM
User is offline Adrian M.
764 posts
3rd Level Poster




Re: When does the role of a Business Analyst END in a project? 

MrCo,

You make a great point! 

Many organizations do opt for the business analyst to be involved with the project until the end - and that can be a good thing! 

The problem arises when the BA is allocated 100% until the end of the project.  This is because it is a waste of valuable resource to have a business analyst dedicated to the project even if there is not business analysis related activities for them to work on.  Of course, this also depends on the size of the project.

What worked for me in the past project was dependent on the type of the project, the size of the project, and the number of business analysts available.

SMALL PROJECTS: On smaller projects, there might only be one business analyst and he/she might be full time during the duration of the analysis phase.  After that we usually allocate a smaller capacity % during development and QA for the analyst to be able to answer and clarify requirements and specs for the Dev/QA teams.  In that case the business analyst might also begin work on other projects working on the Inception phase where they might not yet be needed full time.

LARGER PROJECTS: On larger projects, where multiple business analysts are needed, we would allocate analysts as needed: start with one or two analysts, ramp up to a larger team during the analysis team, and then scale back down to one or two analysts during the development, coding, and deployment.  Once the bulk of the analysis has been completed, it is also a good practice to perhaps not keep any analyst full time in a support role or they will get tired of it and leave.  I like to allocate at most 50% with the remaining capacity having the BA work on other projects in parallel.  This keeps up the moral, allows more analysts to get involved in more projects, reduces risk, and provides a method of utilizing the business analyst on other projects when there is no work for them to do while their previous project winds down.  Of course, the manager must have the type of mentality needed to look out for the good of the analyst or the team of analysts.

AGILE PROJECTS: On agile project teams, it is feasible that the analyst would be involved until the end of the project because of the iterative nature of agile methods.  In this case there would not be one big analysis phase followed by one big dev/qa phase.  As soon as the agile business analyst completes their analysis tasks for one iteration they would move to the requirements/featured identified for the next iteration.

What do you guys think?

- Adrian


Adrian Marchis
Business Analyst Community Blog - Post your thoughts!
 
New Post 1/8/2009 1:28 PM
User is offline bas
21 posts
www.uml2.ru
9th Level Poster


Re: When does the role of a Business Analyst END in a project? 

Adrian,

I agree with you in general. But I would like to emphasize the following:

1. In any project Analyst should work on Project during all its time of course he\she can be busy on part-time after his\her main work (depends on project size)

2. Analyst can work effectively on 1-2 projects simultaneously not more

3. Iterative nature has not only Agile, i.e. RUP has too. Of course Agile Analysts should work closely with all team members during all project

4. Don't forget Reqs can\will change and it's one more reason why Analyst should work until the end of the project

 
New Post 1/9/2009 2:27 AM
User is offline Craig Brown
560 posts
www.betterprojects.net
4th Level Poster




Re: When does the role of a Business Analyst END in a project? 
Modified By Craig Brown  on 1/9/2009 5:38:28 AM)

 kmajoos wrote

J,

This is not too hard.

1: Find out what your deliverables (documents etc) are; and, once you've delivered you're done. To manage progress find out what tasks are involved in delivering your deliverables, and once these tasks are done, you're done!

2: Any subsequent changes should come through your change management system; and when the Change Request is allocated to you its becomes just another deliverables. Start at 1.

warm regards,

K

This is an insufficient answer. If a BA is hired on to write requirements and then sent away their job is completed at the handover of the artefact.  In realiity projects who release the BA once the requirements are signed off usually run into trouble (unless they are small/simple initiaitives.)

A BA should be on the project through to (and preferable past) implementation.  I'd love to quote research on the topic, but can't recall any off the top of my head.  I do believe the journal of project management or PMI have some info on dedicated teams versus shared teams - dedicated gets better results.

 
New Post 1/9/2009 2:33 AM
User is offline Craig Brown
560 posts
www.betterprojects.net
4th Level Poster




Re: When does the role of a Business Analyst END in a project? 

 MrCo wrote

I do though feel that if i just focused on my deliverables (workshops,documents etc) i would have more time to take on other projects.
 

The quality of your work should be judged by the project outcomes, not by the delivrables you produce.  Thus, seeing a job thorugh to the end and troubleshooting along the way is more important than improving the quality of your documentation/deliverables.

 
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