Category: Business Analyst Roles and Responsibilities

Who is Business Analyst and Business Analyst Roles and Responsibilities

what is a product owner in agile?

what is a product owner in agile?

Product owner plays important role in Scrum Team,

Below are Scrum Roles:

  1. Product Owner(PO): He will decide what needs to done in this sprint/project and he is the responsible for managing the product backlog. He will be the responsible person for product like how product should be and all. He interacts with Business Analysts and Customers. This role may be played by BA or any person who is having strong knowledge on product and who works with end users for a long time. Depends on the project client also may play this role.
  • Scrum Master   (SM) : He will monitor the performance of the team within the sprint. Team will raise all their concerns and issues to scrum master. He is responsible to provide solutions to the team. He will interact with the stake holders to address the issues and concerns raised by the team. This role can be played by any person in team usually Business Analyst will play this role.
  • Development Team( Cross functional team who are self organized)

what is a product owner in agile

What is a product owner in Agile?

Let us discuss and observe here about Product Owner.

Main responsibility of the Product Owner in Scrum is to build a successful product. Product owner is the single person to take all product related decisions.

To build successful products, product owner does the following.

  1. Define product vision and goal.
  2. Strategy to increase ROI based on scope, time and budget (Return On Investment).
  3. Creates roadmaps, strategy and release plans.
  4. Manage ROI, Priorities, Product backlog, prioritizing product backlog.
  5. Release planning and goal.
  6. Maintain release burn down.
  7. Engage Stakeholders and scrum teams.
  8. Define requirements and acceptance criteria.
  9. Participates in all scrum activities.
  10. Speaking to teams to provide clarity on work and business requirements.
  11. Write requirements in the form of user stories and groom them with the teams.
  12. Understand the business value and deliver value, communicate the requirements to team clearly.
  13. Accept, reject, and share feedback comments towards building successful product.
  14. Maintain transparency on release plan, scope and forecast.
  15. Product owner should be balanced personality who can give inputs on product, business, value and domain. A person with only understand technical expertise might not be an effective Product Owner.

I feel it will help to understand What is a product owner in agile and what product owner does in project.

Let us observe  more on what is a product owner in agile

and FAQ’s

For product Owner Certification

FAQ’S

What is the difference between a product owner and a product manager?

To break it down: The product manager discovers what users need, prioritizes what to build next, and rallies the team around a product roadmap. The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product by creating and managing the product backlog.

Is product owner a job title?

Product Owner is a role you play in an Agile team, whereas a Product Manager is the job title of someone responsible for a product and its outcome on the customer and the business. Now a lot of Product Owners out there are great Product Managers, and they should just change their title.

How do you become a product owner?

Build Shared Understanding
Get help from someone on your team. This often results in the Product Manager, Product Owner, and Business Analyst model of product ownership.
Find a good book focused on analysis techniques applied with an agile mindset. …
Get some training on analysis techniques.

Who does a product owner report to?

The product owner reports to stakeholders. The scrum.org page about product owners describes how this person is the interface between the scrum team and the rest of the world. Scrum doesn’t mention managers, project leads, etc. – those are all subsumed under the term “stakeholder”.

Is Product Manager higher than product owner?

In bigger companies, the product manager stands a level higher than the product owner and serves as a connector between the house and the outside world. This is why it’s sometimes so hard to draw a line between the two positions or jobs.

Is Product Owner same as project manager?

All in all a Product Owner is a Project Manager who is responsible for the project success and project environment. But at the same time, he delegated daily management of the project team to a Scrum Master.

Who can be a product owner?

The Scrum product owner is typically a project’s key stakeholder. Part of the product owner responsibilities is to have a vision of what he or she wishes to build, and convey that vision to the scrum team. This is key to successfully starting any agile software development project.

What is a SCRUM Development Team?

Scrum Development Team

The scrum development team plays important role in Scrum Team,

Below are Scrum Roles:

  1. Product Owner(PO): 

    He will decide what needs to done in this sprint/project and he is the responsible for managing the product backlog. He will be the responsible person for product like how product should be and all. He interacts with Business Analysts and Customers. This role may be played by BA or any person who is having strong knowledge on product and who works with end users for a long time. Depends on the project client also may play this role.

  2. Scrum Master   (SM) :He will monitor the performance of the team within the sprint. Team will raise all their concerns and issues to scrum master. He is responsible to provide solutions to the team. He will interact with the stake holders to address the issues and concerns raised by the team. This role can be played by any person in team usually Business Analyst will play this role.
  3. Development Team( Cross functional team who are self organized)

Let us discuss and observe here about Scrum Development Team.

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And Development Team Responsibilities:

Develop team is a group of people. Development team work together to reach the goal or complete the agreed tasks within committed time. Target of the development team is to build or develop the product with high quality. To achieve this team coordinates and communicates with each other, i.e how to develop the product and what are the things to be taken care to release the successful product.

Self organize to do work and plan. When product owner tells”what” needs to be done, then development team discuss among them and decides “how” to achieve it.

Scrum development is cross functional. So that there is maximum effectiveness in reaching the goal and minimum dependencies on external. Usually Scrum development team will have 5 to 9 members depends on the project.

Scrum development team work collaboratively to design architecture, features incrementally and iteratively.

Scrum development team is cross functional, team has the required skills, required to develop the product within the team.

Scrum development team work collaboratively, share responsibility, and accountable for the successful delivery of the product which is assigned by product owner. Scrum development team completely responsible and accountable for the quality of the product.

Once dev. team finalized, team don’t change during sprint or afterwards. Any changes shall brink back them to forming stage and performance issues.

The dev. team has authority to manage their own work. This enables them to improve their efficiency and effectiveness.

Every team member has the same level of authority regardless of their contributions and they all share in the project’s accountability.

Even though the Product Owner is responsible for the product backlog, the dev. team refines the tasks in the product backlog as a team.

The dev. team has full control over the tasks in the product backlog and how many tasks they are assigned in a sprint.

They build in extra time for collaboration and knowledge sharing into the sprint. This helps support team bonding, knowledge sharing and gives them time to resolve any unexpected issues.

They regularly collaborate with the Product Owner and the Scrum Master to ensure that they are on the right track.

They continuously deliver features at the end of every sprint to ensure that there is a working product.

They review the product with the Scrum team and get feedback which they incorporate into the next sprint.

They ensure that the scrum board is updated to reflect what they are working on and what has been “done”.

Scrum Team = Product Owner + Scrum Master + Development Team (Project resources grouped as Scrum teams which comprises of BA, Developers, Testers)

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FAQS

Who is on the scrum team development team member?

These are as follows: It’s a cross-functional team, i.e., it includes UI/UX designers, programmers, architects, business analysts, testers, etc. A scrum development team size is typically between five to seven members. The best scrum teams are closely-knit and work together on a regular basis, preferably full-time.

Is development team member a role in Scrum?

So, that means the ‘developer‘ role in Scrum means a team member who has the right skills, as part of the team to do the work. The development team should be able to self-organize so they can make decisions to get work done. … The development team’s responsibilities include: Delivering the work through the sprint.

How many developers are there in a scrum team?

According to the Scrum Guide, the development team should be between three and nine people and should have all the skills necessary to deliver product increments. The number of developers is usually dictated by the needs of the product and usually is between two and five developers in a scrum team.

How do you create a scrum team?

Establish individual members expectations. …
Provide boundaries. …
Enable the team to self-organise. …
Provide channels for direct communication with the product owner. …
Don’t commit to work on the team’s behalf.

What is the best size for a scrum team?

The ideal size for a development is between 3 and 9 people, not including the ScrumMaster and product owner. Any smaller and the team couldn’t accomplish enough each sprint. Any larger and communication becomes complex and cumbersome.

What is difference between Scrum and agile?

Agile is a continuous iteration of development and testing in the software development process whereas Scrum is an Agile process to focus on delivering the business value in the shortest time. Agile methodology delivers the software on a regular basis for feedback while Scrum delivers the software after each sprint.

Why is it called Scrum?

The software development term scrum was first used in a 1986 paper titled “The New New Product Development Game”. The term is borrowed from rugby, where a scrum is a formation of players. The term scrum was chosen by the paper’s authors because it emphasizes teamwork.

What is UAT (User Acceptance Test)?

What is UAT : In this article let us understand what is UAT and what is the role of Business Analyst during UAT phase. As we discussed in previous articles, Business Analyst is responsible for end to end to project execution.

What is UAT (User Acceptance Test)?
What is UAT

UAT (User Acceptance Test)

Business Analyst suppose not to actively participate in testing part but, Business Analyst do support and perform testing.

What are User Acceptance Tests or what is uat?

User Acceptance Test is very important. Usually client will do the UAT. Once development completed and all approvals are in place, then we will release changes to client for Testing. Before releasing to client, we will do the end to end testing (Testing Team/QA Team).

Before planning for production movement, we will release to client for testing, client will do the end to end testing, and usually End users will do the UAT. As they have good knowledge on functionality, they will do the UAT.

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What is the Role of Business Analyst in UAT(User Acceptance Test)?

Business Analyst supports to End users during UAT, if any issues are observations raised by the client, then they will inform to the Business Analyst, Business Analyst is the person to understand the issues are observations raised by the client. Then Business Analyst will coordinate with the respective teams to fix the issues.

If any understanding gaps then Business Analyst will explain to the End users, what is the existing functionality and what changes we deployed, so that they can test without deviations, or else we deploy something and client test something else and raise as a Bugs or defects. It may lead to project delay and client escalation due to misunderstanding.

Business Analyst responsibility is to support to client during the UAT and get signoff from the client, once we received signoff (Approval) from the client then we will deploy the changes into production environment.

Why UAT (User Acceptance Test) is required and important?

As we discussed earlier, client will do the UAT testing and Business Analyst supports to complete the UAT successfully.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) are tests that are usually conducted by the end user to verify that the product is working as expected. It is used to confirm if the product meets both the requirements and expectations of the stakeholders.

These tests are usually performed to capture product before it is deployed to the production environment.

The user acceptance tests are usually done in an environment that is almost identical to the final production environment.

They are one of the final tests that are conducted after all other tests such as the functional, integration and system tests are done.

As client (End Users) is performing the UAT, they can identify the application or functional issues/bugs.  As soon as we receive issue tracker or bug tracker from the client, we will start work on fixing the bugs. This helps us to deploy the product in production environment with ‘0’ errors or less errors. 

And we can make client happy as there is no issues or less issues in production environment.

If a defective product is prematurely deployed, it can severely damage an organization and the cost of fixing the incurred damages can sometimes outweigh the value to be gained from the deploying that product.

So it is important that the user acceptance tests are conducted before the product is deployed.

How are the User Acceptance Tests conducted?

The UAT is usually performed by the users who are going to use the final product, as they have knowledge and idea on product requirements and understand the business process so they are the best qualified resource to identify the application or functional issues with the finished product.

What steps to be taken care before deploying to UAT?

  1. Once the product is ready for the user acceptance tests, the test scenarios and test cases should be created. Sometimes Business Analyst may create the Test cases, it depends on the organization.
  2. The test scenarios should be created based on the requirements. If the project is Agile, then the created user stories can be used to create the acceptance testing scenarios.
  3. Once Test cases and test scenarios are in place, then we can release to client for testing.
  4. Before releasing to client we should ensure all the approvals are in place and testing and QA completed from our end.
  5. Then client starts the user acceptance tests and reports if any issues with the product.
  6. The identified issues should be reviewed and any defects should be fixed from our end. If any understanding issue or process gaps then we need to schedule meeting with the stake holders and explain to them.
  7. Once issues or bugs fixed from our end then again user acceptance tests should be rescheduled.
  8. The users should retest the product.
  9. The process continues until the product passes the tests at an acceptable level and we receive the signoff from the client. Without client signoff we can’t move any changes to production environment.
  10. Sometimes we will move the working product to production environment if the raised issues or bugs are not show stopper. It depends on the client.

What are the things to be taken care as a Business Analyst to complete the UAT successfully?

  1. Before client performing the UAT, schedule a meeting or session with the client and explain about developed product, like how it works and what are the requirements covered and how the solution has been provided to the requirements, so that client or end user can test the product in proper way.
  2. Identify the right testers: stakeholder analysis is an important part of the UAT’s because if the wrong people are invited to test the product, the product might not be properly tested and this could lead to costly mistakes. Usually client will assign the end users who needs to test the application, get in touch with the end users and explain and make them to understand the product before starting testing and before they raise as defect or bug.
  3. Business Analyst should have clear idea on test cases and test scenarios and what is the functionality of the product, so that it is easy to explain the product features and clarify the end user doubts.
  4. Clarify the test results: the UAT results might include the identification of some product defects and change requests. The report might require some clarifications, so the business analyst would need to follow up with the end users to fully understand the UAT results.

I hope this help you to understand what is uat and what are user acceptance tests. And why Business Analyst  should have knowledge on what is UAT?

What is User Acceptance Testing (UAT)?

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FAQS:

What is UAT testing?

User acceptance testing (UAT) is the last phase of the software testing process. During UAT, actual software users test the software to make sure it can handle required tasks in real-world scenarios, according to specifications.

What UAT means?

user acceptance testing

Short for user acceptance testing, typically the final phase in a software development process in which the software is given to the intended audience to be tested for functionality. … UAT also is called beta testing, end-user testing or application testing.

How is UAT performed?

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is a type of testing performed by the end user or the client to verify/accept the software system before moving the software application to the production environment. UAT is done in the final phase of testing after functional, integration and system testing is done.

Who should perform UAT testing?

User Acceptance Testing (UAT), also known as beta or end-user testing, is defined as testing the software by the user or client to determine whether it can be accepted or not. This is the final testing performed once the functional, system and regression testing are completed.

What is the purpose of UAT?

User acceptance testing (UAT) is the last phase of the software testing process. … The goal of User Acceptance Testing is to assess if the system can support day-to-day business and user scenarios and ensure the system is sufficient and correct for business usage.

What happens during UAT?

User acceptance testing (UAT) is the last phase of the software testing process. During UAT, actual software users test the software to make sure it can handle required tasks in real-world scenarios, according to specifications.

Who prepares UAT test cases?

When it comes to UAT, often the UAT is composed of Business Analysts and selected end-users who will perform the actual UA testing. But QA, who have an overall responsibility to ensure the application/product works as required, should be part of the process for test definition.

What is UAT sign off?

UAT Sign–off: When all defects are resolved, the UAT team formally accepts (or recommends acceptance to the project manager) the software application as developed. The approval shows that the application meets user requirements and is deployable.

What is UAT full form?

Short for user acceptance testing, typically the final phase in a software development process in which the software is given to the intended audience to be tested for functionality. … UAT also is called beta testing, end-user testing or application testing.

What is the difference between QA and UAT testing?

Difference Between QA and UAT Testing. … The major difference between both of these is the fact that quality assurance ensures that the software is error-free, whereas user acceptance testing ensures that the software is giving the users just the experience and usability that they were looking for.

How is UAT done in agile?

Lets have each of them one by one: Agile UAT begins with user stories which includes both story and acceptance criteria. … In last, UAT involves a dedicated sprint to perform overall user acceptance test and fixing discovered defects. It should be done by Product Owner along with the subject matter experts.

What are the primary objectives of UAT?

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
The aim of User Acceptance Testing (UAT testing), is to receive feedback on the software from real customers. Thus, as a rule, UAT is conducted by people selected from the target audience. These conditions are the closest real-world usage of the product.

What is Stand up Meeting (Daily Scrum)?

How to Conduct Stand Up Meetings?

Let us discuss about Stand Up Meeting or daily stand up meetings.

What is stand up Meeting

Stand up meetings are an important event that is used in the Scrum methodology. Their primary purpose is to keep the Scrum team updated on the team’s progress.

The stands up meetings are usually held daily and they are allotted short time frames i.e. 15 minutes or less.

What is a Stand Up Meeting?

A stand-up meeting is a short meeting that is held on daily basis.  Usually this meeting will happen when day starts.  This is very short meeting and usually it takes 15 minutes. Due to its short time frame, these meeting are usually held with the team standing up, hence the name – Stand Up Meeting.

The purpose of the meeting is to update the status of the assigned user stories or tasks,  like finished, in progress, or about to be started. All the teams join in these meetings. They will raise their concerns if they have any, then Scrum Master will note down and coordinate with concerned teams if there is any dependency on other teams and try to provide the solution.

So this meeting is to understand the status of User Stories.

How to conduct  Stand Up Meetings?

The stand up meeting is to be brief and focused on the team’s progress. The Scrum Master is responsible for conducting the meeting so they should ensure that they keep the meeting straight to the point. No discussions will be allowed during this meeting. Only team members will update the status on the assigned user stories.

The Scrum Master should start planning the stand up meeting by choosing a convenient location and meeting time for all the team members.  Usually these meetings held on the same place and same time.

If we have team in different locations and team is working on different time zones, ensure that you pick a time when they would all be in to work.

Once the meeting is scheduled, the Scrum Master should ensure that the team stays focused by answering the below questions:

  1. What did you do yesterday?
  2. What will you do today?
  3. Is there any impediment, that is slowing or stopping you?

All the team members should ensure that they attend the meeting on time. So that time will not be wasted and it shows that they are respecting team member’s time.

Scrum Master should ensure all the team members must participate in meeting and sufficient time allocated to each team member to update the status.

When the team members are discussing their progress, they might get carried away and want to discuss details but the Scrum Master should try to keep them on track by asking them to take it “Offline”.

Taking it “Offline” means that the team member should schedule another meeting with the appropriate team members to discuss their encountered issues in more detail. Scrum Master is responsible to schedule the meeting.

While this might discourage some of the team members, the Scrum Master should remind them that the Stand Up meeting is a short one and other team members also have to provide their updates.

It is also called as Daily Scrum meeting or Daily stand up Meeting

This is also called as Daily Meeting, Daily Status Meeting, Daily Status update Meeting, Daily Scrum Meeting or Status call..

FAQ’s

What is the purpose of daily standup meeting?

Daily Scrums improve communications, eliminate other meetings, identify impediments to development for removal, highlight and promote quick decision-making, and improve the Development Team’s level of knowledge. This is a key inspect and adapt meeting.

What does stand up meeting mean?

A stand–up meeting (or simply “stand–up“) is a meeting in which attendees typically participate while standing. The discomfort of standing for long periods is intended to keep the meetings short.

How do you do a stand up meeting?

7 Rules for Effective Stand-Up Meetings
Only meet when necessary. One common employee complaint is that many meetings could easily be replaced by an email. …
Keep it short and sweet. At it’s core, a stand-up meeting is brief. …
Establish a goal. …
Maintain structure. …
Make remote employees feel like they’re there. …
Give everyone a chance to talk. …
Don’t skip follow-up.

What happens in a stand up meeting?

A stand–up meeting is a short meeting between a team that is held on foot. The goal is to go over important tasks that have been finished, are in progress, or are about to be started. It is also known as daily stand–up or daily Kanban to teams practicing the Kanban method, due to the recurring cadence of the meeting.

What happens in daily standup meeting?

Daily Scrums improve communications, eliminate other meetings, identify impediments to development for removal, highlight and promote quick decision-making, and improve the Development Team’s level of knowledge. This is a key inspect and adapt meeting.

What are the three questions asked in daily standup call?

What did you do yesterday?
What will you do today?
Are there any impediments in your way?

What are the benefits of daily standup meeting in agile?

Listed below are few benefits of having daily scrum meeting:
Let’s the team to be in sync on how things are going.
Allows for corrections in the sprint.
Building trust between team members.
Encouraging personal planning.
High visibility of progress.
Self-organization in team.

How do I start a daily standup meeting?

Here are some effective tips for a successful daily standup meeting:
15 minutes or less. …
Be on time! …
Keep the team engaged. …
Put discovered problems on hold. …
Keep it fun! Start every standup meeting with a joke, meme, gif, comic, quote, etc. …
Say ‘thank you’. …
Hold your daily standup meeting around the task board.

Why is it important to meet every day for daily stand up?

The main aim of a stand–up meeting is to distribute relevant and important information and/or to make quick decisions. They are also used to make major strategic decisions and above all, they offer a chance to “go around the room” and get everyone to present their results from the day before.

How to Become a Business Analyst in IT field

How to Become a Business Analyst

Here whatever I mentioned is based on my own experience; I feel it may help to someone who are preparing for BA and trying to get job as a Business Analyst.

A BA is in charge of understanding a business’s changing needs, and providing technological solutions to improve its processes and systems. Thus, a business analyst is often thought of as the link between the business and IT departments.

Let us discuss in-detail below to understand how to become a BA and what are the skills needed to prove as a BA. 

How to Become a Business Analyst

How to become a Business Analyst

Once we got information from our friends or colleagues related to BA career and if we decided to become a Business Analyst, then first question in our mind is how to become a Business Analyst.

Then we start discussing or inquiring more about BA and start thinking about “How to become a Business Analyst and what skills needed to become a BA. Here I am trying to give some inputs which may answer to your question “How to become a Business Analyst” 

Identify Skills:

Before deciding to become BA first identify what are the skills needed to become a BA and what BA will do on daily basis.  Most of the people may think communication is very important to become BA that is partially true. Communication means not only speaking in English, as s BA we should know what to speak and what not to speak and how to convince the stakeholders. Once you identify the skills, analyze yourself whether you are suitable for this position or not. Once you decided that you are suitable for this position then start improving skills to become BA.

How to identify Skills :

Now a days we can get more BA blogs and videos online, we can get to know by reading BA blogs and watching some videos on YouTube.

What are the skills needed to become a Business Analyst

Develop Your Knowledge as a Business Analyst: 

Once you decided that you are suitable for this position then start improving skills to become a Business Analyst by reading Business Analyst related blogs and by watching videos. And you can discuss with your seniors who can help you to build your career as a BA Start understand,  how software application will be developed and what challenges team faced during the development of the Project. And start thinking as a BA, if you are in that situation as a BA then how you will react and you will resolve the issues are problems.

What BA does on his/her day to day life
Role of BA in a Project

Develop your Domain Knowledge:

Domain knowledge is very important for BA Example for Domain Knowledge: Banking, Insurance, Finance, Healthcare, Telecom etc… Domain knowledge will help you to understand client requirements easily. You may think that as a fresher how I can get Domain Knowledge. Start discussing with your friends and seniors who are working on multiple domains and multiple organizations. Try to understanding by them how bank will work and how IT Company will work. Most of the companies will not expect Domain knowledge if you are attending interview as a Fresher, but it is good to have some knowledge.

What is Domain Knowledge

What is domain knowledge and why domain knowledge is important for BA

Practice BA Tools: 

BA will use some prototyping tools to capture the requirements.  Stake holders can understand by seeing the prototypes what is the requirement and what client is expecting by this requirement.

What are the tools used by BA
Documents prepared by the BA during the SDLC

Prepare Resume:

Once you are confident then start preparing the resume and start attending to interviews. And ensure your resume should not be a template; change the resume as per the job description and company requirement.  Before attending to any interview read the job description carefully and prepares yourself what interviewer is expecting from you and how to answer to him.

Don’t worry and don’t disappoint if you not answered any question, note down the questions which you not answered and prepare well for those. Don’t lose your confidence and keep attending the interviews.

Read Job Description of BA

Start Attending the Interviews:

Note down the questions:

I feel it helps you to understand how to become a BA/ 

Once you understand how to become a BA, then you can start prepare your resume and start attending interview.

Business Analyst Certification

FAQS:

What qualifications do you need to be a business analyst?

Desirable qualifications
Undergraduate degree in subjects such as computer science, business information systems, computing and systems development, and business management.
Postgraduate qualification

How do I start a business analyst career?

To start a career as a business analyst, initially educate yourself as a business analyst person by undergoing some business analyst training. Get certified: There are a number of BA certifications widely recognized in the industry today.

Is it hard to become a business analyst?

Business analysis is hard.
It’s an extremely creative activity – occasionally frustrating but generally very satisfying. I used to come home most days feeling like I’d done a good day’s work and would still have plenty of energy to apply myself to extra-curricular activities in the evening.

Is business analyst a good career?

A good business analyst can move from industry to industry with ease. You can move to where the work is needed. You are a very flexible resource. It is also a well paid career.

How do I become a business analyst with no experience?

Learn From Other Business Analysts.
Do Some Research On BA Work Deliverables.
Seek Out Training Opportunities.
Master Soft Skills.
Participate in Business Analysis Tasks.

How is business analyst as a career?

After eight to 10 years in various business analysis positions, you can advance to chief technology officer or work as a consultant. You can take the business analyst career path as far as you would like, progressing through management levels as far as your expertise, talents and desires take you.

Does business analyst need MBA?

MBA degree is not necessary for an individual to take up a Business Analyst (IT Business Analyst) role. Those who start their IT business analyst careers , most of the times do not have good skills in all the three areas. … So an MBA is not necessary to take up an IT business analyst role.

How is business analyst career path?

After eight to 10 years in various business analysis positions, you can advance to chief technology officer or work as a consultant. You can take the business analyst career path as far as you would like, progressing through management levels as far as your expertise, talents and desires take you.

Is business analyst a technical job?

No, it is not. It is more of a techno-functional role but doesn’t require technical skills. Here are some extracts from Adaptive US’ blog on Business Analyst Job Description : … Managing requirements both at the project level and organization level are vital in fulfilling business needs.

What is Business Analyst Role in Testing / BA in testing

Business Analyst Role in Testing / BA in testing

Let us discuss here what is Business Analyst Role in Testing

Business Analyst Role in Testing

Business Analyst Role in Testing / BA in testing

As I mentioned in the main page, in a software company there will be Testing team. In industry terms we call it as Quality Assurance (QA) team or Quality Control (QC) team. Most popular terminology is QA or testing. Let us try to understand what  is Business Analyst role in Testing.

My intention of putting ‘testing’ knowledge here is to make Business Analyst aspirants to know about testing not intended for Developers and testers. As a Business Analyst it is important to know how testing is done and how testers perform in real life scenarios. Let’s see now, how and what a ‘tester’ will do in real time projects;

First let us understand why testing team is needed in Software Company or software project or why team needs to test the software application or product?

“Testing” will not applicable only for software product or application. “Testing” is applicable everywhere in our day to day life also. For example, before buying clothes we will test whether these clothes will suit to us or not.

Another example: Before buying two wheeler or four wheeler we will test the vehicle whether it will suit to us or not and all the functionalities are working or not.

Similarly testing team will test the software product/ application before releasing to client or market. Without proper testing we will not find quality product. If testing not done properly then software will have so many problems or issues. It leads to project failure, because no one will accept application with issues or problems.

So testing is very important during the project execution.

In ‘Testing’ there are 2 major types

a) Black-box testing
B) White-box testing 

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Black-box testing: Let me put in simple words, black-box testing deals mainly with the functionality testing. Here we test – if ‘x’ is input, are we getting ‘y’ as output.

White-box testing:

here also tester will test if ‘x’ is input ‘y’ is the output or not but this type of testing deals with technical things. How program logic is written? Based on the code is the input and output are proper or not? How input is interacting with backend database and how results are fetched.

In simple words you can say, black-box testing needs functional knowledge and white-box needs technical knowledge.
As you know, Business Analyst will do Business requirements gathering and prepare SRS/FSD/FRS and share the documents with Development and testing team. Testers will read the SRS /FSD/FRS and if any doubts are there then they will ask Business Analyst for clarifications. Then Business Analyst will clarify all the doubts and arrange meetings if needed.  After all the clarifications are made as first step; ‘Testing Lead’ will create high level Test Scenarios. In the test Scenario it will be mentioned – what to be tested? What all modules are to be tested and what all are the high-level expected results?

Testers will write Test-cases which will be based on the SRS /FSD/ FRS document provided by Business Analyst. Test cases will be written in detail for each field and each function.

For entire application and including all the modules ‘test cases’ will be written. Usually MS-Excel will be used to write test-cases. Once test cases are ready then a senior tester or any of the other testers will review the test-cases.

Once Developers code the functionality build will be passed to testing team. (What is Build? – Build is the terminology used. Build means – Developed code.) Build will be tested in phase wise and accordingly to test plan prepared by Testing team leader. Testing will be done based on the test cases written. Usually it is called “test-case” execution. Before testing team start testing there are some tests.

Before build is passed to testers there are some testing done. Yes!! Developers themselves do a round of testing before passing build to testing team. We call it as “Unit Testing”. Developers will write Unit Test- cases and execute unit test cases. 

After unit testing is done, there is one more testing called BVT (build Verification testing). This testing is done by developers or testers or deployment engineer. The main purpose of this test is to ensure the Build is stable or not. (note: there will be different servers like development or lab server, test server, production server) when build is deployed in different server all the path and connections need to be changed and build should be ensured working. If not working Testers will not be able to test build. Also if any major bugs (what is Bug: it is terminology again. Bug means mistake or error) testing team will reject the build form testing.

After BVT is done testers will start testing the build as per test-cases written. Any bugs found will be logged into central repository. There are some tools specifically for testing team which will act as repository and as well as tracking purpose. Any bugs can be logged into tool and assign to development team. An email will be triggered to developer on that bug. Developer will check and if it is a bug he will fix that bug. If not bug developer will write his comments for that bug and close the bugs]

When testers log bugs and it will be fixed by developers, again it will be tested. The fixed functionality will be tested – this is called “Patch testing”. Usually any patch or fixes done by developers will have impact on different functionality so again from start application need to be tested. This type of testing is called “Regression Testing”

The other testing types are;

Smoke testing: This is a sort of high level testing done on all the major functionality to ensure all the main parts of software are working. This does not do in-depth testing minute level.

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Sanity testing:

This is to ensure all parts of software are working but this testing focuses on minute level of functionality.

Integration Testing:

Software will be developed in phases or modules. Each module developed will be tested separately and at the end all the modules will be clubbed and tested. This is called Integration testing.

System testing:

This is to ensure entire software is working properly. In this test not only testers but business analysts, consultants and other people will test. This is something like preparatory exam before main exam. After system testing is done build will be deployed for UAT.

UAT:

User Acceptance testing – this is done by clients.

Beta Testing: This is done by both client and testing team or business analyst. Once UAT is passed and application is deployed for usability for some period application will be on Beta.

Now lets see bug classification:

  • Blocker bugs 
  • Major bugs
  • Critical bugs 
  • Normal bugs 
  • Trivial bugs

Defect or Bug Life Cycle

Blocker Bugs are those which blocks testers from further testing, say for example if application is having Login function and after login testers are supposed test some functions BUT if they are not able to login. i,e. some problem in development with respect to login function we call it as Blocker bug. 
other important bugs which are critical will be categorized into major and critical.
Some small bugs like not accepting numbers, telephone number is accepting alphabets are considered as normal and trival bugs.

Once bugs are raised testers will pass it to developers, once developers fix those bugs it will be passed back to testers for verification of fixed bugs. if again there is some problem with  fixed bugs testers will pass it back to developers. This cycle repeats and once bug is fixed, testers will verify and close the bugs.
There are some open source tools like Bugzilla which are used to keep track of bug status. i.e. opened, closed, verified etc..

Also there are 2 more types of bugs called Invalid bugs and duplicate bugs. If testers raise some bugs which have no problems then developers will mark it as Invalid bugs. If same bugs are repeated then developers will mark it as Duplicate bugs.

(Note Again: this article is for Business Analysts and not for testers because for testers testing document need to be in depth. This is just for understanding QA or testing cycle).

Business Analyst involves in Testing phase, so it is good to have knowledge on testing.

Depends on the organization Business Analyst participates in all the phases of SDLC except Development.

It does not mean that Business Analyst will not participate in development phase, Business analyst  explains the requirements to development team if team needs more clarity on the requirements. 

I hope this article  helped you to understand what  is  Business Analyst role in  testing

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FAQS: Testing and UAT

What is the business analyst role in UAT?

The Business Analyst Role is central to achieving success in UAT sessions. … UAT helps stakeholders to determine whether the system can be put to use in real-life business scenarios or not. 2. The UAT session is an opportunity for users to see the solution in action and confirm that it meets their needs.

Who writes UAT test cases?

When it comes to UAT, often the UAT is composed of Business Analysts and selected end-users who will perform the actual UA testing. But QA, who have an overall responsibility to ensure the application/product works as required, should be part of the process for test definition

Who is responsible for UAT?

In summary, quality assurance is the responsibility of the business user and it therefore Party R responsible for executing the UAT. While a project manager (Party D) can help facilitate the time line and sign off process, and should support and be accountable for getting it done with Party R responsible for UAT.

Who runs UAT?

For many, UAT belongs in the hands of business analysts and corresponding business owners. These individuals collaborate to create the test plans and test cases and then determine how to implement and track their progress, all the while integrating the skills of technical experts and a quality assurance team.

Is UAT functional testing?

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is a type of testing performed by the end user or the client to verify/accept the software system before moving the software application to the production environment. UAT is done in the final phase of testing after functional, integration and system testing is done.

Why is UAT important?

UAT is important because it helps demonstrate that required business functions are operating in a manner suited to real-world circumstances and usage. Verified and tested by the people who are going to be working with it on a daily basis. Basically you and your team are getting a better piece of software

What is UAT sign off?

UAT Sign–off: When all defects are resolved, the UAT team formally accepts (or recommends acceptance to the project manager) the software application as developed. The approval shows that the application meets user requirements and is deployable.

Scrum Master Role in a Project

Scrum Master Role in a Project

Let us observe who  is Scrum Master and what Scrum Master Role is  in a Project.

Scrum team includes of Scrum Master, Product Owner and Development Team.

Scrum Master Role

Let us discuss some important roles of the Scrum master’s in project:

The primary responsibility of the Scrum Master is to build a Team. And he works closely with the team to deliver the project without bugs and he ensures to deliver on time. To achieve this Scrum Master needs to coordinate and discuss with internal and external stakeholders. Scrum Master acts as a guide for Scrum process, assistant, coach, facilitator and change agent.

Scrum Master facilitates the Scrum activities and removes impediment’s so that the team can build successful product. Scrum Master closely works with the team to understand the team concerns and challenges, and he works with the concerned teams to provide solution to the team to deliver successful product.

Facilitator: To adopt scrum for team, maintain transparency, bring effectiveness in meetings, resolve conflicts and bring best of team.

Guide: Scrum master act as a guide, he explains scrum frame work, roles, responsibilities and activities to the scrum team.

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Continue reading “Scrum Master Role in a Project”

How to write user stories effectively in Agile?

How to write User stories

Let us discuss here how to write user stories and what are 3 C’s of User Story.

User Story and how to write user stories.

User Stories and how to write user Stories

When we are working on agile process (methodology), user stories are very important.  Because we have to write requirements as a user story to understand easily.

To write user stories first we need to understand who the user/Actor is and what his role in application is and what actions user will perform by using this product.

  • User story should be understandable
  • And User story should be Testable.

Usually product owner will write the user stories with the help of the team, team will participate on discussions to understand what the requirement is clearly.

A User Story has three primary components. Before writing user story we must understand below.

  • Who is the user?
  • What action he will perform?
  • What outcome or benefit he will get?

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This is the standard template using to write user stories.

  • As a <user role> of the product,
  • I can <action>
  • So that <benefit>.

In other words, the written text of the story, the invitation to a conversation, must address the “who”, “what” and “why” of the story.

What are The Three ‘C’s of User Story

  • Card:  The Card, or written text of the User Story is best understood as an invitation to conversation.
  • Conversation. The collaborative conversation facilitated by the Product Owner which involves all stakeholders and the team.
  • Confirmation.

Let us discuss in detail below what are the 3 C’s of User Story

Discussions/ Team meetings:

The collaborative conversation facilitated by the Product Owner / Scrum master which involves all stakeholders and the team.

As much as possible, this is an in-person conversation.

The conversation is where the real value of the story lies, and the written Card should be adjusted to reflect the current shared understanding of this conversation.

This conversation is mostly verbal but most often supported by documentation and ideally automated tests of various sorts

Confirmation

The Product Owner must confirm that the story is complete before it can be considered “done”
The team and the Product Owner check the “done status” of each story in light of the Team’s current definition of “done” .Specific acceptance criteria that is different from the current definition of “done” can be established for individual stories, but the current criteria must be well understood and agreed to by the Team. All associated acceptance tests should be in a passing state.

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INVESTii

The test for determining whether or not a story is well understood and ready for the team to start working on it is the INVEST acronym:

  • Independent — The story should be independent.
  • Negotiable — Can this story be changed or removed without impact to everything else?
  • Valuable — Does this story have value to the end user?
  • Estimable — Can you estimate the size of the story?
  • Small —Is it small enough?
  • Testable — User story should be testable.

User Stories FAQ

What is a user story in Agile?

A user story is a tool used in Agile software development to capture a description of a software feature from an end user perspective. The user story describes the type of user, what they want and why. … A user story can be considered a starting point to a conversation that establishes the real product requirement.

What are 3 C's in user stories?

The Three ‘C’s
This discovery occurs through conversation and collaboration around user stories. In other words, the written text of the story, the invitation to a conversation, must address the “who”, “what” and “why” of the story

What are the characteristics of a user story?

The INVEST acronym, given by Bill Wake, suggests characteristics of good user stories. The acronym stands for Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimative, Small, and Testable. Let us examine each characteristic in detail. User Stories are often inherently dependent on each other

Who writes a user story?

Anyone can write user stories. It’s the product owner’s responsibility to make sure a product backlog of agile user stories exists, but that doesn’t mean that the product owner is the one who writes them. Over the course of a good agile project, you should expect to have user story examples written by each team member.

How do you define a user story?

A user story is a tool used in Agile software development to capture a description of a software feature from an end-user perspective. A user story describes the type of user, what they want and why. A user story helps to create a simplified description of a requirement

Are user stories requirements?

A User Story is a requirement expressed from the perspective of an end-user goal. User Stories may also be referred to as Epics, Themes or features but all follow the same format. A User Story is really just a well-expressed requirement. … It defines the requirement in language that has meaning for that role

What is Business Analyst Role in AML and Kyc Project

Business Analyst Role in AML and Kyc Project

The Global Markets AML and KYC Initial Due Diligence Team exists to help protect the Firm from Regulatory and Reputational risk. The KYC Initial Due Diligence team is responsible for the reviews of Clients in accordance with Financial Crime and Anti Money Laundering procedures in adherence of standards set by the UK and US regulators.

Business Analyst Role in AML and KYC Project
Let us observe Business Analyst Role in AML and KYC Project

The Team acts as a First Line of Defense for the Firm’s KYC Review process. The Team works closely with the Client On boarding (COB) and the second line of defense Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) teams globally, aiming to move clients from “prospect” to “customer” in the shortest possible time and ensure a synchronized approach to servicing our clients.

               In addition, the team provides guidance and advice to COB(Customer on Boarding) around KYC(Know your customer) requirements and financial crime issues and assists in ad-hoc / ongoing regulatory projects to improve quality of client static data on Credit Suisse internal databases. The team promotes fast, efficient, streamlined and transparent on-boarding experience.

              We are a department that values Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) and are committed to realizing the firm’s D&I ambition which is an integral part of our global Conduct and Ethics Standards.

Responsibilities:

  • You will verify the identity of prospective new clients across the GM division.
  • You will perform timely and accurate KYC reviews with regards to the local regulatory and Credit Suisse policies and procedures.
  • You will assure that the Sanctions, PEP (Politically Exposed Persons) and Adverse Media/Negative News screening has taken place using the appropriate systems.
  • It is essential for you to ensure the clients are accurately classified as prescribed by CS Policy and Regulatory expectations.
  • You will implement any required changes in the client data during the on boarding process and facilitate the resolution of any matters arising from the KYC review.

You will ensure any additional due diligence checks that are being made for the clients depending on the risk levels.

Here my intention is to provide overview on AML and KYC and what Business Analyst does in AML and KYC Project.

To know more about CDD and ECDD

To know more about AML and KYC 

Business Analyst Challenges:

Business Analyst Challenges

Here I am listing down the real time challenges faced by the Business Analyst. There can be other challenges but here I am mentioning few which are facing by the Business Analyst in day to day life. I believe it may enough when you are trying a fresher, one or two experience.

  • Frequently changing requirements
  • Freeze requirements
  • Coordination with developers and testers
  • Change management-with respect to cost and time lines             
  • Drive UAT phase – on time completion of UAT·
  • Manage Stakeholders availability for requirements and conducting meetings
  • Lack of training
  • People Management , Coordinating with different teams and different people.
  • Making sure status reporting is effective
  • Domain Knowledge
  • Overall making sure project health is in good shape and delivered as per the timelines without any issues.

Business Analyst ChallengesChanging Requirements:Client may change their requirements very frequently. As a Business Analyst it is Very difficult to manage internal and external stake holders when they are frequently changing the requirements. We can’t accept every change request because already we committed the deadline of the project and committed the timelines to client and higher management and it may impact on project cost also. And development team also started work for committed requirements.

And it will take good amount of time to discuss and understand the requirement on the new change and feasibility of the same.  

And we can’t say ‘No” to the client because it may impact on the project, so we need to convince client with proper reasons.

Before saying “Yes” or “No” as a Business Analyst we need to analyze what is the impact of this change and how much effort needed to deliver this change.

Every client may not change their requirements frequently but it may happen in general.

Freeze Requirements:

We need not to consider this as a tough challenge but sometimes client may make you struggle to give sign off and sometimes client will delay on providing the sign off. Because of this development may delay, and we can inform the same to client during the meetings.

This is not a tough challenge but for some reasons, client will not sign-off on the requirements or delay sign-off. The reason is, once client provide sign-off on the requirements, any changes will be charged additionally. So client will take some time to sign-off but this will again impact our project schedule.

However in real time, we start follow-up with client to get sign-off and we will commit the delivery dates once we get sign off from the client only. Unless we get signoff from the client on FSD we will not start work on this project. It will happen rarely but there is a chance to take place this scenario.

Challenges during Development: 

This is also a common challenge for business analyst across organizations.

Developers will understand in a different way and do coding but when it comes to testing, testers might have understood in a different way and they will raise as a defect (bug) on developers. Developers will not easily accept the bug because they developed it and it will impact on their performance. Testers will argue it as a bug and finally it will be parked over Business Analyst. How to avoid these situations? Usually Business Analysts will share SRS / FSD containing requirements with developers and testers but Business Analyst should make sure that joint sessions to be organized with development team and testing team. Business Analyst should explain the requirements in joint session to both developers and testers and give them some time to read and understand. In case of any doubts Business Analyst should clarify then and there to avoid further confusions. And Business Analyst needs to conduct meeting with the internal stake holders frequently to get the project updates and to get to know whether team is facing any issues during development.

Change Management:

As we discussed previously once requirements are signed-off from client, any changes to the requirements will have impact on cost and schedule. So change management needs to be involved. i.e client should agree to provide more cost and additional time to deliver.

Most of the time, clients will not easily agree to the additional cost and time. This will require some sessions to convince clients. This will consume some effort.

However this is not exactly a challenge of Business Analyst, it will be project manager who will coordinate with customer for additional cost and time but since requirements are involved Business Analyst will also be engaged in change management process.

Challenges faced by the Business Analyst during UAT (User Acceptance Testing): 

Once development and system testing is done from project execution team & before taking software / application go live, UAT has to be done. In the project execution your project Manager will reserve some time exclusively for UAT. In real time clients will not start UAT in time. So, any delay in UAT will have impact on project roll-out. So Business Analyst should drive UAT and make sure clients start testing from their end in-time. In case of any defects in UAT phase Business Analyst should quickly resolve with help of developers and testers. And if these are related to application functionality then business analyst needs to address it as soon as possible.

Again, just like getting sign-off on requirement documents, Business Analyst should get a sign-off on UAT as well. Client should confirm that UAT is performed and no pending issues. 

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Manage Stakeholders Availability for requirements:

Requirements’ gathering is most important phase in the SDLC. Business Analyst will arrange sessions with clients to understand the requirements. Most of the times Business Analyst will need business units, tech teams, Architects & other stakeholders to discuss about the problem statement and collect end customer needs but not everyone will be available at the same time.

Especially if company is into consulting, tech teams will be working on multiple projects. You need to match client’s time with every stakeholder which seems easy but really challenging.

If meetings get delayed, project plan will be affected and hence delivery/implementation date gets postponed, your client will not agree and difficult to convince.

Lack of training :

Sometimes you may face the client without proper training, as you do not have enough knowledge and enough training on product, you can’t convince the client and you can’t provide suitable solutions to client. Due to this client may lose confidence and trust on you. If you want to prove as a good business analyst it is very important to maintain good relationship with all the stake holders to things get it done smoothly.

Lack of Domain Knowledge

Domain knowledge is very important for business Analyst, so that business analyst can understand what client is trying to explain and what exact requirement of the client is. It will help us to explain the functionality to developers and internal stakeholders.   

I hope it helped you to provide overview on  Business Analyst Challenges

To know more about Business Analyst Challenges, you can browse on google. 

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Business Analyst Challenges: FAQs

What are the challenges faced by business analyst?

Getting Stakeholders To Make Time.
Lack of Clarity.
Inadequate Time Allotted For BA Work.
Conflict Among Stakeholders.

What does a business analyst do?

The analyst is involved in the design or modification of business systems or IT systems. The analyst interacts with the business stakeholders and subject matter experts in order to understand their problems and needs. The analyst gathers, documents, and analyzes business needs and requirements

What is the role of business analyst in SDLC?

Role of Business Analyst during SDLC Process
Then leads in analysis and designing phase, dictates in code development, then follows the testing phase during bug fixing as a change agent in the project team and ultimately fulfills the customer requirements

What are the qualities of a good business analyst?

Impressive Communication. Imagine hiring a business analyst who mumbles every time they speak. …
The Ability To Solve Problems. A problem occurs within the company. …
Critical Thinking. Finding the ideal solution doesn’t “just happen.” …
An Analytical Mind. You don’t have to be born with it. …
Process Modeling Knowledge

What does a BA do in Agile?

The AGILE BA defines improvements to business processes, assists decision-makers in gathering information to make decisions, helps quality assurance test solutions and products, designs user interfaces and even steps in as a product owner, scrum master, or project manager as the occasion calls for.

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