“I'm a Business Analyst, can I be a part of a Scrum Team?” with Phillip Lisenba, Justin Thatil, and Erica Menendez

This week, Dan Neumann is joined by Phillip Lisenba, Justin Thatil, and Erica Menendez to discuss the particularities of the Business Analyst role in a Scrum Team.

 

In this episode, they explore the valuable role of a Business Analyst and the crucial role of effective communication among Team members to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of a Scrum Team. 

 

Key Takeaways

• The Three Scrum Accountabilities:

• The first accountability of the Agile Team is the Scrum Master, whose responsibility is to help the Team form Scrum at the maximum level, providing interaction and coaching.

• The Product Owner is responsible for the backlog’s value, priority, and order.

• The Business Analyst can be considered as one of the Developers on the team.

• Sometimes, the BA fills some of the Product Owner’s accountabilities regarding the backlog.

• For a Healthy Backlog, the Team must know how to split responsibilities properly.

• Every organization is different, sometimes, the BA works with the Team, and the product owner works with the Business and splits responsibilities up.

• In sharing responsibilities, communication is critical.

• Having clarity and alignment about the product goal and the sprint goal is fundamental.

• Developers, Product owners, and Team members working together need structure and boundaries for everyone to accomplish their goals and responsibilities.

• Keep the goodwill! Maintain the culture of communication; you never know when you will have to call up somebody for a favor.

• Take advantage of refinement sessions with the developers to confirm what needs to be changed (as opposed to researching it yourself). Documenting everything is, most of the time, not necessary. It is only necessary to record some stories and some product backlog lines specifically for each goal.

• Communication is a time saver; it prevents unnecessary documentation since developers are already informed about the process and implied accountabilities.

• If people can figure things out by themselves, writing every detail down becomes less of a need.

 

Mentioned in this Episode:

SAFe: Scale Agile Framework Certification

 

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