Are BAs ready for Agile?

Over the past 12 months I've been involved in some interesting discussions about BAs and Agile. What is clear is that the capabilities needed for business analysis in Agile delivery are quite different to that required for waterfall. BAs traditionally are training to define solutions and limit change. In Agile, we are looking for BAs who resist the temptation to define the solution, and accepting of change. Waterfall is about documenting with the client in mind, whilst Agile is with the developer in mind.


With this said, it is understood that the transition from waterfall to agile is a step learning curve for all concerned. What is possibly lacking in the BA space is role models and/or managerial reinforcement. Engineers are generally taking this journey as a team, but from experience... BAs tend to have a lonelier existence. Methodology that is inherently highly structured, management that are struggling with the shift in required capabilities, and engaging with businesses that just want documented requirements.

The thing is BAs should be better suited for Agile than most. They have a set of competencies that are well suited to dealing with ambiguity. Good BAs are experts at managing expectation, and this is a important for Waterfall or Agile alike.

My personal experience is with Scrum, and good evidence for effective use of BAs. In one project we used a BA to work a sprint ahead, preparing the sprint backlog for the dev team. On another (a large Defence project), after a number of setbacks the lead BA became the scrummaster and completely turned it around. It was so effective, there was consideration for this to become a norm. On my last project (before switching companies) I was the Product Owner on a BPMS implementation where business commitment was a problem. I am obviously bias but would like to think we provided an impressively innovative solution with equally impressive speed.
I found this in the definition of a PO "product owner is in many ways an empowered business analyst" (http://goo.gl/JM8xw).

I am convinced that BAs are in the box seat to play an integral role in the Agile transformation and believe we will see benefits from a greater overlap between the communities.