Ifs essay - Business Analyst In Agile Project PDF

Title Ifs essay - Business Analyst In Agile Project
Author Donemore Zimbwa
Course Information systems and Information Management
Institution University of Fort Hare
Pages 8
File Size 229.3 KB
File Type PDF
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Summary

Business Analyst In Agile Project...


Description

Business Analyst In Agile Project

Contents 1. Introduction............................................................................................................................2 1.1 System analyst..................................................................................................................2 1.2 Agile.................................................................................................................................2 1.3 Agility...............................................................................................................................2 2. How analyst fit in to the agile project................................................................................3 2.1 Collaboration....................................................................................................................3 2.2 Deliver value....................................................................................................................3 2.3 Frequent increments.........................................................................................................3 2.4 Consistent reflection and adaptation................................................................................4 3. How the analyst adapt to the nature of the agile project........................................................4 3.1 Sprints...............................................................................................................................4 3.2 Scrum................................................................................................................................4 4. Do these changes improve the perceived effectiveness of an analyst....................................5 Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6

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1. Introduction Nowadays, the world is ever-changing, business analyst plays a crucial role in projects hence their job is at risk in agile project. Hastie, (2008) describe business analyst as a person who understand the business needs. Business Analyst plays a crucial role in enterprises to achieve the business needs within the constraints of time, budget and regulations by defining an optimal solution Furthermore analyst as a middleman between the customer and the developers in agile projects business analyst must possess skills, techniques and business knowledge to be a good interpreter[ CITATION She08 \l 7177 ]. Kelly (2010) describe agile project as a group of principles and practices that promote a disciplined project management process that inspires regular inspection and alteration, the leadership and philosophy that encourages teamwork, self-organization and accountability, set of engineering practices intended to allow for rapid delivery of high quality outcomes and business approach that aligns development with customer needs and company goals. This is supported by McDonald, (2014) who stated that agile projects are completed in small sections called iterations or sprints. Testing at every stage is crucial because there will be cooperation among stakeholders to deliver the best value to the clients in frequent increments, and with constant reflection and adaptation. However this differs with traditional project management in that plans and estimates are planned at once and the rest of the project is done whilst adjusting to reality. Managers, instead of working with their subordinates to facilitate their creativity, to produce a right outcome through navigating errors and providing leadership and mentoring, they are only found during the development process because they believe that phases are being followed in every development and testing is done at the end not during development. The ability to create and react to variation in order to profit in a different business environment is called agility[ CITATION Mar08 \l 7177 ]. Taking for example when developing a new website for a new customer, the developers must include all the features needed by the user which may be different from other websites the company used to develop in the past. If the business is more centralised and needs one way type of communication from the manager of a certain department (production) to the subordinates not having any links with the finance department, the developers must produce a website of that type which suits the needs of that business The essay is organized as follows. In the next section, the essay discusses how analyst fit in to the agile project. Second section discusses by how the analyst adapt to the nature of the agile project. The last section present whether these changes improve the perceived effectiveness of an 2

analyst, thereafter the essay concludes. The following section discusses how analyst fit in to the agile project.

2. How analyst fit in to the agile project. Agile refers to the ability of stakeholders to collaborate, in order to deliver value to customers in frequent increments with constant reflection and adaption (McDonald, 2014). Taking for example when developing a new website for a new customer, the developers must include all the features needed by the user which may be different from other websites the company used to develop in the past. In agile projects there are roles in which a business analyst will fit in either by being a product owner or as a team member. The product owner may ultimately make decisions about the product. By defining the product vision, prioritizing features according to business value, and answering team problems. Also the business analyst decides what exactly the product must look like or do and which functions must added or removed. By being a team member, means the business analyst must be dedicated to the project full time and must responsible for delivering right website to the customers. As a team member he/she must determines how the website is going to be developed and how the workload is divided among the team members [ CITATION Roh13 \l 7177 ]. This is shown on the diagrams below.

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2.1 Collaboration Being the middlemen business analyst facilitate collaboration through helping with stakeholder’s exploration and performing as a language coach since he/she is the interpreter. Business analysts have the clearest understanding of the stakeholders involved in the project so they can provide suggestions on which stakeholders that team member should talk to for information. Once they have helped their teammates identify the appropriate stakeholders to talk to, business analysts turn their experience translating what is needed to helping team members from different backgrounds and team members. They change from translating the messages between two people talking from different perspectives to helping those people talk to each other (McDonald, 2011). Without them it may be difficult for a website developer to understand the business language being used by the customer.

Also, it is added that agile analysis is a continuous and collective process where analysts, developers, customers and end users work together to understand the business domain. They try to identify what is needed, to prioritize the functionality and to deliver right products of the right quality and value to the customer. An agile analyst is a full member of the cross-functional team; operate together with business and development skills to evolve the right products [ CITATION Wil99 \l 7177 ]. So the business analyst fits starting from the website developer to the final user which works effectively and being up to standards. 2.2 Deliver value Being a middleman is very crucial in business circumstances. Business analysts normally plans and builds small deliverable chunks and deliver to the customer in frequent times, perhaps as often as every few weeks or even days. These provisions have the advantage of producing early 4

benefit to the business, which pleases the management. They provide feedback whether the project is doing the right things that the user intends. By updating the developer and the customer about website being developed is when the analyst fits in the agile project [CITATION Ken11 \l 7177 ]. 2.3 Frequent increments Analysts embrace change depending on the required outcome since they have the knowledge to meet customer needs [CITATION Ken11 \l 7177 ]. They know that world around them will be changing as the project progresses hence advise both user and developers what to do. They carry out researches about the website being developed and forecast as well about how the world will be when the time they finish that website. They consider that, would it be competitive during that time, hence their presence in developing a website is important. 2.4 Consistent reflection and adaptation The business analyst reveals on their style and the product on a regular basis and adjusts accordingly. Since the business analyst is the one who knows about what they are developing he/she she is the one who gives instructions about how to fix new features needed by the user [CITATION Ken11 \l 7177 ]. The following section discusses how the business analyst adapts to the nature of the agile project.

3. How the analyst adapt to the nature of the agile project This section includes how the sprints and scrums affect the agile projects and how the business analyst adapts to them. Business analyst adapt by getting involved in sprints and scrum meetings. A sprint is a set period of time during which specific work has to be finished and made available for review. A sprint begins with a planning meeting. The owner website and the development team decide upon precisely what work will be completed during the sprint and the development team gives the final say when it comes to determining how much work can be finished during the sprint[ CITATION Sch11 \l 7177 ]. 3.1 Sprints Schwaber and Sutherland (2011) states that in each sprint, the development team builds and tests a functional part of the product until the website owner accepts it. When one sprint finishes, another sprint starts. Scrum teams provide product features in additions at the end of each sprint. A product release occurs at the end of a sprint or after several sprints. During a sprint, business analyst conduct constant inspections to assess progress toward the sprint objective, and necessarily, toward the release goal. The scrum team inspects its progress toward the sprint goal. 5

At the end of the sprint, you use a retrospective meeting to assess performance and plan necessary adapt. Sprint includes a project with no more than a month perspective. Like projects, they are used to accomplish something. Sprint has a definition of be built, a design and flexible plan that will guide building it, the work, and the resultant product. Sprints are limited to one calendar month. If a sprint’s horizon is too long the definition of what is being built may change, complication may escalate, and risk may rise. Sprints enable forecasting by ensuring inspection and adaptation of progress toward a goal of website development at least every month. Sprints reduce risk of month of costs[ CITATION Sch11 \l 7177 ]. 3.2 Scrum Scrum happens when a team to work jointly when developing a product (website). Particularly, scrum is a straightforward framework for effective team collaboration on complex projects [ CITATION Sch11 \l 7177 ]. Scrum is more than a simple framework by providing human needs at work. The scrum is made up of product owner, the development team and a scrum master. Sutherland, (2011) states that scrum employs an iterative, incremental approach to optimize predictability and control risk. Three pillars uphold every implementation of empirical process control include transparency, inspection, and adaptation. All significant aspects of the process must be visible to those responsible for the outcome. Transparency requires those aspects can be defined by a common standard so observers share a common understanding of what is being seen. On inspection, scrum users frequently inspect and progress toward website development to detect undesirable variances. And on adaptation an inspector determines that one or more aspects of a process deviate outside acceptable limits, and that the resulting product will be unacceptable, the process or the material being processed must be adjusted. An adjustment must be made as soon as possible to minimize further deviation [ CITATION Sut11 \l 7177 ]. For example if there is need for adding more features at that stage to produce a good website.

4. Do these changes improve the perceived effectiveness of an analyst Yes, these changes improve the effectiveness of an analyst. However, agile approaches do not provide a description of many roles, because of the emphasis on interaction makes the establishment of many roles unnecessary[ CITATION Ken11 \l 7177 ]. During their meetings the user may choose that he/she agree to the way the website is programmed but some of the vital step maybe needed to upgrade the website. But since the customer is the key the providers will adhere to what they are told. 6

McDonald, (2011) states that lack of defined roles provides the business analysts the best opportunity to broaden their horizons, from business and technical perspective. Since there are no specific phases that must be followed like in traditional method, due to their characteristic of flexibility business analyst become more creative in developing right outcome to satisfy the customer needs. Business analysts work closely with the product owner to deliver the greatest value to stakeholders. Since the business analyst knows what the outcome should be look like according to the users preference, the right website may be produced and gives the customer competitiveness. Also working closer to the user enables the analyst to ask questions so as to perfect the website and don’t waste time in developing a website that do not meet the customer’s need[ CITATION Kel10 \l 7177 ]. They expand their knowledge of the field of business and get a new experience in solving business issues. Business analysts come across different problems daily due to different preference that the customers have. So they have to adapt to those different needs. New thoughts are brought about in order to meet those demands[ CITATION Kel10 \l 7177 ]. Business analysts work closely with members of his team, improving their analytical skills and learn new skills, such as testing or coding. All the subordinates learn whenever they carry some tests and when they will come across another project of the similar type they will know the results already. Also they will learn a lot about how to fix problems during these tests[ CITATION Ken11 \l 7177 ]. These features make analysts look beyond the role, along with members of his team to deliver value to customers and improve their value in the organization. By carrying tests means the results or website being developed will be of high quality increasing both the company’s market share and customers to be competitive in the business world[ CITATION Ken11 \l 7177 ].

Conclusion The ever changing business environment needs to be matched with new methods of technology hence business analyst in agile projects are crucial to make these to happen. Business analyst play a significant role in updating the developers what to develop to suit customer needs since he/she also have business knowledge. The business analyst can play a key role on an agile team. To be successful, analyst first need to shift their traditional thinking about requirements. Business analyst need to consider learning new skills for writing requirements and new techniques for managing them. Successes will depend largely on how well business analyst adapt to these new ways of working with requirements, setting up teams and using group collaboration. 7

Bibliography Kelly, A. (2010). More important than ever: The Business Analysts’ role in Agile software development. Nottingham: IIBA . Marcal. (2008). McDonald, K. J. (2011). what does a business analyst do on an agile project. B2T Training, 1- 8. P, C. (1999). Systems Thinking Systems Practice. Rohit Prakash, N. A. (2013). International Journal of Modern Engineering Research (IJMER). Managing Business Analysis for Agile Development, 1393-1395. Schwaber , K., & Sutherland, J. (2011). The Definitive Guide to Scrum: The Rules of the Game. 1 - 16. Shelly, g. b. (2008). discovering computers. SYSTEM ANALYST. Wiley, J. (1999). Systems Thinking Systems Practice .

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