What happens to the role of the Business Analyst in an increasingly Agile world? I tried to answer this question a few years ago in a Modern Analyst Article and now having been through a number of Scrum implementations it seems like a good time to reflect on these predictions.

The standard response from Scrum gurus like Jeff Sutherland and Kane Mar about the traditional roles of PM's and BA's is that Scrum in itself makes no special allowance for these roles. In other words these traditional roles are covered by elements of the Product Owner, Scrum Master and Team roles. I once heard Kane’s advice on the matter which was that no matter what your role was before, simply choose which of the Scrum roles best suit the circumstances and go with that.

This seems to support the opinion of some of my peers that Project Managers are largely redundant in a Scrum world as the framework is specifically designed to promote self-organizing and self-management. I’m not sure this logic can be applied so easily to the role of the Business Analyst especially when you consider the importance of problem understanding in the SDLC. Having transitioned both of these roles into a number of Scrum settings I've found that it's the B.A. roles that are most easily adapted while P.M.s seem to struggle.

B.A.s have a lot to offer and it seems a shame to have this somehow diminished or hidden behind the Scrum roles. In the next three parts of this series I will be proposing that good Business Analysis maps strongly to each of the roles in Scrum. In part 2 we will consider how the BA role maps to the role of the Product Owner.