Re: [ia-55] How do you work with Business Analysts?
Messages
| From: | Ashley |
| Sent on: | Friday, May 9 at 8:03 PM |
The thread is getting more and more interesting! Thanks to those who has contributed or listened...
Here is my personal experience playing the roles as a BA and an IA.
I used to work for ESPN(a subsidiary of Disney, as many don't know) as a Sr. Technical Producer. I had no idea of what the title meant until I started working under it.
My boss, a SVP, me and another Sr. Technical Producer are the core team members with support from Engineering. Perhaps I shouldn't mention the project due to its confidentiality.
I played multiple roles during the course of the project:
As a stakeholder:
Along with my boss, we were not gathering but generating requirements based on some competitive research and analysis we did. Define the business objectives which is always enhancing the services and generating revenue, of course, with high level business strategies.
As a BA:
With the other two team members, I conducted competitive research/analysis, finalize the business requirements, then proceed to write multiple technical specifications.
As a IA:
I designed the user experience with deliverable such as sitemap, process flow and wireframes.
As a visual designer:
I designed the comps.
As a developer:
I coded the some of the functionalities I designed.
I draw the line between a BA and an IA which is to have the BA dealing with business related tasks such as business objectives, business requirements with the exception to write technical specifications.
A BA can use flows and high level wireframe to illustrate the requirements or the specifications. But the BA is not responsible for designing the process flow or wireframe, nor witting the annotations. BA is only deal with requirements NOT solutions.
An IA steps in to design a solution based on the requirements from a BA. an IA may help a BA to fine tune the requirements or make recommendations. But I would let the BA to own the requirements. An IA should focuses only on the design.
So, to Luz's question, I think the best way to work with a BA as an IA is to be clear of the responsibilities. Let the BA own the requirements, let the IA own the design and respect that boundary.
Hope my two cents helps. :-)
Ashley
On 5/9/08, Weston Thompson <[address removed]> wrote:
I am loving this thread. Thank you, Luz, for putting the question out there. And thank you everybody for joining in!
My two cents:
1. I love God analogies
2. Never been to Wyoming
3. I am also learning how to work with BAs and also BSAs. Never had them in any organization I worked in before (IAs pretty much covered all those roles). In my current gig, we do have role expectations, but we are also very fluid and let people's individual strengths / the project at hand determine who handles certain aspects.
General roles, much like others have said:
BA:
BSA:
- know the business / stakeholders very well and develop good business requirements (that don't dictate a solution)
- be aware of processes in other parts of the company that are affected (i.e., develop a plan for how the phone bank will change their script)
- later in the process flesh out specifications (annotations) to cover business rules (IA could do this, but if BA is there, let him/her do it)
- set up meetings and handle logistics, if not being handled by a PM
IA
- know tech constraints and opportunities (i.e., be the person who can say, "hey, if we only had this data element present in the new system, we could seamlessly tie to that system over there.")
- develop use cases and document all error conditions
- BSA or IA often leads key meetings, as they tend to be the more sr person or have more of that skill set
Thanks,
- Fill in gaps where BA or existing knowledge don't provide enough about the actual users
- Help BA / BSA with requirements / tech issues by bringing good methods to the table (i.e., group card sorting as a way to get the business stakeholders to open up)
- Help shape presentation documents for key meetings and touch points (hey, we're info designers, right? and the BA / BSA often don't excel in that)
- Lead certain key meetings
- Develop solutions from the requirements and constraints/opportunities
- Document solutions, with help from BA and BSA in their respective areas
Weston
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