I’m Jarlath, one of the new Business Analysts (BAs) here at Kainos, having joined via the BA Academy in April of this year. From this blog, I hope to give you a feel of what the journey has been like so far for me, what the role of a BA entails, and what a typical day looks like for me.
My journey
Before diving in, I think it’s important to understand how I came to be in the role, having never worked in the world of ‘product’.
I spent just over three years in Financial Services, and I was ready for a change of direction. I wanted a role that would offer me the chance to have much more client interaction and one where I would get the chance to work with a variety of different people on projects.
Then I discovered an exciting opportunity to join Kainos’ BA Academy which seemed to be a perfect fit and didn’t require any previous product experience. I joined with a group of other new starts and spent my first 3 weeks learning about the skills and mindset it took to be a good BA. We discussed things such as User Stories, Presenting with Impact, and Requirement Elicitation to name a few. It’s fair to say that these topics were quite alien to me, but with the transferable skills I had from my previous roles, and the great support network within the Academy I found it to be a brilliant experience.
Following this, I was placed onto my very first project, working on a high-profile digital transformation project for a government organisation.
What's the role of a BA?
I remember getting to this point on my first project and wondering where does the BA fit into it all?
One such article describes the role as ‘embedding yourself with the client and beginning to develop an understanding of their processes and start to identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies’. We then begin to understand what the business and user needs are and work with the Product Owner (PO) to build out a road map of epics and user stories.
The aim of the BA is to support the Product Owner by stocking the product backlog of stories, ensuring a shared understanding of what is being built, and making sure that the delivery team has enough work for the upcoming sprint. This is achieved through regular ceremonies with the delivery team, ensuring that the project and business needs are being kept on track.
Managing the scope off a project is a very important factor for the role of a BA and outlines exactly what is needed and what is not needed for accomplishing a project. It ensures we are meeting the needs of our customers/users, delivering value, and managing expectations of our clients. My role in managing scope involves helping with the refinement of epics and stories and working with the team to split epics into stories that can be implemented. To ensure the right thing is being built, we have regular feedback sessions with key stakeholders which ensures we are well aligned on the end goal.
What does a typical day look like?
What makes the role so interesting is that no two days are ever the same. You get the opportunity to work on so many different aspects across a project, liaising with different stakeholders and being involved with different teams that it keeps the role very fresh and exciting.
As a new BA coming onto the project, there was a plan for me to shadow a Senior BA to develop and learn the skills of what project life would be like and join some of their client calls and workshops. Planning for these meant collaborating on tools such as Mural to bounce ideas off each other and have a consistent flow on how to approach the calls. I would have the chance the ask the client questions on these calls, and quite often I would be responsible for taking notes and updating Confluence pages (where information and actions are documented) to share with the wider team.
A somewhat typical day for me would start with morning stand ups. This is a great opportunity for me to discuss the work I accomplished yesterday and what I will be working on for the day ahead. These daily stand ups are very important in my role and are a great place to find out if anyone has any questions for me, or if anything is required from the Product Owner. What is also established on these calls, is that people may be moving quite fast with their tickets, and so I will need to prepare more for them, ensuring they have a steady flow of work in the sprint.
A characteristic meeting in scrum is backlog refinement. This is an opportunity for the BAs and Development Team to meet and create a shared understanding of the items on the product backlog.
This is where I will get the chance to look at stories a few sprints down the line and attach a size estimate for their relative complexity, as well as placing them in order of priority. When facilitating this ceremony, it is important to keep the conversation focused by setting a clear agenda and objective for the meeting and would revert to these when we appear to be deviating. I ensure that the conversation is being captured, with tickets having a clear description, user story and acceptance criteria attached. Sprint planning looks closely at the stories coming up in the next sprint and allows members from the Scrum team to work collaboratively to have a say when work happens.
Retro session is another meeting which is frequently found in my calendar, and these give myself and the team a chance to reflect on things which have happened in the previous sprint, good or bad. The team can reflect on what happened and identify any actions or improvements going forward.
It is important to note that this is just a flavour of some of the things which make up a typical day for me. There are other regular connect meetings with the client and routine check points with the development team to cover off technical discussions and people to give an update on different workstreams within the project. When preparing for the client connect meetings, I would prepare an agenda/objective and send it over in advance of the call, so the client is well briefed on the purpose and flow the call will take. Initially, I would have been quite nervous for these meetings, but with the support of more senior BAs in helping prepare questions, along with more practise, I am becoming more relaxed around them.
My Product Owner Kathryn has been brilliant in helping me settle into Kainos and my first project. We have regular 1-2-1 meetings to discuss my progress to date and anything in which I would like to gain more exposure in. She has been vital in my development and is always willing to point me in the right direction, making sure I am speaking to the right people to get the answers I need.
Building a good network
One thing which has stood out to me since taking on the role of a BA here at Kainos is the opportunities you are given to develop in your role, and how important it is to develop your network. You have a great support team around you and asking questions is the name of the game.
"Small hinges swing big doors."
Never being afraid to ask a daunting question because you don’t know where it will take you and try to take whatever opportunities come your way – Kainos will afford you loads of them.