How does the business analyst role work in an agile team?
What the interviewer wants to hear
- Works closely with the product owner on the backlog
- Writes and refines user stories just in time
- Joins refinement, planning and reviews
- Focuses on collaboration over heavy documentation
Model answer
In an agile team the BA works very closely with the product owner, often helping to manage and refine the backlog. Instead of writing a big requirements document at the start, I write and refine user stories just in time, usually one or two sprints ahead. I break large epics into small, valuable stories, add acceptance criteria and clarify edge cases with stakeholders. I take part in backlog refinement, sprint planning, daily questions from developers and sprint reviews, where I help collect stakeholder feedback. Documentation is lighter, but still important, for example process maps, business rules and key decisions in Confluence. In some companies the BA also acts as product owner. The main shift is from handing over documents to continuous conversation with the team.
Can you answer it under time pressure?
Take a timed medium round and get scored on every answer.
More medium Business Analyst questions
- How do you work with a stakeholder who does not know what they want?
- How do you help stakeholders prioritise requirements?
- What is your role in user acceptance testing?
- Describe how you would use data to support a business recommendation.
- How do you plan and run a requirements workshop?
- Walk me through how you would model a business process using BPMN.
- How do you manage changes to requirements once development has started?
- How do you use SQL or data analysis in your work as a business analyst?
- How do you elicit and write non-functional requirements?