BAs work conditions & responsibilities

[PerfectStorm]

Make sure you get a clear set of deliverables at the start of the contract and if they want you do something not on that you have to say no as you'll be under D&C and have an IR35 issue.

Good luck with that

[Hobosapien]

I am focused on orientating myself with the system in question in preparation for assignment....

(To be fair, I am assigned to a programme of work - just the individual project(s) are TBC, the schedule of which was thrown up in the air on the week of joining).

So can be classed as BA work as it's domain knowledge acquisition. Nice one.

[SandyD]

No I am finding the reverse.... not enough BA work to keep me busy, last three roles have been the same.

Current contract I have been there a month and I've still to be assigned to a project....

Which industry?
Are you in banking?

[fiisch]

Which industry?
Are you in banking?

No, always insurance (more recently London Market). Have always found in various roles a lot of peaks and troughs in terms of workload, with more troughs.

Consequently I’ve never much enjoyed working as a BA (maybe glimpses during busy periods) but 90% boredom. If I’m brutally honest, I’d gladly switch to operations, but I think my CV now has me labelled as a BA for the next 30 odd years.... ��

[cojak]

Not sure why this trend has appeared but I'd rather be a specialist than a jack of all trades. Need to find a niche, maybe legacy stuff now all the first generation 'boomer' techies are dying off.

One word:

DevOps

[Hobosapien]

One word:

DevOps

Yep, already doing some of that as part of CI/CD process for current client.

Need to look into the scope of that role before I'd be confident of putting it on my CV.

[SandyD]

One word:

DevOps

DevOps is the new name for SysAdmin ???

[Hobosapien]

DevOps is the new name for SysAdmin ???

Nah, it's a modern abstraction of traditional IT roles relating to the delivery of software. So sysadmin is one part of the overall process, automated by way of tools that allow easy CI (continuous integration - submitting changes to a code base) and CD (continuous delivery - deploying the changes to an environment, typically cloud based these days).

Fits in with the Agile/Lean approach where quicker turnaround of software development and deployment via small incremental change is required to remain efficient.

[cojak]

DevOps is the new name for SysAdmin ???

There are few pure specialists working in a single role these days. Devs are often expected to have DBA and other skills while Ops are expected to be able to write automation scripts, have more than a little security knowledge and even I have had to have more technical knowledge than I used to (azure environment management processes are all the rage atm).

BAs now need to work in teams as Product Owners, doing BA stuff as well as maintaining backlogs or ensuring kanban flows.

It’s all changing and I doubt anywhere will go back to ‘the good old days’.

[Hobosapien]

I dunno, maybe the ongoing debacle at Microsoft with their latest Windows 10 update triggering a multitude of issues will encourage the better managers to focus on what current business process 'best practice' methods are doing for them in reality.

Amalgamation of roles is one way business management has attempted to streamline processes to cut costs and improve efficiency, but when the end product is a reduction in quality then a re-evaluation is required.

Microsoft have suffered from a lack of thorough in house testing of their product. I've seen the same at clients where they rely on automated testing or ad-hoc testers (that normally do a different role) instead of using dedicated testers (that are a different breed in their thoroughness if doing the job right) to ensure the product meets user requirements. Automated testing cannot replace this type of functional testing, and shifting that towards end users is acknowledging an inevitable reduction in quality assurance.

That is just one example of how sometimes having people work with too wide a role where a more focused specialised scope would deliver better quality may be giving their competitors an advantage.

As contractors we can encourage clients to re-evaluate this when we see it affecting things around us. After all, as a non-permie, we have the luxury of being able to speak more openly and some clients like that as it keeps them honest.