Ratio of B.A.s to Developers

[Old Greg]

I've never worked anywhere that had a BA. Just engineers, who do actual work, and sometimes a PM, whose only task seems to be to schedule a meeting every so often.

I do a bit of BA work from time to time. I guess it depends on the project, but how would your engineers and PM approach the job of 'we need some kind of electronic system for recording clinical documentation for the hospital'?

[Mich the Tester]

I do a bit of BA work from time to time. I guess it depends on the project, but how would your engineers and PM approach the job of 'we need some kind of electronic system for recording clinical documentation for the hospital'?

Exactly the way we did it at <huge US conglomerate>. Product owner was a 'marketing' chappy (actually quite a good techie with medical imaging knowledge) who knows the clients through and through, two scrum teams, each with four devs and one tester, plus shared resources of an 'integration' chappy who just installed stuff and a secretary who turned our simple reports into colourful graphs that kept the managermen at bay. There was a so-called Project Manager but I don't know what he did other than schedule extra meetings if anything was delayed.

Product delivered on time, nearly on budget, was sold to hospitals around the world and to the US Navy, earning umpty million in its first 6 months, but then the whole team was closed down, the product owner, who was a Japanese guy and one of the few people I've ever met who truly deserves the title 'expert', left to work for <big Japanese imaging competitor who offered him a tulipload of dosh>, and nearly all the techies went to <big Dutch technology firm in Eindhoven that makes a competing product>.

[jmo21]

Exactly the way we did it at <huge US conglomerate>. Product owner was a 'marketing' chappy (actually quite a good techie with medical imaging knowledge) who knows the clients through and through, two scrum teams, each with four devs and one tester, plus shared resources of an 'integration' chappy who just installed stuff and a secretary who turned our simple reports into colourful graphs that kept the managermen at bay. There was a so-called Project Manager but I don't know what he did other than schedule extra meetings if anything was delayed.

Isn't Product Manager an American name for a kind of long term BA anyway? Worked with many at a large US company and that is basically what they did. Managed the customer and the spec, told the Project Manager what to do etc

[Old Greg]

Exactly the way we did it at <huge US conglomerate>. Product owner was a 'marketing' chappy (actually quite a good techie with medical imaging knowledge) who knows the clients through and through, two scrum teams, each with four devs and one tester, plus shared resources of an 'integration' chappy who just installed stuff and a secretary who turned our simple reports into colourful graphs that kept the managermen at bay. There was a so-called Project Manager but I don't know what he did other than schedule extra meetings if anything was delayed.

Imaging is relatively simple from a business perspective, so I can see that working.

Clinical documentation is substantially more complex because of the breadth and variations between differing specialties, disciplines and care settings.

[Mich the Tester]

Imaging is relatively simple from a business perspective, so I can see that working.

Clinical documentation is substantially more complex because of the breadth and variations between differing specialties, disciplines and care settings.

The application included both.

[Mich the Tester]

Isn't Product Manager an American name for a kind of long term BA anyway? Worked with many at a large US company and that is basically what they did. Managed the customer and the spec, told the Project Manager what to do etc

Well maybe; in any case, this one was exceptionally competent both in subject matter and ability to deal with people. He had a special gift that enabled him to get people to support him and help him and that you don't often come across among corporate managers; he was a nice bloke who knew what he was talking about.

[Old Greg]

The application included both.

Then you do indeed need someone to mediate between the clinicians and the developers. Sometimes, when the developers wanted to engage directly with the clinicians, we'd let them do it for a bit of fun.

[Mich the Tester]

Then you do indeed need someone to mediate between the clinicians and the developers. Sometimes, when the developers wanted to engage directly with the clinicians, we'd let them do it for a bit of fun.

Yep, that was the 'product manager', or 'Product Owner' in Agilese.

[vetran]

Imaging is relatively simple from a business perspective, so I can see that working.

Clinical documentation is substantially more complex because of the breadth and variations between differing specialties, disciplines and care settings.

ah the 'our business is so complex that only a rocket scientist could understand it' gambit.

You ask them to document it and you find they don't understand it either.

Alternatively you find it they do exactly the same as everyone else but have made it so complicated by adding undocumented fudges that they need to change the way they work and use a standard tool.

Lets be honest most business requirements have already been solved over & over.

[Antman]

Has anyone ever worked with/used the business rules approach from Ronald Ross?