Reply to: BAs work conditions & responsibilities

[Whorty]

I often see BA and PM roles cross over on projects. When I'm hired as a PM I often find I don't have any BA resource so if I want the analysis done and can either wait to see if a BA turns up, or crack on myself and keep the project moving forward. Same if I'm hired as a BA, I often end up managing the project too as the PMs are too stretched. As an ex techie I'm also not adverse to rolling my sleeves up and knocking out a bit of code too if required, although I like to badge this as 'prototyping' until I can get a techie freed up

These days clients don't have the budgets for all roles so us contractors have to just get in there and do what we can to make the project a success.

My contract will say 'deliver x project' so I see this as all legit for IR35 as everything I do will be to deliver the project.

If I'm honest though, I prefer the BA side of the work to the PM side these days (too much bulltulip in PM and I'm not a fan of spending hours producing slide packs) so I'm happy when the role has a mix as it keeps me interested longer.

[SandyD]

.

No point me telling you those questions as they were specific to my domain and you’ll know your own questions with the above research.

Oh sure just wondered if there are training courses, I have done training in the past and that was really helpful into getting into a new area no idea why as some of the training was a simple 1 week intensive training, others were just a full weekend!!

I have a couple of DevOps friends, from speaking with them their job is not all great, they do have a lot of production support, like you say automate scripts for releases etc, but it’s not great when production fails!!!

[cojak]

Great, how did you get into this? I know you used to be a BA.

I am always stuck with doing BA/PM roles, and rally want to be more of a specialist instead of all the meetings etc.

I also heard data scientist/analytics maybe an Ok area to go into and be specialised.

You don’t get to avoid the meetings I’m afraid, it’s all about collaboration these days.

I’ve been keeping up to date with DevOps and Cloud (books, Twitter and YouTube mostly), and when a company asked me to help them I was in a position to talk intelligently to the interviewer and ask the right questions.

No point me telling you those questions as they were specific to my domain and you’ll know your own questions with the above research.

[SandyD]

I’m putting cloud service management processes in, which aren’t actually business processes as in the old days, so I’m supporting the new DevOps world.

Great, how did you get into this? I know you used to be a BA.

I am always stuck with doing BA/PM roles, and rally want to be more of a specialist instead of all the meetings etc.

I also heard data scientist/analytics maybe an Ok area to go into and be specialised.

[cojak]

Hey cojak, are you working as DevOps now?

Yes hate agile, it spoilt everything for us

I’m putting cloud service management processes in, which aren’t actually business processes as in the old days, so I’m supporting the new DevOps world.

[SandyD]

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’.

Hey cojak, are you working as DevOps now?

Yes hate agile, it spoilt everything for us

[cojak]

It looks like you’ve captured the moment, Sandy...

This is Not Fine! - The IT Hollow

[cojak]

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.

As I’ve just put a cloud patch management process in place, I can’t do anything else but agree with you.

(Stage testing, anyone?)

[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.

[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]

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.

[SandyD]

One word:

DevOps

DevOps is the new name for SysAdmin ???

[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.

[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

[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.... ��