Tester and BA Roles: Have They Combined?

As much as we try to separate the two roles in the past, we are currently trying to get the BA/QA roles to work hand in hand. Sort of a precursor to the three amigos where the BA/QA discuss the requirements, do process flows and identify testing areas then present it to the scrum team. Its been pretty successful and also given more credibility to the BA/QA roles, something that in general hasnt been given a lot of value.

When I started testing in the 90’s (hmmm, this sounds familiar), the SDLC was very much Waterfall and all roles were separate in the industries I worked in. However, the company I work for now is Agile for all in house development and their BA role encompasses the tester role.
When hiring, the role of the BA is more important than the role of the tester because they believe a BA is the best person to test since they write the requirements, field specs, create the stories and screen mock-ups. Needless to say, it is a regular occurrence for BAs to put in 50+ hour weeks.
It’s hard to believe, but there are still companies out there that don’t value the talent brought to the table by having a good testing team. QA is still viewed as a necessary evil. Might I add, the role of the “QA Manager” is nothing more than a glorified UAT coordinator.

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I think we should list the main responsibilities of a BA at a high level. Then, check if the role can be realistically divided among other roles (PM, tester etc.), without any side effects. Then, check if this generalized division can be performed in our specific situation.

I am sure that there are a few (if not many) examples in which a BA role might not be needed due to the specific circumstances at a company. YMMV. For example, how helpful would it be to have a BA for developing API products or such, especially when the BA is non-technical and you already have a PM who can give high level requirements ? Can the BA come up with acceptable technical specifications the way a good developer would ? Can the BA think about “testability” the way a good QA or developer would during requirements analysis ? Do your QA, Devs & PM have the skills & time to do the duties of BA ? Does the product need a lot of business domain knowledge which only the BA has ?

I think that the need for a dedicated BA depends on the project and the skill set of the team members.

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Where I work BAs actually do a lot of testing, especially on the requirement and acceptance level.

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I feel the same. I too joined a small startup with over 100 employees. Initially, we had BA for our project, but soon after I joined she left within a couple of weeks. And after that, a lot of tasks that I was doing were something a BA should have done. But I believe in recent times the role of a tester has been upgraded from just a tester to something more. And it’s not just QA, it’s for every other role in the IT industry. It won’t be too long before it becomes the norm. Initially, I thought it was applicable only to small startups, but I came to realize that I was wrong.
But coming back to your question “Are there still dedicated BAs out there?”. Yes, I think there are, but I also think that in the future this role may be consumed by some other role.

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