So, what is the difference between a Product Owner and a traditional Business Analyst? Well, that is a complicated question to answer. But let’s dig in. First, in Scrum, the Business Analyst role does not officially exist. If you recall, you only have three roles: Scrum Master, Product Owner, and the Scrum Team. That’s it. The Product Owner is the appointed representative of the Business; they are the voice which drives the Scrum delivery processes. A Product Owner:
Represents the “Voice of the Customer”
Develops and refines the Product Backlog
Defines business value of Product Backlog items
Establishes the priority and optimizes value of the work the Scrum Team performs
May or may not write the User Stories
At a high level, a Product Owner is generally less technical and is more oriented towards the business. In a lot of respects, from a traditional Waterfall view, they function both as the SME and perform less technical BA work. As we stated earlier, a Business Analyst does not exist on a Scrum Team, so where do they go? This is where things get organization specific.
Some organizations will absorb the BA and they will simply become part of the Scrum Team. On a Scrum Team, a Business Analyst might:
Write the User Stories
Perform additional analysis which will become artifacts during the Sprint (process models and diagrams, data dictionaries, low and hi-fi prototypes)
Execute UAT (write test cases, execute tests, maintain issues log)
In other organizations, a Business Analyst will transition into the role of the Product Owner. Meaning they will typically become more involved in the business side of the organization and less embedded within IT. The success of this transition will largely depend on the person’s ability to adapt and being comfortable representing the business. A Business Analyst is traditional a liaison between the Business and IT; a Product Owner represents the Business and product itself.