The role of the BA facilitator is to guide activities on developing both the vision and software solution. The key word here is guide.
The BA facilitator role provides process to group settings and avoids participating in content. Typically, the BA facilitator role serves as the liaison between stakeholders, and the stakeholders and software development team respectively. As the liaison, the BA facilitator role uses various techniques and emotional intelligence skills to assist project sponsors and/or team leaders in accomplishing group meeting goals:
• Facilitation Techniques for identifying solution features
o Creating a Solution Vision and Scope
- Brainstorming – discussing of ideas
- Brainwriting – submitting written ideas for discussion
- Focus Group Meetings – soliciting opinions
- Joint Application Design – resolving conflicts
- Root Cause – 5 whys, Ishikawa Diagrams
- Force-Field – listing negative and positive influences
- As-Is and To-Be Gap
- Multi-voting – subjective paring down a long feature list
- Criteria-Based Grid – weighting feature value criteria
- Impact/Effort Grid – comparing feature benefits versus effort
• Emotional Intelligence Skills for interfacing with stakeholders
o Active Listening and Paraphrasing
o Generating Participation
o Neutrality – focus on meeting process instead of solution content
o Questioning – seeking answers rather than posing solutions
o Maintaining Focus – use a parking lot and issue log for off agenda topics
o Obtaining Stakeholder Feedback
o Summarizing and Synthesizing Ideas
o Conflict Intervention
From The Need for the Business Analyst Facilitator Role
in an Agile Software Development Team
By Mark Monteleone, CBAP