Harlem Shakin' at work

What [the hell] does a BA do?

I get asked this question a lot. Mostly from non-ThoughtWorkers - friends, family, potential ThoughtWorkers I’m interviewing, new clients, and the like. Here’s my attempt to answer the question as inspired by the subreddit “Explain Like I’m 5”.

Sometimes I think the real description for my job title should be "monkey in the middle."

At a high level, a business analyst at ThoughtWorks serves as the liaison between the product owner and the rest of the team (mostly testers and developers) who are building the product. Now that’s vague...really vague. So let’s use an analogy. Imagine that a building is being planned. An architect has the vision and domain expertise for what the building should look like. He or she puts that in a blueprint, which when finished, is passed onto construction workers to actually build the damn thing.

Following me so far? Good, because here’s where my analogy starts to fall apart. You see, software is hard to build in just one blueprint (that’s what we at ThoughtWorks refer to as waterfall development. We’re not big fans of it). Object models and test suites are often more fickle and volatile than good old brick and mortar. As a result of code constantly evolving and changing, there’s lots of STUFF that can get very lost in translation along the way. That’s where BAs like myself come in. We are responsible for minimizing that STUFF. We do so by capturing bite-sized blueprints for one piece of functionality at a time. We call these small blueprints “user stories.” Itty-bitty blueprints are advantageous over one huge ass document because a.) we write them for the very near future, so big changes that happen do not result in a buttload of lost work and b.) we shorten the feedback loop with our customer by developing in small bites. There are c.)’s and d.)’s that I could go on and on about, but that’s for another post.

So, a business analyst’s job is to make these bite-sized stories. In doing so we must work very closely with the product owner, or the visionary, and we’re also in constant communication with the development and testing team. A business analyst thrives in that dichotomy between the panned out, high level, hallelujah! vision of the application and the zoomed-in nitty-gritty of what data needs to be displayed in what div after what click. It’s a role that frequently overlaps with those of Project Managers, Experience Designers, Product Owners, and Testers. Sometimes I feel like my brain is a revolving spice rack in a kitchen of many cooks - during one conversation, my knowledge about X and Y might be brought out to the counter, but as soon as I turn around they will get replaced and instead I’ll need to pull out some M and N instead.

You’re probably thinking, “Ok, all of this is nice. But what do you actually do on a day-to-day basis?” The answer, as many ThoughtWorksian answers end up being, is “It depends.” It depends on the project, on the team, on the client, on the time within the iteration, and on what impending crisis our team is facing (just kidding! Mostly). My first experience as a BA was completely different from what I did on my second project - and not completely out of ineptness, I’d like to add. The role just changes. *shrug*

I can however, answer that question in the context of my current project. I probably spend 75% of my time in the team space. A lot of that consists of talking to the tech lead and product owner about requirements - soliciting them, nitpicking at them, trying to figure out how to frame them smartly and capture them in right-sized portions. A lot of other times I am working with developers and testers - playing with new functionality on their local machines, estimating new stories, or doing kick-offs on existing ones that are about to get picked up. And of course there’s the time spent at my desk actually writing the stories. For this project I am using a tool called Rally to write stories and my favorite med-fi wireframing tool, Balsamiq, for pretty pictures and diagrams.

What I look like when I'm writing a user story.

As for the 25% of the time when I’m not in our team space, it’s usually in a meeting of some sort. Most of these meetings are good/productive, like our check-ins with users and community BA meet-ups. For the few where I don’t get a lot out of the meeting or do not contribute much to them, I make an effort to un-invite myself. Based on what previous experience has taught me, the longer you are on a team, especially in a BA or Product Owner capacity, the more meetings you will gradually be invited to or expected to attend as a representative of your team or application. It’s dangerous to fall into this rut of what an colleague once joked as “MDD” - meeting driven development. Therefore it’s important to turn a scrutinizing eye to new meeting invitations. Ask yourself: do I really really really need to be there? Is this the best use of my time? Will the world end if I don’t? If the answer is no to all of the above, skip it. Politely make yourself available for answering questions afterwards and then decline the invitation. It feels like a small miracle every time that happens, but it really shouldn’t.

No truer words to live by than these. Source: Zazzle

I like being a BA - I really do. I have my bad days and my good days, just as all jobs do. But on the whole I find it rewarding and challenging. It lines up well with my skillsets and interests. It’s also a great gateway role into other ones; as a BA you get to get a taste for so many flavors for the type of work that needs to come together to create working software.

It’s hard to believe that my three-year review at ThoughtWorks is coming up and that I’ve been in this BA gig for three years. At this point I definitely feel that I have a strong “BA arsenal” of tools and experiences that I can bring to new project teams, whatever they may need of me. But I also relish the feeling of being a complete noob to the domain and technology whenever I show up on the first day of a project. The challenge is accepted - always!

A Stint in Austin

Hey baby

Austin's official slogan is the "live music capital of the world." Those words pretty much about sum up my first time in Austin when I was there a year and a half ago; almost my entire weekend was spent at Austin City Limits. While ACL was magical in its own right - after all, it marked the first time I've ever seen Fleet Foxes perform live (*cue wistful sigh*) - it didn't lend itself to seeing much of the its namesake city. In fact after that weekend every time somebody found out that I'd been to Austin their eyes would light up and they would say "Isn't Austin great? I love that city!" I would "Mmhmm" and nod and sort of secretly wish I'd actually seen enough of the city to form even a nascent opinion of it.

So this time, the boy and I headed down south with Austin's unofficial slogan - "keep Austin weird" - as the theme of our weekend. Things certainly got off to a pretty weird start with us running in the third annual Austin Gorilla Run, a 5k that raises monies toward mountain gorilla conservation efforts. This race was actually the catalyst that inspired the trip - when I first found out it was taking place on the same weekend as our MLK 3-day weekend, I just knew I was destined to run through Austin in a gorilla suit. I just knew.

There's nothing quite like donning a three-pound onesie generously covered in thick black synthetic hair and traipsing through a city with a couple hundred like-minded runners on a sunny Saturday morning. It was a riot to see the costumes and getups that people had crafted for this race. Gorillas in tutus, on unicycles, chasing banana'ed runners...compared to everyone else there, the boy and I almost looked normal in our plain gorilla suits...almost.

I found Mr. Fabulous

Now to answer the question everyone always asks: what's it like to run in a gorilla costume? With the mask on - all sorts of hot and horrible. I decided at once that that was not going to happen. (That being dying of asphyxiation in a gorilla suit.) Life was considerably much more enjoyable with the mask off; the rest of the suit just felt like a huge jumper and I was rather grateful for it in the nippy early morning. During the race at around the two mile mark, it definitely became more of a nuisance - the first thing I did after crossing the finish line was un-velcro myself and gulp down some water to cool myself off.

To my surprise, I managed to place in third place among the ladies with my 23:01 time! My first and probably last time doing so. While I'll be the first to admit that this certainly wasn't a competitive race - a lot of gorillas walked, biked, or jogged - placing still felt pretty great. And coincidentally, the boy also placed 3rd among male runners, with a 19:37 run time. Whoo!

Skipping to get my medal! Oh yeah.

There was a great after race party with free beer from a local brewery, live music, and a lot of gorilla-on-gorilla mingling. I can't decide which was my favorite moment: cheering on a dozen gorillas who were line dancing in unison, or getting to pet a 6 week old Brittany puppy with the bluest eyes I've ever seen.

Holy mother of God, this was a good-looking puppy.

Some post-run chow was definitely in order. Since we were in the neighborhood, we decided to check out South Congress Cafe, where I carb loaded with duck and oyster gumbo and then found more room for eggs benedict.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out in the SoCo area checking out the vintage/thrift stores, scoping out the local art, and eating an ungodly amount of food. I've heard of people likening SoCo to Chicago's Wicker Park or San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury but in my opinion it was way more artsy and laid-back and gave off less judge-y vibes, for lack of a better description. I was pleasantly surprised by how diverse the locals looked. In the midwest I think sometimes we tend to fall into a more or less standard North Face yuppie uniform and everybody sort of starts to start looking the same (huge generalization, I know...). In Austin I was fascinated by the wide the range of people's appearances. A typical moment looked like this: on the main street, a twenty-something-year old hipster couple walk hand-in-hand, his-and-hers cowboy boots tucked over their skinny jeans. An extremely well-preserved lady bounces by them clutching a latte (nonfat, I'm sure) in her manicured fingers and looking like an advertisement for Lulu Lemon. Meanwhile on the opposite side of the street an older black man sits in bench, keeping cool in a fedora hat and surveying the world passing by him through purple-tinted John Lennon sunglasses.

My favorite memory about SoCo was stumbling into a small open area under some trees where a live band was playing and folks were gathered around drinking beer, dancing and generally engaging in family-friendly merrymaking. For almost an hour I found myself sitting underneath a great old oak tree with my belly very full and my mind a little tipsy as I hung out with the boy and enjoyed some great live music. A little slice of heaven.

The night ended with a visit to Esther's Follies, a long-running show in the downtown 6th street area that is part sketch comedy, part musical, and part magic show. I walked into the show feeling pretty wiped after a long day and skeptical of what was in store ahead (...magic? um). An hour and a half later, I walked out with a huge stupid grin plastered on my face from having so thoroughly enjoyed my experience. Esther's Follies was brilliant, old-school entertainment at its best. Hilarious actors, incredible talent, and well-written content brought constant gasps, shouts, and eruptions of giggles from the audience members. It might have even given the Second City a run for its money. I loved how the show was interactive both with audience members (those poor, poor audience members...) and with the large window behind the stage that looked out onto a busy intersection of downtown where random players would pop up to "accessorize" what was going on inside on stage. The boy and I agreed that the jewels performances were a.) a sketch featuring the governor explaining Texas breaking into five separate states and b.) all the magician's acts. The latter were incredible and kept us guessing well after we'd walked out of the theater. 

Our second day in Austin was much more relaxed. We took a lazy stroll around the waterfront among the company of many active people (runners, roller bladers, speed walkers) and their even more active off-the-leash canine companions, all of whom looked like they were in doggie heaven as they ran about sniffing each other's butts and jumping into the water to fetch balls. Oh, the simple life.

We also found some contraptions known as "water bikes" and felt compelled to try them out. Yolo!

For lunch we stopped at Torchy's Tacos at the recommendation by some locals, and boy it did not disappoint. Instructions for approaching Torchy's are as follows: Do not be fooled by its humble food truck-y experience. Go straight to the counter and order as many tacos as you can ingest in one sitting. Make sure the baja shrimp is one of them because that one was particularly fucking scrumptious. Briefly ponder the meaning of life, then order one more taco. Then notice the smoothie truck right next to Torchy's. Find a picnic bench and sip on your mango smoothie while the seconds stretch into millennia as you await your delicious taco fiesta with bated breath and pooling drivel. Look up and see a friendly Torchy's employee set a platter of tacos down in front of you. Whisper thanks to whatever deity you believe made this moment possible. Then go to town.

We spent that afternoon relaxing in a park and greedily lapping up the last rays of sunshine that our vitamin D-deprived bodies so badly craved. On the way back to the hotel, we had to go on a detour, which invariably led to us becoming lost, but the upside is that we got to drive through a very affluent and hilly neighborhood and admire the houses therein/make fun of what we imagined their owners' lives and first world problems were like. Side note: I like getting lost in unfamiliar cities. It's always a little adventure.

Found this in the park near where I was laying. Does anyone else think it vaguely looks like China? Or am I just crazy.

My trip to Austin ended on a very low-key note: a big ole bowl of pho later found me tucked in bed and watching Breaking Bad until I drifted off to sleep. In the morning, we enjoyed brunch in an adorable French restaurant and then packed up the rental car to zip back to DFW airport.

Adieu, Austin.

What an incredible weekend - Austin sure was good to me. I definitely walked away feeling like I'd gotten a taste of that "weird" flavor the locals cherished so much. Several times I contemplated moving there. All the Torchy's and live music I could handle...certainly a tempting thought.