Day in My Life as a Mavericks BA-ddie

Michelle
6d
4 min read

It’s not uncommon for a BA to be a “shared resource". This means that a BA might be assigned to one or many projects / squads at a time, though it is heavily dependent on the complexity of the projects themselves and the seasonal peak periods of each project.

Generally, our BAs may be handling either:

1 x high complexity project, or
2 x medium / low complexity project, with 1 to 2 small assignments

At Mavericks, the most effective BAs are a little bit BA, with a sprinkle of PM and UX design. Taking the lead to facilitate and coach individuals into all-rounded team players is a key part of the job too.

A great BA plays a large part in helping the business and dev teams find their groove and grow into a high-performing team. Of course, that’s easier said than done but it is what makes a BA irreplaceable. So here’s a sneak peek into a day in my life as a Maverick BA (fair warning: she’s a bit of a doozy):

9 AM: Scheming (In A Good Way)

My day always starts with a quick review of what needs to be done for the day. I like to start with a perusal through my inbox and Slack, assessing what issues need to be addressed. Anything that can be resolved in less than 5 mins is answered, more than that gets added to my personal backlog.

On top of this, I’m reviewing my project and team plans, going through JIRA & Trello boards to assess our sprint health, and checking for updates on any side quests that I’ve set up for my team and I (usually a personal growth challenge of sorts).

Once I’ve got a good idea of where we’re at, I like to break up my day into smaller timeblocks, each with a mini list of prioritised tasks to tackle. Helping to run several projects at a time can get overwhelming quickly, but I’ve found that creating pockets of “focus times’ and “progress reviews” is really effective to get things done and optimise my time.

For today, we’ve got a few meetings and 3 blocks of me-time!

9.30 AM: Google Slides + Brain = Magic Advice

One of my client projects has just wrapped up, so our dev team is switching to production support mode.

But I’ve got to put the final touches on our slide deck containing a summary of how we did and our process improvement recommendations for our client to consider.

We always make it a point to retrospect on how our projects went and how we can improve going forward. Hopefully our client takes on our suggestions so that our next yearly exercise will be smoother!

10 AM: Stand-up Catch-ups!

Being a part of multiple projects unfortunately means that my daily standups are multiplied too. Thankfully, I only have two that I need to attend (the rest are in production support so there’s no standup).

At Mavericks, our standup updates go beyond the basic 3 questions. Our standups are used to assess if our sprints are going as planned (e.g. are we ahead / behind schedule), and to sound out for any team blockers / dependencies that we need to watch out for. We also make it a point to leave mini-updates on our tickets so that it’s easy for teammates who can’t make it to catch up independently.

10.30 AM: Plotting Round Two – Assembling The Hit List

One of my internal projects has just finished Phase 1. Although we had to readjust our sprint plans, our team has learnt a lot about what to do (and what not to do) in Phase 2!

So planning ahead for Phase 2, I’ve got to analyse the project requirements and prioritise our backlog. Better get started!

1.30 PM: Part 2.0, Now With Extra Calories And Brainpower ✨

Back at my desk, let’s re-assess our progress so far…

Overall, not bad! We’ve made some good progress in the morning, but wait! Hmm… we’re supposed to conduct a few training workshops in the coming weeks, and I haven’t heard anything from the facilitators in a while. Maybe we’ll do a quick check-in to see if they need any help.

As a Maverick, we regularly organise sharing sessions and training workshops to help each other learn and be better. At the moment, we have 2 upcoming workshops planned for the coming weeks.

2 PM: It’s showtime!

My other project’s sprint ends today, so I got to sit in on their showcase and see what they’ve accomplished.

Sweet! That’s some cool new features! I think we’re getting really close to their first product release. How exciting!

Now, it’s on to their retrospective…

Pro-tip: as a general rule, recurring or broad action items could be a sign that there is room to retrospect more deeply! A good starting point to assess this is to kick-off the discussion with specific recounts of what happened over the course of the sprint. This is not to find and assign blame, but rather to understand what’s happening on the ground and see how we can make real change.

4 PM: Calling In The Bomb Squad (Me 💁🏻‍♀️)

While reviewing my product backlog, a wave of BA desk checks and testing has arrived.

Our BA desk checks are small sync-ups between any member of the team and the BA. This often occurs whenever clarification is needed on the requirements, someone has an alternative idea, or there’s new information that needs to be accounted for.

On the other hand, BA testing is one of our final checks to confirm whether a ticket can be classified as “Done”. This typically involves final checks against the user story’s “so that”, acceptance criteria and general UIUX checks.