A tester is responsible to test the product and ensure that the test meets the requirements. The business Analyst is responsible for capturing the requirements of the product.
Testers are involved in the life cycle of software development from the first phase until the program is released. They know more about the product because they are the ones who play a major role in improving the quality of the product. This makes the skill set of a tester a valuable asset. If the tester has a good knowledge of software progress processes and strategies, he or she can move to DevOps, automation, as a business analyst, or work as a manager.
There are many reasons as to why the skills of a tester are well suited for the BA role.
- Attention to detail: They are detail-oriented and are able to break down scenarios and “What About” situations.
- Customer’s First: In any business, client service is paramount, and testers are required to keep client’s fulfillment as their priority.
- Interpersonal Skills: Testers are familiar with requirements and write test cases. Communication and interpersonal skills are important for a tester and this is an asset that the tester can transfer over as a Business Analyst.
- Documentation: During every step of the lifecycle of the project, testers will be involved in preparing documents such as development case testing, test planning, and feature reporting that is also needed by a business analyst.
Role of Tester and Business Analyst
| Role of Tester | Role of Business Analyst | |
| Acceptance Criteria | The job of testers is to review the criteria of acceptance which is defined by the product owners and business analyst. Testers may also propose alterations to the admission process after consultation with the BA. | The interpretation of the admission process after consultation with the Teams and Business Groups is also a BA function. |
| Planning Sessions | Another role of the tester is to know the needs of the User Story from BA during the sprint editing meetings and discusses with authority, whether User Stories can be tested. The testers also provided a high-level evaluation of every User Story depends on basic learning. | In the sessions of Sprint Planning, BA describes the needs of the group and sets out the Product Owner’s expectations for the group |
| Test/Scenario Design | When the planning and evaluation for the Agile Project are completed, the evaluation team writes the Assessment Conditions followed with details. | Directly starting from the sessions of Sprint Planning, the role of BA is to explain any questions related to the requirements of development and testing. |
| Test Estimations | Depending on the knowledge of user issues, thorough test evaluations are performed using standard test evaluation techniques. | The role of a business analyst is to define and prepare a detailed document about needs after knowing the expectations from business shareholders. |
If you are considering becoming a Business Analyst, here are 3 skills that you need to build upon:
- Elicitation – As a tester, you are familiar with requirements and dealing with the business analyst or a product owner to understand requirements. The goal for you is to maybe shadow a Business Analyst to understand the role and what that would mean to you to elicit requirements.
- Traceability – This one won’t be as hard for you because of the fact that you as a tester understand the importance of tying test cases to requirements. The goal would be for you to ensure that there is a link between requirements.
3. Agility: With a changing landscape in business analysis, there are hybrid BA roles popping up like scrum masters playing the role of a BA, BA’s playing the role of a data analyst. The keyword is for you to be nimble and agile in this environment.
