Role of a Business Analyst in different phases of SDLC

(Q). What is the role of a Business Analyst in different phases of SDLC?
In Software development life-cycle a Business Analyst is closely related with each of the steps involved in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The series of steps which involves a BA in the SDLC process are as follows:

Planning Phase:
At first when a prospective project is put forth in front of the team, the Project Manager, Business Analyst and the Technical Architect is involved in the Initiation and Planning phase. Key points for discussion are as follows:

• Feasibility of the project?

• Will the project be profitable?

• Technical challenges?

• Project technical risks?

Requirement Analysis:

In this phase a Business Analyst is heavily involved in making appointments with the client and start with interviewing them about the requirement of the project. This process is commonly known as Requirement gathering. This is where the BA will also use their modelling skills to document business requirements and prioritize activities. The information gathered is documented using MS Word or any similar software to represent use cases, use case diagram, activity diagram and data flow diagram etc.

Design and Development: The requirements have now been designed into a solution which is being implemented. The Business Analyst doesn’t have much to do in this phase. At times, it can happen that the BA is asked to clarify requirements or in certain Agile Scrum projects the business analyst will be asked to review prototypes. Business analyst should frequently have meeting with the team or developer in case of clarification to ensure that the project is on the right track. 

Testing and Implementation: During the Testing and Implementation phase the Business Analyst can assist with reviewing the test scripts to ensure all functional requirements are being tested. The BA can also make use of a Tractability Matrix to trace the requirements during implementation. After which the project is sent for User Acceptance Testing, in which business analyst makes an appointment with client and the client performs a sanity check. In case of bugs the project is sent back to the development team, else client will accept the project and beta version is implemented.

(Q). What is the role of a developer in different phases of sdlc?

The Software Developers (front-end and back-end) are responsible for using the technical requirements from the Technical Lead to create cost and timeline estimates.
The Software Developers are also responsible for building the deliverable and communicating the status of the software project to the Technical Lead or Project Manager.
It is critical that the other team members effectively communicate the technical requirements to the Software Developers to reduce project risk and provide the software project with the greatest chance of success.