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Business Analysts in India

We've been doing Scrum for the past seven-and-a-half years, but we're about to embark upon a new project, for which we're considering having business analysts in India.

I believe strongly in the abilities of our current India team. They're extremely hard-working and productive folks. We have always tried to treat them as individual team members with names and faces, and not as simply warm bodies. We have a ton of confidence in them, and continue to build up the team.

But business analysts in India? In my experience, conventional wisdom is that you keep the business analysts here in the states, both because the business doesn't even exist in India (and thus it's hard to expect an India-based business analyst to master the intricacies of the business) and because you want your team of business analysts to be a close-knit group of folks, including being geographically close-knit. I'll also never forget my Scrum trainer declaring that an organization's business analysts should stay at your headquarters.

How do you feel about this subject? Does anyone have experience locating business analysts in India?

Tags: BA, analysts, business, india

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Permalink Reply by Abhay Zutshi on January 17, 2012 at 9:19

Hi,

I am a BA with around 3.5 years of experience and working in Mumbai. What location are you looking at, and skills?

Thanks,

Abhay

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Permalink Reply by Kelly Waters on January 27, 2012 at 23:45

Hi. In my experience it is most common to keep BA's local, however it is also quite common to duplicate this role when offshoring, with one BA locally providing access to the business and writing requirements (ideally as user stories), and their counterpart offshore providing knowledge and guidance to the offshore team, perhaps writing more detailed story narratives and breaking the requirements down further for the team. In 'old language', this approach might be a bit like having a Business Analyst locally and a Systems Analyst offshore. In terms of communication, the two BA's then become one of the main conduits between the onshore and offshore teams, certainly when it relates to requirements, scope, product, etc.