Collaboration
Collaboration is continuous, not a kickoff
A business analyst sits between the business and the delivery team. Collaboration spans facilitated workshops, requirement review sessions, backlog refinement, demos, and asynchronous channels such as Chatter, Salesforce Files, Quip, and Slack. Know the mechanics: an agenda, a timebox, a parking lot, and written decisions and actions.
Concepts
- RASCI/RACI: Responsible does the work; Accountable owns the outcome and is exactly one person; Supporting assists; Consulted gives input; Informed is notified.
- Communication plan: audience, message, channel, frequency, owner.
- Decision log and RAID log (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies).
- Conflict handling: separate position from interest, and escalate with data rather than opinion.
Traps
- Two people marked Accountable - the classic distractor. If everyone is accountable, nobody is.
- Running a workshop as a status meeting: no timebox, no decision, no output.
- Collaborating once at the start, then disappearing until UAT.
- Leaving decisions buried in chat threads instead of the decision log.
- Confusing consensus (everyone agrees) with consent (no one blocks). Agile teams normally need consent.
Rule of thumb
No meeting without a named decision owner and a written output within 24 hours. Invite the smallest group that can decide; inform everyone else.
Worked example
For UAT sign-off: BA is Responsible (writes scripts, coordinates), the business process owner is Accountable (signs off), the Salesforce admin is Consulted (fixes defects), the sponsor is Informed. Asked who approves go-live, the answer is the single accountable business owner - not the BA and not the admin.