Correction: Business Analysts & C3 project

In a couple of blog post, and on other occasions in other places I have talked about there being a Business Analyst working on the original Extreme Programming (XP) Chrysler C3 project.

I’m not sure where I picked this piece of information up but I was wrong. One, Chet Hendrickson of the original team read my post and the team actually had direct access to the payroll team to understand what was needed, agree acceptance criteria, etc.

The Wikipedia entry on C3 discusses a “customer representative” on C3 and indeed Extreme Programme suggests you have a onsite “customer”. Somewhere along the line I read, was told, or just got the impression that this person was, on the C3 project a Business Analyst. Now I see I was wrong.

Having set that, I would still suggest that a Business Analyst can fill the role of customer representative and often have experience and training in doing this. I will accept that sometimes a BA doing this might become a block and it would be better for the team to talk directly to the customers.