Rebecca Chan

7.00 AM

Rise and shine! I’ll be working remotely for the first half of the day, so I have the benefit of just rolling out of bed, giving the dog a few pats, and getting myself ready before setting myself up in my office / spare room to start the day.

7.30 AM

First things first are to check my calendar to see what’s ahead – my days can vary a lot from just an hour or two of meetings to a full day of back-to-back calls. Today is a nice mix. I check my emails and any messages to see if there is anything that needs an urgent response.  Part of my job is unblocking others and making sure they have the information they need to work their magic, so anything that needs my attention gets added to Today’s to-do list. I also have a look at our internal support channels to see if there is anything I can help with.

8.00 AM

I have a few outstanding user stories to create (and some that need fleshing out). Each user story represents a task for the developer squad. I add business context, the requirements, any notes on scope and the technical solution. I also note any outstanding information that needs to be gathered before it’s ready to be refined by the squad. While I’m in this space, I also check the squad’s backlog and rearrange the upcoming tasks into a basic priority order for future refinements. 

9.30 AM

Stand-up time. Everyday, I attend several stand-ups for the various squads that work in the Digital space. This helps keep me up-to-date with the progress on all our various features and also gives me a chance to ask any questions. I then have a catch-up with our product director to discuss priorities for the squads, new customers, and upcoming work. If I’m asked to investigate existing functionality or to produce a ballpark on how new functionality might work and how long it would take to implement, I spend some time on this.

12.00 PM

Everyday I try to get out of the house and get some fresh air, so I’ve gotten into the habit of walking the doggo at lunchtimes. I have some lunch at home before catching the train (or bus) into our office in the city.

1.00 PM

I get to work closely with two other BAs in the digital space. Today we’re catching up on how each of the digital sales channels are progressing, what we’re working on and how it affects the other products, as well as bouncing solution approaches and ideas off each other.

1.30 PM

Lately, I’ve been doing some testing for integrating a new feature into the web space. I catch up with the developer and UX desiger to clarify some UI issues and behaviour.  

2.00 PM

For the afternoon, I settle into some feature work and the creation of a storyboard for an upcoming feature. Sometimes I’ll need to consult with architects, UX designers, and developers as part of this. Throughout the afternoon I’ll often get messages and spontaneous calls from the development team to clarify requirements and features which may require some time or investigation.

4.30 PM

I wrap up any emails and check my calendar for tomorrow morning to see if I have any early meeting calls with our overseas offices or customers. Thursday means it’s office drinks and it also happens to be games night, so I head up to the kitchen to socialise with some of my colleagues before heading to one of the meeting rooms to (try) kick some butt in various board games.

6. 30 PM

With that, I wrap up my day and head home in the sweet bliss of knowing that I only have half a day to go because we only work half-days on Fridays!