Scott,

sorry, but I have to take issue with your statement "I think that analysis is an important thing, but that the role of business analyst is overly specialized." One of the most common prblems we see in software is not the development of software -- we are pretty good at that -- but the role software plays in the business. To put this another way, too much software (this is my observation, i have no empirical evidence) is developed that while it works jusyt fine, does not do what is needed for the busienss as a whole. It might satisfy the needs of one or two users, but it the buislders had taken into account the larger business needs, it would have provided more value to the business as a whole.

This is the role of the business analyst -- to provide value to the business, not to support the development of a narrow pioece of software. This might be a specialised task, but one I suggest is capable of providing huge value.

This is not an attack on agile development. I think the agile way of thinking (when applied as intended) has resulted in some real progress. Now we need to have agilists look up for a few moments and consider not their client, but their client's orgnisation and the world outside that.

Cheers,

James