In one of my previous posts, I mentioned that the Business Analyst is in charge with "what to do", while the Project Manager is responsible with "how to do". This is a very simple approach and it is true from start-ups to big companies. This pair will "bridge" in a better way the biz needs with the IT needs, they will form a stronger Biz-IT Bridge.
However, there are situations when these two roles are performed by a single person, which is not the best possible thing, in my opinion. BA and PM still need different skills, sometimes obviously for everybody.
If this pair of a BA and PM is present on a project, a few benefits will appear soon:
I believe these are quite obviously for you and if you do agree them and want more details, please read this article.
10 Comments
Jim
4/18/2016 05:11:49 am
I agree that both skills are necessary for a project to be successful. However I disagree that they should be performed by different people for this reason: When changes are required throughout a project, it is up to the project manager to control the change, and to control any change you need to understand EVERY consequence of making or not making the change. Only a business analyst (or person performing BA responsibilities) truly understands at that level of detail in a project. There will be times when a project is so large that a PM truly can't perform ANY BA responsibilities, but it still is beneficial for the PM in this case to possess BA skills. 4/18/2016 05:16:06 am
Interesting thoughts, Jim. Thank you for sharing them!
Jeremy
7/8/2016 02:04:10 am
Although it always depends on the specifics of the project, it is unlikely that the PM deals with 'How to do'. I see that as a matter of detail. The PM may set quality standards that impact on the deliverables but shouldn't dictate how they are achieved. That is micro-managing which is usually seen as a bad thing. 7/8/2016 04:23:58 am
Thank you for your comment, Jeremy.
Tom
7/9/2016 06:10:09 pm
In my experience the organizations that expect a PMs to also function as a BA, have set the stage for problems if not failure. These are two separate skill sets. Similar, but different. besides that, if a PM is doing their job they are spending their time doing PM and project leadership functions. 7/10/2016 04:17:29 am
I know what you're saying, Tom, and I totally agree with you. This is partially solved in Agile, by having (a) smaller requirements gathering phase(s).
Darrel
4/16/2019 09:35:29 am
I wouldn’t say that AGILE is about smaller requirement phases. It’s about shorter, more frequent delivery allowing earlier customer feedback on requirements developed, which allows product managers to adapt product accordingly with less waste.
Csilla Hodges
10/1/2020 03:09:51 am
As Darrel says, not sure about the shorter phase; not a big project I'm working on right now but it's taken 6 months to gather requirements exactly due to the nature of Agile projects, allowing for constant change, where we end up rescoping. Also, If I had the technical experience a specialist BA has I wouldn't need to go back to my dev team to help ask the right questions and I could focus on the actual management of the project and developing myself in a more focused way. I think a very close cooperation is what is needed between the BA and PM. 7/15/2016 07:22:03 am
Whilst logically one person could where a BA hat and a PM hat, I think there's a danger that this could lead to schizophrenia - a BA needs to approach things from a listening, empathetic perspective whereas a PM needs to be more focused on driving and milestones. It's not always easy to switch between the two modes. 7/15/2016 08:13:37 am
I agree with you, Tom. Leave a Reply. |
