Business Analyst Vs Project Manager
Business analysts evolve in their professional careers to become Project Managers.
It is a commonly seen as a natural career progression of a business analyst in the corporate world. This is the reason why Project managers are too seen to be carrying out the business analysis work during the early stages of the projects.
They check the feasibility of project, develop business case, write scope of the project, and other business requirements that are a part of the overall different phases of the project.
Not everyone but most of the project managers do have an experience of handling the business analysis activities . But mind you, the responsibilities of a project manager differs from that of a business analyst in many ways.
The prime duty of Project manager is to meet the objectives of the project . They are the ones who initiate the project , plan the project and handle the project.
The project manager checks that his team delivers a solution that meets the requirements taken from the client , the acceptance criteria of the client and the quality expectations a client has from his project team.
The project manager has to handle every other aspect related to budget, resources, scope, schedule, risk and quality of the project. On bigger projects, the business analysis team is merely a a single part of the overall set of resources that a project manager has to manage .
It is required that both the Project manager and Business Analyst maintain good communication among themselves. Most of the times, both of them have to work together closely on the projects. There is , however, a chance for the project manager and business analyst to hold a different opinion on things at times.
The Business Analysts tend to spend most of their time with the stakeholders of the project in order to capture the requirements in a greater detail, understand the structure of client’s organization, their operations, how everything works there and their policies. Thereafter only, he is able to recommend any solution.
The Project Manager, on the other hand, devotes most of his time in planning and managing the project from initiation till the end. He makes sure that the things with respect to the delivery timelines, project’s objectives and solutions are in the right direction.
Yet, there are two areas where the responsibilities of both Business analyst and Project Manager might come in conflict. It is that of project planning and stakeholder communication.
There has to be a proper discussion and planning on the subject of who actually “owns” the stakeholders. Although it is the project manager who actually owns the stakeholder , there is still a need of proper communication between both the Business analyst and Project manager over this.
There should be a proper “project level communication plan ” to cut down the potential areas of conflict and game play. The complete “business analysis team” must always remember that they are a part of a bigger group called “project team”. Therefore, any business analysis activity they put together must be in accordance with the overall project plan.
