Product Operations Program ManagerBarcelona, Cataluña, Spain
Or is it rather initiated by a Business Analyst, who will then turn the business need into a project/program?
In other words, may a PM walk on the wild side and do (some) BA job? Saving Changes...
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Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
Initial response is yes. That may be because my role is both in the organization. Nevertheless, if there is a need, and someone has a way to solve or help, they should be able to, at the very least, present it.
Things like this help to bring visibility to yourself, showing that you look across the field, at the big[ger] picture, and at ways to improve - which a lot of times equates to $ savings, in one way or another. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
The point here is organizational strategy knowledge and visibility. Project manager knowledge and focus is tactics because projects are created to put strategy into action. Business analyst visibility and focus is strategy. In other words business analyst vision is boarder than project manager vision (obviously as Andrew wrote above implementations could be found in several flavours). But here comes the interested thing about your question. Indeed each person inside the organization can stated a requirement to implement a new process inside the organization. What is a process? Functions are the way the organization answer to environmental stimulus and procedures are the implementation of functions. Functions are defined as part of the strategy. So, each person inside the organization is a client of the business analyst. But the business analyst is a key role to manage the organizational demmand because its the role that must assure that all the demmand is aligned to the strategy. That is because business analyst is the provider to portfolio managers. Saving Changes...
Implementing new process is the collaborative responsibility of all the stakeholders concerned with the process in the Organization.It will be one of the prime responsibility of the Project Manager to take the lead to initiate implementation duly assisted by business analyst.Hope this helps ! Saving Changes...
While I agree with Chandra, I think the question is fundamentally one of scale.
For small, quick, well-bounded projects, it may be possible for a PM to play a BA role in parallel with managing the project. But for large change initiatives affecting cross-functional groups and involving many stakeholders, it is risky for the PM to be extended beyond driving the project to conclusion. Unfortunately this is not an uncommon situation.
I have seen many critical projects suffer because SMEs were asked to manage the project or PMs were asked to fulfill SME roles.
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1 reply by Chandrashekhar Thatte
Feb 09, 2017 5:46 AM
Chandrashekhar Thatte
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Cris,irrespective of the scale of the Project ,the Project Manager's Job description/Responsibility is rather restricted to drive/manage the Project as handed over (with uncertainties unlimited) using his knowledge,experience,skills and acquired business acumen advantageously to the best of his ability/competence .He is the driver and not the mechanic of the Project vehicle .One of the reasons for Project failure or under performance is overburdening him with other functional responsibilities commonly experienced on construction Projects.Hope this helps !
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Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Perhaps because english is not my native language I think there is two topics to answer. The business analyst is the role that start working when no project exists (the project is to create the solution), assists the project manager into all related to product requirements along the project, and continue working after the project ends to monitor if the expected and stated resuts and benefits are achieved. So, the business analyst is the role who creates all needed to help the organization to define the solution and put it into some document (business case into most of the organizations) than when approved a project is started. Business analyst must not prescribe. Business analyst must diagnose. Project manager focus is to create the solution as defined inside the defined strategic window and the estimated budged. To do that, project manager will define the project scope from the product scope that was defined by the subject matter experts thanks business analyst coordination. If the solution is to implement a new process then it has been started as strategic initiative after performed strategy analysis activity where the business analyst was part. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Unfortunatelly I have to agree with Cris. I was part of the genesis of business analyst role working with the IIBA and now with the PMI. In the very begining PMs take the business analyst role. That was not effective. Today that situation still persists. And as Cris stated the worst is to see SMEs taken both roles. In my personal experience I see that in the last five years more and more organizations around the world split the roles no matter the scale because they saw the need to do that. Saving Changes...
While I agree with Chandra, I think the question is fundamentally one of scale.
For small, quick, well-bounded projects, it may be possible for a PM to play a BA role in parallel with managing the project. But for large change initiatives affecting cross-functional groups and involving many stakeholders, it is risky for the PM to be extended beyond driving the project to conclusion. Unfortunately this is not an uncommon situation.
I have seen many critical projects suffer because SMEs were asked to manage the project or PMs were asked to fulfill SME roles.
Cris,irrespective of the scale of the Project ,the Project Manager's Job description/Responsibility is rather restricted to drive/manage the Project as handed over (with uncertainties unlimited) using his knowledge,experience,skills and acquired business acumen advantageously to the best of his ability/competence .He is the driver and not the mechanic of the Project vehicle .One of the reasons for Project failure or under performance is overburdening him with other functional responsibilities commonly experienced on construction Projects.Hope this helps ! Saving Changes...
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