Reflect on the BA and PM topics covered in the lecture on Jan 16. What did you find especially interesting? What was unclear or confusing? What experience do you have in either areas (BA or PM)? How do you see the topics applicable or not applicable to you? What other thoughts do you have to share on the topic?
Upon learning about Business Analyst (BA) and Project Manager (PM), I got very confused between the two roles. The reason of my confusion may be due to my lack of understanding between the two roles. To clarify before going on, Business Analyst and Project Manager are two distinct roles but do share several similar tasks that often get me very confused.
According to my professor’s notes, a business analyst is “an intermediary between clients, stakeholders, and the development team.” This clearly sounds a lot different from a project manager whose role is to be responsible for planning, procurement and execution of the project. On the surface, it is clear that the two roles sound very distinct but once you look at their tasks, there are some similarities that got me lost. One of the tasks that a BA does is to determine deliverables and estimate time, effort resources and approach. These tasks are very similar to what a project manager does because one of the key tasks for a PM is to develop a project schedule. This would involve in estimating the time needed to allocate for each tasks, the priority of each task and resources needed for each task. Although the tasks may be the same or at least sounds the same, it is clear that the roles are different. A key difference is the “middle man” (mediator) between the stakeholders and the development. This means that the BA engages actively with the stakeholders to define requirements and characteristics of the project so that the project team has a clear understanding of what they are to design and how to design it as well. A project manager does not define the requirements of the project but rather manages the project itself such as cost management and ensuring that the tasks are completed. The PM leads the team to have a finished product while the BA ensures that the product meets the requirements and the business & project objectives. This is not to say that a BA does not estimates for time, resources and budget but the BA does not estimate the time needed for each individual task for the development team itself. In addition there are several other tasks that got me confused but it would be pointless to ramble on about each and every individual task.
Knowing the distinction between the two roles are very important since the two roles are often confused. Although I have not much experience in either areas, I can see the need for each role in a business or project. To expand, in most projects I have done so far, I often needed to consult and engage with my potential clients (stakeholders) on the progress and requirements of the project. It would have been great to have a project manager and a BA to have a clear idea of the project and it’s progress. Although there were no formal roles of PM and BA in the projects I was working on, my supervisor acted somewhat as a BA on behalf of my team. My supervisor was able to identify the need of a new solution to mark report cards since the old system had a very terrible UI and was very poorly designed program. Being a teacher himself, my supervisor was able to define and describe the project’s requirement itself and always avoided providing solutions to our problems. However, the role of actively engaging with stockholders were often left to the development team since there was no clear role of a BA. Even the role of project manager was non-existent. Instead of having a PM, each and every member on the development team acted as a scrum master by collaborating together on the priority and estimating each task using a GANTT chart. Without a clear role of a PM and BA, the progress and direction of the project often ended up in a mess.
Thinking and writing this blog about PA and BA makes me question on my understanding of these roles continuously as I still get confused once in a while and very bored from writing this type of topic. Thinking back on BA’s and PM’s task on estimating time and resources reminds me of the role of a scrum master. This often leads me to question the need of a PM and overlapping roles in general since I find the role of a scrum master to be very similar to those of a PM. Since there are so many roles that share common tasks, it is often easy to find myself confused. Knowing the distinctions between each role would be essential since many students such as myself will one day find ourselves either working under or working as these roles such as a PM or a BA. I often see engineers and computer scientists finding themselves in these roles as PM as they advanced their careers which scares me because I would personally these tasks. I also find it very common for these people in these positions often forgetting a lot of concepts that they specialized in since they often do not requirement a in depth knowledge of what they previously specialized in.