Why does a Project need both: a PM and a BA?

Having a strong, experienced Project Manager and an efficient, knowledgeable Business Analyst in a Project, is the best way to assure its Success. Both roles are essential because they are each accountable for a diverse set of activities and they each possess a set of skills that complement each other. Both of them work together from the start of the Project and set a platform for success by their proper Planning and Executing skills.

At times, only one person plays both the roles in some organizations. This article discusses the significance of assigning different individuals to each role to ensure project success.

Responsibilities of PM & BA

When One Person Performs Both Roles

In SMEs or when the Organization is short staffed, one person is assigned to act as both the PM and the BA. This kind of cases have been seen, where there is lack of understanding the roles and responsibilities of BA Role and people feel that Business Analysis is one of the activities that PM needs to do. When only one person is assigned to both the roles, the challenge is to be aware of the conflicting focus and try to act in one role at one point of time.

Skill Comparison: PM Vs BA?

Each role provides focused capabilities that make the difference between whether a project succeeds or struggles. PMs and BAs each have distinct skills and knowledge areas and both of them produce a high quality product. Both of them want the project to be successful and want to satisfy all the Stake-holders as well as the client. They understand the ultimate purpose of the project – to meet the project objectives. There are many other areas where the two individuals diverge and do very different types of tasks.

PM Vs BA - Skill Comparison

Dynamic Duos

When assigning PMs and BAs to a project, the success depends on their experience, knowledge and skill sets in the respective areas.

If a strong, experienced PM is assigned to work with an inexperienced, unskilled BA, the requirements gathering and analysis tasks may be quick and key requirements may be missed. This situation will result in rework on requirements analysis & development, missing deadlines, over budget, etc.

In contrary, if a weak PM is assigned to work with a skilled and experienced BA, too much time may be spent in requirements gathering and the project will fall behind schedule as BAs want to get every single detail to be captured 100%.

“The best way to guarantee success of any type of project is to have a strong, experienced Project Manager and a strong, experienced Business Analyst.”

Abhijit Patro

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