Effective PM and BA Role Collaboration: Delivering Business Value through Projects and Programs Successfully

Since the first few years of the 21st century, the number of organizations and people using projects and programs to achieve their goals and objectives has grown dramatically, particularly within the IT and software development sector; yet failure rates continue to be quite high. According to reports issued by leading research groups, poor stakeholder requirements gathering and management continues to be one of the leading causes of project and program failure.The role of the business analyst (BA) has seen rapid growth over the past decade, and for good reason.Business analysis is a hybrid function that evolved from the systems analysis role over several decades into one where the individuals performing it have both a good understanding of the business and of the IT and software used to support the business. One set of activities that is the BA’s specialty is the eliciting and management of accurate product requirements. Recent research has shown that when this BA role is properly executed in collaboration or partnership with the project or program manager (PM), higher quality product and project requirements are produced and managed resulting in higher success rates, with solutions that deliver business value and products and services that better satisfy stakeholder and customer needs. While leading experts all agree that collaboration between the PM and BA roles is key, the matter of how remains a subject of debate.This innovative guide shows how to address the challenges associated with the definitions of these roles and the gaps, intersections, overlaps, and touch points between the PM and BA to reduce waste, improve efficiency and effectiveness, and increase benefits to the organization. It demonstrates how this can be achieved without adding resources, going through duplication of effort, waste, and misunderstandings that lead to failure. This essential reference evaluates the PM and BA roles current contrasting perceptions, defines the roles they should fulfill, and describes how to ensure the PM/BA partnership is maintained from the business case, through to project initiation, execution, implementation and post-project evaluation. KEY FEATURES • Applies concepts that are aligned with the PMI-PBASM, CBAP®/ CCBA® and PMP® certificates, the Business Analysis for Practitioners – A Practice Guide, the PMBOK® Guide, the BABOK®, and PRINCE2 • Divides the PM and BA roles in aligning strategy to organizational goals and estimating; addressing risks, constraints, assumptions, dependencies, and communication; and managing relationships, stakeholder expectations, organizational priorities, resources, scope, requirements, and documentation.
This innovative guide shows how to address the challenges associated with the definitions of the business analysis (BA) and project manager (PM) roles and how to reduce waste, improve efficiency and effectiveness, and increase benefits to the organization.