My previous discussion sparked some small-scale controversy, which means that I somehow got the idea that it would be worth revisiting. Well, that, and I came across this post on BAs and Product Managers at Forrester, which led me to this one as well.

Yes, there’s no question that there’s a lot of overlap between business analysts and product managers, as there is between us and usability professionals or information architects. The thing that we all have in common is that we’re trying to understand the needs of some group or groups and define solutions for them. The difference, in every case, is that we solve different kinds of problems.

In the case of the product manager, I think a good way to describe the difference is that a product manager analyzes markets, while a business analyst analyses an enterprise. (I say “enterprise” here because we may need to go beyond the boundary of an organizational unit to understand its interactions with other groups, including customers and suppliers).

By the way, that means I have to disagree with the author of the Silicon Valley Product Group blog here:

Imagine a typical custom software project, where the customer might be someone like an HR manager needing some sort of benefits related application. … In an IT/custom software organization you almost never have product managers, so there¹s a need for someone to do this requirements capture / requirements definition role. One common term for this role is ‘Business Analyst’ and in fact the term and role has been around for more than 30 years.

The problem arises when this IT/custom software model is inserted into a product software organization, which typically has the role of product manager responsible for defining the product.

The first reaction of most product managers brought into such an organization is to try to understand who are these people and aren’t they doing essentially the same job that I’m supposed to do?

Yes, the roles sound similar. But the person in question isn’t looking at the needs of the market as a whole–he or she is figuring out how to adapt a packaged solution to the needs of a specific customer. To put it as simply as possible, it would never occur to anyone to call this person a product manager if he or she was doing the exact same thing but working for the purchaser. If the difference between BAs and Product Managers is just who signs their paychecks, we don’t have two different roles.

I’d say that BAs and Product Managers have about a 60-80% overlap in their areas of expertise. That 20-40% difference is pretty critical when defining the BABOK and our certification exam, and it’s enough to ensure that a person who does one role may not be able to be effective in the other. For instance, Enterprise Analysis would need to be completely rewritten to address Product Management. Most of the other KAs would need at least some changes, and we’d end up with a substantially different list of Primary and Secondary Techniques. As I said, this isn’t limited to product management–the same issues exist with usability professionals.

At least for now, it’s better for the BABOK and the CBAP exam to properly address one role rather than try to do a mediocre job of addressing two. One day, in years to come, maybe we’ll look at extracting this “common core” of stuff that applies to everyone in our family and then building the BABOK and a Product BOK or Usability BOK on top of it (either by ourselves or in partnership with other organizations). But, you know, not right now.

Now, if we’re talking about learning from one another at conferences or local IIBA chapter events–no problem. That 60-80% overlap is enough that I would hope that Product Managers do and will continue to find ways to benefit from things that IIBA is doing. All I’m saying is that my focus is on business analysis, and I’m not spending time trying to figure out what else might be needed by other, related professions.

And yes, for the record, there are some ambiguous situations. For instance, I’ve worked on a number of projects as a BA where we were developing a solution for one organization that my employers hoped to resell to others at a later date, and so part of my job was to define the requirements in such a way as to make the product adaptable to other customers. So was I a BA or a Product Manager? I’d say on the whole I was doing BA work but I’m sure I could make the opposite case if I tried hard enough.

In the end, though, the distinction doesn’t matter for what I’m doing. The purpose of defining the role isn’t to put walls around it, but rather to understand what skills and knowledge are required to perform it. The point of exploring the similarities and differences between Business Analysis and Product Management is to help both myself and others understand what does and does not need to be included in the BABOK. It’s so when I’m asked “Why isn’t X in the BABOK?” I can say “Because BAs in general don’t need to know X to do their job.”

Kevin Brennan, CBAP
VP, Body of Knowledge