Project manager route or business analyst?

[original PM]

Also a BA should just well analyse the business where as PM should well manage the project.

2 completely different disciplines as managing the project normally requires some actual management experience where as being a BA does not (although as someone else said if the requirements are vague then a good BA is priceless and will have to manage the people to understand their own processes)

Funnily enough again on another thread I think some called a PM a BA with a calendar.

[tim123]

As a PM you will be asked to do everything from estimate to save different parts of a project, you can ask people for their input,

Not where I work (nor the place before). As a developer I'm expected to estimate how long the job will take and all the PM does is stick it in his plan and ask me each few weeks whether I have met my own milestones.

(Of course I have you numpty, do you think that I would underestimate the time it will take to try to gain brownie points).



tim

[tim123]

BAs can work without IT, developers can't.

IT projects only form part of the scope that a BA will get involved within an organisation.
.

Speak for yourself please!

When the item being delievered is a piece of software (with or without associated hardware) that is going to be sold to end customers (commercial or consumer) then everybody on the project needs the "IT" to be right.

No amount of "internal process changes" will change the fact that the delivery is going to be a "box capable of doing X, costing Y pounds".

tim

[TykeMerc]

Not where I work (nor the place before). As a developer I'm expected to estimate how long the job will take and all the PM does is stick it in his plan and ask me each few weeks whether I have met my own milestones.

(Of course I have you numpty, do you think that I would underestimate the time it will take to try to gain brownie points).

tim

That's becuase quite frankly you've worked with PM's who don't know their trade. Unfortunately there are an abundance of people with the title Project Manager that haven't the first clue how to run a project as soon as things go a tad squiffy.

There's a damn sight more to managing a project than keeping an eye on Gantt charts and basic deliverables, but as a PM you do of course take the advice of your technical team members and plan accordingly.
The technical team leads should agree deliverable milestone dates with the PM and the Business to realistic time frames and everyone should be signing up to those dates.
The old project triangle of Cost-Time-Quality takes more to maintain than just flying a Gantt chart and chucking out management reports.

[shoes]

That's becuase quite frankly you've worked with PM's who don't know their trade.

I concur with Tims experiences. The latest I've had is non-developers doing the development time estimates based on designs that don't provide enough information for the developer, so how an estimate can be made based on that is anyones guess. The estimates are indeed anyone's guess.

A 'PM' then asks each developer why they are 'behind' and not meeting the estimates in a way that implies that the developer is slacking off. A developer that explains the position they are in is ignored, and at a later date blamed.

If this is unusual and indicative of a PM that doesn't know their trade then I have never ever worked with a PM that knew their trade. This has coloured my view of the role, I look down on it, not up. These are the people that stop me from doing my job properly.

[mailric]

That's becuase quite frankly you've worked with PM's who don't know their trade. Unfortunately there are an abundance of people with the title Project Manager that haven't the first clue how to run a project as soon as things go a tad squiffy.

There's a damn sight more to managing a project than keeping an eye on Gantt charts and basic deliverables, but as a PM you do of course take the advice of your technical team members and plan accordingly.
The technical team leads should agree deliverable milestone dates with the PM and the Business to realistic time frames and everyone should be signing up to those dates.
The old project triangle of Cost-Time-Quality takes more to maintain than just flying a Gantt chart and chucking out management reports.

agreed.
- so many people think projecty management is about gantt charts, it amazes me. client where i am now has this programme manager with a 6 foot gantt chart pinned to the wall behind his desk and it hasn't moved since april - and he plays in ms project all day. what a ****.

[Hiram King Of Tyre]

What rates are BAs getting these days?

[backlight]

That's becuase quite frankly you've worked with PM's who don't know their trade. Unfortunately there are an abundance of people with the title Project Manager that haven't the first clue how to run a project as soon as things go a tad squiffy.

There's a damn sight more to managing a project than keeping an eye on Gantt charts and basic deliverables, but as a PM you do of course take the advice of your technical team members and plan accordingly.
The technical team leads should agree deliverable milestone dates with the PM and the Business to realistic time frames and everyone should be signing up to those dates.
The old project triangle of Cost-Time-Quality takes more to maintain than just flying a Gantt chart and chucking out management reports.

An effective PM should be able to provide an indicative estimate on task durations but as projects become increasingly cross functional PM’s require subject matter expert input (technical team) for activity planning and estimating. You can’t expect one individual to be an expert in all areas, it’s impractical with the increasing complexity of IT systems. It’s also important to keep in mind a PM should be managing the business, risk, human resources, procurement, communications, as well as the time – cost – quality triangle.

PM’s often seem to receive allot of criticism on this board but I would suggest project management is still an integral part of delivering any large scale project.

[tim123]

That's becuase quite frankly you've worked with PM's who don't know their trade. Unfortunately there are an abundance of people with the title Project Manager that haven't the first clue how to run a project as soon as things go a tad squiffy.
.

Oh I agree. But the point is that the PM working this way is what the company want.

There's a department manager and senior developers (in the sense that they have been with the company significantely longer than me rather than they know more than I do) that are happy with the PM working this way.

They just seem to want a Project Administrator. He's a nice guy, he does this job OK, but he isn't a PM.

They do other things silly as well. Having delivered my software on time (actually early) the final version is now awaiting integration, yet the testers are already testing it (obviously using a pre-release version) and reporting bugs against that earlier version.

I despair!

(Unfortunately I haven't yet impressed enough[1] to rock the boat)

tim

[1] That's another complete story

[aussielong]

No kidding.

What's the point in trying to write code or for that matter having coders on the project payroll until the requirements are extensively buttoned down and signed upto by the business involved?

I've seen too many projects fail due to lousy, vague or plain wrong requirements.
A BA can come from many disciplines and can be one of the developers but they are always part of the team in projects with any complexity.

hahahaha

unless it a narrow scope (outsourcable) piece of work, the requirements are usually not known at the start.