My recent publishing activities include discussion of a completely new professional — the Project Manager/Business Analyst (PM/BA). I really believe that the industry needs such a professional, and I have written about it extensively. The following text is adapted from some of my earlier writings.
I consider this to be a good start on a long journey to completely define a new professional. Don't look upon it as merely having a single person with both Certified Business Analyst Professional (CBAP) and Project Management Professional (PMP) designations. That is not my intent. I am talking about a professional who truly integrates business analysis and project management. In that sense, the PM/BA professional is almost like a generalist who is prepared to fully support the business and process needs of a Level 5 maturity business unit or enterprise. I am aware of a number of professionals who meet both of these criteria, but there is not a formal definition of the PM/BA position. The following sections are my attempt to fill that gap and offer some sustainable career goals for such professionals.
The PM/BA position family is a rich family of professional positions that spans the project management profession and the business analysis profession. It is a unique integration of the skill sets that comprise each of the professional positions in this family. I see that family as consisting of the following six position types:
The ordering of PM and BA could also be BA/PM. The two are equivalent except for minor organizational alignment. The PM/BA is primarily a project manager, and the BA/PM is primarily a business analyst. For any given organization, there will be multiple position titles within each position type. Let me offer the next level of detail for each of these position types. Years ago, I had the opportunity to consult with the British Computer Society on the development and implementation of their Professional Development Program. A few years later, I had the occasion to develop an Internet-based decision support system for information technology (IT) career development for one of my clients. That system was called CareerAgent. In defining the BA/PM family of professionals, I integrated the CareerAgent model into the earlier work for the British Computer Society. Much of what I define here takes advantage of the deliverables from both of those engagements. The result is Figure 18-1.
Figure 18-1 is a career landscape and is interpreted as follows. Six vertical sectors define the PM and BA skill and competency profile of the professional. For example, a PM/ba position type has minimal business analysis skills and competencies, whereas the PM/BA has advanced business analysis skills and competencies. The six horizontal slices define the BA/PM career path illustrated in Figure 18-2. The height of the horizontal slices is an indication of the number of specific position titles in each cell. The higher the slice, the more position titles there are within that cell. The three left and three right sectors are mirror images of one another and identify professionals who are either project managers (PM) or business analysts (BA) with the accompanying skills and competencies needed for their positions. For example, the PM/ba position family includes project managers with minimal business analyst skills, whereas the PM/BA position family includes project managers with extensive business analyst skills. Therefore, all of the sectors between PM and BA are professionals with some combination of project management and business analyst skills and competencies. Most project managers would have some business analyst skills and competencies, and most business analysts would have some project management skills and competencies. The PM, PM/ba, and PM/BA position families have a project management focus. The same interpretation holds for the BA sector. The primary focus of positions in this sector is business analysis, and many business analysts have some project management skills and competencies.
In the middle two sectors are the PM/BA and BA/PM position families. These are the senior professionals that I envision emerging into the mainstream of project management and business analyst professional pursuits in the next few years. They are fully qualified to manage projects and manage business analysis engagements. The skill and competency profiles of the BA/PM and PM/BA are equivalent, and in some organizations, they may be the same. Their primary orientation is either as a project manager (PM/BA) or as a business analyst (BA/PM). I believe that the major career opportunities of the future are for the PM/BA or BA/PM professionals.
Figure 18-2 provides a high-level look at the career path model that underlies the six rows of the PM/BA landscape. At the staff level, there are two positions. Team Members are at the entry level. These professionals will have an entry-level skill and competency profile that qualifies them to be a team member in a project (PM) or business analysis (BA) effort. As they gain experience, they will move up to the Task Manager level, where they will be qualified to supervise the work of a task, perhaps with the support of other Team Members.
At the professional level, there are two positions. The junior of the two is the Associate Manager. Individuals in these positions are qualified to manage small, simple projects. Through experience, they progress to the Senior Manager level. They are now qualified to manage even the most complex projects.
The executive level positions are of two types. One is the Program Manager. This position is both a consultant-type position as well as a manager of project managers working on a collection of projects having some relationship with one another. The other position is the Director. This individual is a “people manager” and is at the highest level of the six-position family.
First let me clarify my use of the word project in the following position descriptions. I use it in a very general sense. It refers to business analysis efforts as well as projects not encompassing business analysis activities. At this level, the position descriptions are structured to simultaneously embrace both the project manager and the business analyst. That has put some strain on the choice of language, and I beg your patience with that. In time, and with the help of the readers, we will converge on an acceptable taxonomy.
This is an entry-level position into either a project management or business analysis effort.
This is the upper-level staff position for individuals who are familiar with the scope of their tasks. Task Manager responsibilities extend to tasks within a project. There may be Team Members assigned to these tasks who receive guidance and supervision from the Task Manager. This position is distinguished from the Team Member position by the depth and complexity of their technical knowledge base and the extent to which supervision is required. This position implies a high degree of accountability for self-controlled work.
This is the more junior of two levels in the professional category. It will normally be achieved after clear evidence is available of full competence in a specialized role. At this level, full technical accountability for work done and decisions made is expected. The ability to give technical or team leadership will have been demonstrated as well as a high degree of technical versatility and broad industry knowledge. The Associate Manager will often manage major parts of projects and be responsible to the project manager or have project management responsibilities for simple projects.
This is the upper of two levels in the professional category. It will normally be achieved after two to four years of experience as an Associate Manager and when clear evidence is available of full competence in a specialized role. At this level, full technical accountability for work done and decisions made is expected. The ability to provide technical or team leadership will have been demonstrated as well as a high degree of technical versatility and broad industry knowledge. The Senior Manager will manage complex projects and often be responsible for managing the activities of Associate Managers who function as subproject managers.
This position represents the level associated with the mature, relevantly experienced, and fully capable professional. Such a person is fully accountable for work quality as a technical specialist. He or she possesses the background knowledge and experience to make informed and responsible decisions, which are both technically sound and take the needs of the organization fully into account. The Program Manager will be expected to advise and coach professional-level staff and is respected for his or her ability to do that.
This is the most senior management-level position in the BA/PM position family. It is the level occupied by the most-senior manager of a business function or unit in organizations where operating effectiveness (and possibly survival) is heavily dependent on the function or unit and where large numbers of practitioners are deployed. A wide and deep practical knowledge base is called for, accompanied by mature management qualities.
The playing field for the career and professional development of the BA and the PM was previously shown in Figure 18-1. There are 36 distinct cells in this landscape, and all BA and PM position configurations fall somewhere in this landscape. The landscape therefore can be used for career planning and professional development. Each cell will contain one or more position titles, and each position title will have a skill and competency profile defined for it. An individual's career history can be represented in this landscape by a sequence of connected cells. An individual's professional development plan is represented in the landscape with a planned sequence of connected cells. An example of a career path is shown later in the chapter.
Each cell in the landscape will have a minimum skill and competency profile defined for all positions in that cell. In order for an individual to be in this cell, he or she must possess the minimum skill and competency profile for the cell that they occupy or would like to occupy. For professional development planning, the individual will be in some particular cell and have career aspirations to move to another position in the same cell or to a position in another cell (usually this will be an adjoining cell). The skill and competency profile of the current and desired positions or cells can be compared, and the differences will identify the skill and competency gaps. The training and experience needed to remove those gaps and to qualify an individual to move to a position in the desired cell can be defined. The implications to the training department planning are obvious, as are the applications to human resource management.
This is a big topic and would require more than the scope of this section allows. However, as an introduction to this topic, this section briefly defines the four parts that I think a good professional development program should include. This model is very similar to the model developed by the British Computer Society. It comprises the following components:
Every position in every cell will have a minimum skill and competency profile required for the position. To qualify for a specific position, the individual must first define the skill and competency gap between his or her current and desired position, and then build a professional development program using the preceding four components to remove that gap. Completing such a program will enable the individual to move to the desired position when a vacancy arises. This individual should have a mentor assigned to him or her to help with plan development and other career advice.
Since you now have a BA/PM generic position family defined and a career path for that family, Figure 18-1 takes on more meaning. An example will help. Figure 18-3 shows an individual whose current position is in the PM/ba Task Manager cell. This person is a professional project manager with minimal business analysis skills and competencies. This is a very common position. Recognizing the importance and value of having stronger business analysis skills, this person has a short-term goal to move to a position in the PM/BA Task Manager cell. He or she will build a plan in his or her Professional Development Program (PDP) to accomplish this short-term career goal. His or her PDP will focus on improving his or her business analysis skill and competency profile from that of a PM/ba Task Manager to that of a PM/BA Task Manager.
The PDP for this person might contain the following strategies.
In my experience, an individual's PDP covers an annual planning horizon, including at least semi-annual status meetings with a mentor and/or as-needed meetings that the individual requests.
Figure 18-4 illustrates an example of a more complex situation than what was depicted in Figure 18-3. Here the change is to a higher-level position (Task Manager to Associate Manager). A career change like this may take some time to accomplish. Not only will the person need to acquire additional experience to qualify for the higher-level position, but he or she will also need to increase his or her business analysis experience and skill and competency profile to qualify for the higher-level position's business analysis requirements.
Figure 18-5 is the most complex. Here the professional is seeking a higher level position (Task Manager to Associate Manager) and a more developed business analysis skill and competency profile (ba to BA)
A better professional development plan for the example in Figure 18-5 might be to use one of the following two-step strategy paths:
You should choose the strategy that will give you the best opportunity for advancement based on the actual promotion opportunities available to you.
A section of the PDP should be devoted to long-range career planning. The BA/PM landscape is a tool that can aid in the planning process. Figure 18-6 illustrates a career path leading from a position in the BA Team Member cell to a position in the BA/PM Senior Manager cell. The CareerAgent System that I mentioned earlier in this chapter included a decision support system that helped the individual plan their career path down to the position title level within the cells. It mapped out a training and development sequence leading from position to position across the BA/PM landscape until the final career goal had been reached.
As the plan is executed, it will most likely change. Several paths connect the BA Team Member position family to the BA/PM Senior Manager position family. Along the way, circumstances and changing interests might result in a change in the targeted position family. Several factors will influence the plan and suggest revisions that are more compatible with the changing business environment and that offer more career growth and professional development opportunities.
18.117.77.73