Product managers and business analysts work very closely together on projects. However, they don’t have the same set of responsibilities. These separate sets of tasks and responsibilities can be the things that can differentiate the two job titles.
In the business field, there can be quite an overlap between various job titles. A lot of interested individuals want to find out the difference between business analysts, product managers, engineering manager, scrum master, or other roles. All of those job titles can simply add to the confusion.
Therefore, let’s get into the details of business analysts and product managers to help clear out this cloud of confusion.
Product Manager
A product manager’s primary responsibility is to successfully guide a cross-functional team throughout the project.
Project managers need to remain extremely organized in their work, which becomes even more critical in tech companies. These managers would know about the usages of resources like Urban digital twins that they use for analysis and growth of the company.
It’s also possible to say that a product manager has the roles similar to what a brand manager would be doing in a project. That’s because they may also be in charge of forecasting the profits or losses and responsible for marketing.
Product managers are crucial for making strategic decisions and leading an organization to meet their desired goals. That may require them to analyze the market and plan a layout for a product that is based on customer’s demands and is as unique as possible.
Basically, the product manager will be in charge of designing everything that has to do with the product.
The engineering or technical team, whether internal or external, will take the instructions and start bringing the product to life.
Business Analyst
When talking about a business analyst, they need to identify a business’ needs and problems by going through and improving the existing systems.
To simply put it, a business analyst is in charge of the changes in an organization. They usually do this by defining the needs and recommending various solutions.
But when it comes to products, a business analyst will need to work with various departments and discuss the requirements of the project. The business analyst, in this case, would be initiating the changes. However, it is the technical team that will be in charge of delivering all those changes.
The business analysts make sure that everyone working on the project is on the same page when the time comes for making the changes to meet the requirements. The analysts also update the business processes during the project. That can help everyone who is a part of it in keeping up with the progress the team is making.
How Business Analyst and Product Managers Work Together?
When a project needs some changes to be made to a product or building an entirely new one, the product manager in charge of the project would become the product owner. Since a business analyst needs to work closely with the product owners on general assignments, the product manager and the business analyst would need to work together.
Now, the business analyst and the product owner will have some similarities in terms of roles in the project. Both of them will have to understand the users and markets, along with the opportunities and business problems. Only after that can they have a shot at building the right type of a product.
The similarities don’t end here, as both of them are also responsible for discussing and adequately conveying the requirements of the project to the teams.
The Differences between Business Analysts and Product Managers
Now that the definitions and similarities are out of the way, let’s get on with the differences between a business analyst and product manager.
The product manager’s primary goals are to manage the product itself and not how the customers would interact with it. While it’s a crucial aspect of developing any product, it is not a top priority for the product managers.
On the other hand, business analysts are more focused inside of a business, and their responsibilities are more aimed toward the practices, processes, and systems. Their primary priority might be to build excellent support for a product manager’s suggestions on behalf of the market.
When talking about the requirements of a business, a product manager would be the one responsible for finding all the highest value problems to ensure that their team is working towards a meaningful solution. Basically, the product managers are the people who keep asking “why” throughout the entire project only to determine the most applicable solutions that can benefit the consumers.
The business analyst, on the other hand, is only in charge of gathering the technical specifications that can enable the creation of a product. They are basically the heavy lifters that help create a great user experience.
