hi I'm max Dalton and in this video
we're going to look at what's the
difference between a project manager and
a business analyst the line between the
roles of project managers and business
analysts is blurry and the
responsibilities of the roles will vary
from organization to organization the
common way to differentiate the roles is
to think of the project manager as being
responsible for managing the project as
a whole while the business analyst is
often responsible for managing all
elements of requirements from gathering
at the beginning to validating at the
end this article explores the roles of
both the project manager and the
business analyst within the five
standard phases of a project initiation
phase after a business case has been
submitted and a project has been
approved the first big task for both the
project managers and business analyst
will be to have a follow-up conversation
with the project sponsor to take a
deeper dive into the project at that
time the project managers focus will be
on gathering information around how the
project will be funded what the timeline
is and how project success will be
measured the business analyst however
will start identifying what stakeholders
will need to be involved in the project
and start getting a feel for what the
high-level requirements are this is
primarily done through capturing user
stories around how they feel the new
functionality or tool should work all of
this information will feed into the
project charter which is an output of
the initiation phase the planning phase
during the planning phase the project
manager works to build out a
communication plan which details how
often each specific stakeholder will be
communicated to and how they will be
communicated to the project manager also
pulls together a detailed schedule risk
management plan and works with the
technical leads to pull together the
resources that will be required to do
the work the business analyst takes this
time to start breaking the captured user
stories and high-level requirements into
more detailed requirements to do this
she may lead brainstorming
process mapping sessions which will feed
into the generation of wireframes that
can be referenced by the developers the
business analysts will then start
breaking those requirements down into
specific tasks which developers will
provide estimates for all of this
requirements information will live
inside of the work breakdown structure
which is owned and maintained by the
business analysts all of the information
generated by both the project manager
and business analyst will get pulled
into the project plan which is managed
by the project manager the execution
phase the primary job of the project
manager during the execution phase is
keeping a thumb on the pulse of the
project and making sure that everything
stays on track the project manager is
responsible for everything from raising
awareness of risks to getting the work
completed on time and monitoring issues
to ensure they get resolved in a timely
manner alternatively the business
analyst should be generating test cases
and test plans that will be used during
testing to validate that what was
developed is in line with what was asked
for the control phase the project
manager will work to line up testers and
distribute the test cases and test plans
to the necessary parties ensuring they
are returned in a timely fashion the
business analyst is responsible for
reviewing the results that come back
through the testing and logging issues
and bugs for the developers to resolve
if there are issues and concerns about
how specific issues or bugs should be
addressed the project manager and
business analyst should work with the
primary stakeholder to discuss the
correct action and then give direction
to the team based on that feedback the
closing phase during the closing phase
of a project the project manager is
responsible for ensuring that all
documentation is signed and stored in
the appropriate location and ensuring
that all bills get paid the business
analysts on the other hand is
responsible for ensuring that all of her
updated documents make it into the hands
of the project manager and for making a
final lap through the project from a
requirements perspective to ensure that
nothing was missed both the project
manager and business animal
in addition to other key players on the
project should pull together a list of
lessons learned to review with the team
after the project is closed out