A large group of professionals in the project management domain is pursuing a Business analyst course to upgrade their knowledge and skills.
Business analysts and project managers are the two most sought-after job titles in the industry. These are closely associated with each other, and companies often extend offers to these professionals based on their expertise in data analysis, management, and project executions. Both Project manager and Business Analyst impact the outcome of any process in more or less the same manner, even as these two have a different set of responsibilities, working with a different set of infrastructures and data types within diversified analytical processes ranging from marketing data analysis to product marketing and development stages.
In this article, I have explained the difference between a business analyst and a project manager.
Who’s a Project Manager?
A project manager is a highly specialized job title that relates to leading a team of workers entrusted with the responsibility of planning, organizing, leading, and executing tasks for the completion of a project. A Project Manager can earn a degree in PMP certification and a set of key skills and experiences that makes it extremely difficult for an individual to get a PR role as a fresher.
When research comes into the picture of project management, we get to the Business Analyst.
A business analyst would assist the project management teams in evaluating the roles and analysis of the project. The business analyst would essentially require a professional to acquire certain key skills as learned through the business analyst course.
So, a project manager would work with project execution goals built on scope, resources, time, and quality. From building a team of analysts to channelizing the resources toward completion is the work of the Project Manager.
Now, the intelligence associated with project management is part of the job responsibilities of a Business Analyst.
Can I become both a Business Analyst and Project Manager?
Yes, you can.
However, companies hire both roles differently as they have to focus on the decision-making groups associated with the conception, planning, and execution of a project. While both roles are interrelated to each other, experts prefer to see these as two separate career paths.
Let’s compare their roles:
A business analyst would communicate with the stakeholders in the decision-making infrastructure, closely providing information based on statistical and research methodologies. The Project Manager has to deal with funding, investments, and channelizing of the resources within a stipulated timeline.
At the planning stage, a business analyst would provide a detailed summary of the investigations leading up to the development of a plan that the project manager can refer to.
The project manager then uses the report to schedule the next set of activities in the PDLC roadmap.
Skills required
Both sets of careers require immense focus, dedication, and determination. Experience in analysis, data visualization, and reporting are key to succeeding with the options. Analysts would be required to master analysis decks provided by Microsoft, Wrike, Google, Jira / Atlassian, Salesforce, Tableau, Oracle, SAP, and SAS.
