From the course: Business Analysis Foundations

Project planning: Responsibilities

From the course: Business Analysis Foundations

Project planning: Responsibilities

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- When we think of projects the primary role that comes to mind is the project manager but the business analyst will also share a fair amount of the responsibilities especially when you haven't worked together before. It's very helpful to lay out who's in charge of what. So there are two components or scopes for a project, the project scope and the product scope. The project scope includes all the deliverables and efforts required to complete the project. These are the responsibilities of the project manager. Now, the product scope refers to the features and functions that the opportunity or problem will include. These are the responsibility of the business analyst. Now, many of the project activities are jointly done by both the PM and BA. These include the identification and analysis of different stakeholders and planning the activities for the project manager, the business analyst, and other team members. Now it's the job of the business analyst to provide the project manager with two things. First, a list of activities needed to elicit, analyze and evaluate requirements. Also, the activities for tracing, verifying and validating those requirements. The business analyst then takes these two components to develop the business analysis plan, which is a fundamental part of the overall project management plan. So the business analyst makes sure the business analysis plan contains a few things, the needed activities to be done on the project, and the business analysis deliverables that might be required. Now, both the activities and deliverables are highly dependent on the project approach being used. There'll be times when you use what we'd call a more adaptive approach. In this case, the responsibilities of the business analyst are often fulfilled before release or iteration planning. One of the biggest duties of the BA here is to get a clear understanding of the requirements and the exceptions from the stakeholder or product owner. Formal documentation here is minimal but pay close attention to this step. Only those requirements that have been initially prioritized and analyzed are to be considered because we have to minimize the time spent on areas that do not provide as much value to the organization. Once the requirements have been identified, the BA fits them into the requirements baseline or release iteration backlog. It's at this point that you start using the traceability matrix or equivalent adaptive tracking method like a con bond board or task board. This will be the key tool used by the BA to ensure that all requirements are completed and approved. So you can see there's a good amount of work on the part of the BA that goes into the planning but it's all worth it. The role of the BA is to make sure that the project manager and the project team are fully aware of the requirements and vision so they can focus on getting the solution delivered.

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