This article was published in the BA Digest in Q3 2022 by Blackmetric Business Solutions Ltd. Link to published article here: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/3da7172400.html#page/18
Table of contents
Project Overview
This article was published in the BA Digest in Q3 2022 by Blackmetric Business Solutions Ltd. Link to published article here: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/3da7172400.html#page/18
Context
Are you feeling like you need a challenge or just looking to take the next step in your career? Then a career as a Product Owner (PO) might be the next step in your career you want to pursue. Business Analysts often can be a product owner by proxy, but many of us work under a product manager or a project manager. But the roles have a lot of similarities you might not be aware of. For example, let’s look at how the roles are defined. According to the IIBA’s Agile Extension to the BABOK Guide, the definition of a product owner is “The Product Owner is the role on the team that represents the interests of all stakeholders, defines the features of the product, and prioritizes the product backlog.”(IIBA, 2020) The BABOK defines Business Analysis as “Business analysis is the practice of enabling change in an enterprise by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.” (IIBA, 2015) One of the other things the BABOK states is that a business analyst is any person regardless of job title that performs business analysis tasks. It’s very possible by that definition, that you might already be performing product ownership tasks in your BA role, which would make the transition to a product owner role the right move for you. Let’s start with what a Product Owner does:
- Defining the vision of the product As a PO, you will spend a great deal communicating with stakeholders and the development team, as you are the “point” person for the product. Being the “point” person, you will have a high level of knowledge of product goals, the business goals and/or objectives those product goals are trying to solve, a strategic product vision to communicate the product roadmap, keeping the stakeholders aligned with the product vision, and the product can continue to evolve and adapt in an agile development cycle.
- Product backlog management The Product Owner is responsible and accountable for the product backlog. To be successful as a PO, you need the ability to come up with backlog items that align with business goals and objectives, prioritize these items based on strategy and vision, identify dependencies and risks for backlog items, and ensure that the backlog items can be developed in the most efficient order for product releases.
- Prioritizing product needs When prioritizing the needs of a product, a product owner weighs each work item based on objectives, needs, risks, and under time, scope, and budget constraints. POs must work closely with development teams to ensure development timelines can be adhered to with minimal slippage in the delivery of deliverables. POs also work closely to ensure the development progress and the product development is evaluated and inspected at each iteration. By continuously inspecting and evaluating the status of the product, a PO can continue to drive meaningful value and adapt to changing needs as they arise.
- Oversight of the development stages
The Product Owner plays a vital role in development events, as they need to be accessible, collaborative, and provide oversight in the development process. The PO is actively involved in the development process from being available for planning, backlog refinement, and sprint demos, to production release.
Let’s discuss what a Business Analyst does: A business analyst can operate on a strategic, tactical, or operational level based on the difference in an initiative they are involved in. Business analysts have quite a variety of duties/responsibilities in which they play a role. - Understanding the enterprise problem(s) and/or goals As a BA, you will spend a great deal of time planning and monitoring what the business requirements are. To provide valuable solutions to help satisfy the business problems or goals, you will have to be very aware of the current state as well as the future state. This allows for the ability to detect risks and potential impacts that could result in use cases being missed or that the solution will not meet the business needs.
- Analysis of business needs and solutions When a BA is analyzing enterprise problems and/or goals, a holistic view is needed to ensure that the prioritization of requirements meets the needs of the business. BAs need to be aware of the inputs and outputs of the project to ensure business, stakeholder, and solution requirements are in alignment with each other and that a solution that provides business value based on requirements can be built and delivered. This analysis includes tracing requirements, maintaining those requirements, prioritization of requirements, requirements change analysis and approving of changes to requirements. Strategy analysis is the process of turning potential value into actual value. A BA may capture strategies in many ways which can include strategic plan(s), product vision(s), business case(s), product roadmap(s), or other project-related artifacts.
- Strategy Analysis Strategy analysis focuses on defining the transitional and future states needing to address the business needs and/or goals. This often includes brainstorming or whiteboard sessions on potential solutions, which will enable more value to be delivered back to the stakeholders and the business. Business analysts often leverage business analysis, change management, leadership, project management, and program management in strategic analysis.
- Enabling and driving change It’s no doubt BAs are change agents. This is done by defining business needs and recommending valuable solutions that support enterprise and business needs and/or goals. BAs decompose, analyze, consider possibilities, and engage with stakeholders. Due to the nature of the business analyst’s work, they often are instrumental in providing operational, technical, and quality requirements that drive future innovations within the organization.
- Stakeholder communication and collaboration A business analyst plays an integral role in elicitation and collaboration. Often a BA engages with stakeholders to gather requirements through the use of workshops, meetings, research, experiments, focus groups, surveys, or other planned or unplanned activities. Business analysts collaborate with stakeholders that range in authority, influence, and role. A BA must be aware of all stakeholders and ensure that participation with the various stakeholders occurs at the right time by the appropriate stakeholders. BAs must also communicate with stakeholders to ensure the free flow of communication is frequent, bi-directional, and engaging. A business analyst needs to maintain genuine, transparent communications with stakeholders to promote effective resolution of setbacks and ensure expectations of the project are being met. As you can see there are a lot of gray areas, which is a good thing. Both BAs and POs are heavily focused on stakeholder engagement, communication and feedback management, decision-making, understanding the problem, and understanding the process. BAs and POs while a lot of what they do has areas of overlap, together they can make a powerful partnership. Together they can create high-value products for customers, increased product increments, and effective solutions that are scalable for the future needs of the organization. You might be more ready for the move to product ownership than you realize.
References
IIBA. BABOK®: V3: A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge. Canada, International Institute of Business Analysis, 2015. IIBA. Introduction to Product Ownership Analysis. Canada, International Institute of Business Analysis, 2020.
About the Author
Melissa is currently a product owner for an analytics solution in the healthcare space. She is passionate about getting businesses to leverage the data they have and utilize it to drive business transformations and products. Feel free to reach out to her: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-metz-mha-rhia-chda-pmi-acp-b64665b9/