In a comment on a recent entry, Scott Sehlhorst raised the issue of how product management differs from business analysis:
Though the responsibilities differ, product managers and BAs can both have strategic roles. The terminology that best captures the difference between the product manager and BA, in my opinion, is external versus internal. A company hires a product manager to analyze processes and problems outside the company. A company hires a BA to analyze processes and problems inside the company.
I think a good way to frame the question is by contrasting product managers as strategic while business analysts are tactical. To clarify, I reword the statement: Product managers focus on multiple customers in a market. A business analyst focuses on multiple operations within a single customer.My original point was not to suggest that business analysis is necessarily tactical. On the contrary - business analysis can be tactical or strategic; it depends on the activities performed. The full business analyst role includes strategic functions, such as identifying business problems to solve and possibly even suggesting solutions. Companies, however, have a tendency to hire business analysts to perform only a narrow part of the full suite of responsibilities: documenting business processes. In such situations, "business analyst" is almost a misnomer; "documentation specialist" might better describe this very tactical role.
Though the responsibilities differ, product managers and BAs can both have strategic roles. The terminology that best captures the difference between the product manager and BA, in my opinion, is external versus internal. A company hires a product manager to analyze processes and problems outside the company. A company hires a BA to analyze processes and problems inside the company.
Comments
I think your distinction between external and internal analysis is apt. It was how we were used - the product managers would have some initiative or issue that needed analysis of internal processes or systems, and the business analysts would be deployed to do the analysis - whether it be systems, processes, organizational issues, etc... and report back with an answer.
A product manager would come to me and say that their customer wanted X, and that we needed to do Y to provide it. I would run off and figure out what needed to happen with regards to the systems, processes, data, or organization to make Y happen. I'd provide a number of options with pros and cons, and let the "powers that be" decide. The extent to which we worked "strategically" was dependent upon how broad Y was as an initiative.
FWIW, I wasn't disagreeing with your previous post, just providing an alternative perspective - that of single customer focus (internal, as you say) versus a multi-customer focus (external).
Good stuff.