While working on a project, the business and project manager acts as the team players. That’s why it’s pretty common to have conflicts between the business analyst and project manager during a project.

I have taken up dual responsibilities of a business analyst and project manager during the different phases of my career. It has given me adequate experience about the do’s and doesn’t for a business analyst for working with a project manager in an effective manner.

Check out these 10 tips and try to implement them in your working:

Collaborative Stakeholder Analysis

The path to your glory as a business analyst on the projects starts by figuring out your main stakeholders and having a great information about their interests and influence levels. I believe that it is best to perform this task by having a collaboration with your project manager to make sure you use the same words to manage your stakeholders. Just think about a circumstance where you don’t know about the needs of a highly influential stakeholder, but your project manager has already identified that. If you do not consult with the project manager, then it will result in unwanted modifications on the project, delays in delivering it and increased costs.

Synchronization of your business analysis as per the schedule of the project

It is pretty important that you should incorporate the activity dates of your business analysis plan with the project schedule of the project manager. There is nothing in this world that is worse than figuring out the timetable of time that is allocated by the project manager is inadequate for your business analysis activities.

All the needs of a project can’t be captured up front

There are lots of business analysts who find out that they have tried all the efforts for capturing the needs up front before the starting phase. However, there are some cases where it has become possible. It is pretty common that the stakeholders add up the forgotten requirements during the time of execution. However, there is some great news that the acceptance criteria are generally shared by the project manager with the client. With acceptance criteria, we are talking about the agreement about the product or service including acceptance by the client. It is generally included in the signed off project charter. There is a chance that other project managers may utilize the agile technique where the prioritized needs are applied in phases. In short, we want to say that a BA should accept that all the requirements can’t be covered up front in the majority of cases.

Non Functional Needs vs. scope of the project

We capture the non-functional requirements as business analysts. It means, the expected level of efficiency in a system. It is best to talk with your project manager about the scope of the project. It is pretty normal that stakeholders request non-functional needs due to the time constraints and budget. In conclusion, you should be on the same level with your project manager about what is the scope of the project. It will help in avoiding the complicated expectations of your stakeholders.

Assistance in reducing the scope creeps

We know that there are chances that the stakeholders can ask for some additional requirements during the project course as business analysts. A new requirement can be accepted or rejected according to its linking with the needs of the organization as analysts. However, the business analysts should understand that the project manager targets the reduction of new additions to the project scope (scope creep that demands the adjustment of project schedule and budget). The stakeholders don’t wish to incur the rising cost or time needed for the inclusion of new needs in the majority of cases.

All the modifications to needs go through the impact analysis

The business analyst should make sure that the modifications as per needs undergo from the processes of impact analysis that is managed by the project manager while carrying the needs of management & communications process. It needs to do for making sure there is a positive effect on the schedule of your project. The cost of the project or quality of product needs to be assessed prior to approving the requirement change.

Collaborative Prioritization of needs

It is very important to prioritize the requirements of your project. This is a common task that we should complete as business analysts under the analysis of requirements. However, it is standard to see obstacles where the stakeholders desire for classifying all the needs as a high priority. It is because of the fear that the things that are not on the high-priority list of requirements get excluded from the project scope. This thing should be kept in mind and it is strongly recommended that the prioritization of the needs should be done under the involvement of project manager for managing the stakeholders.

Synchronization of the requirement list with the selection criteria of vendor

The selection of vendors is an important management work that demands a greater input of the business analyst. It is made on the basis of the performance of each vendor according to the vendor selection method set by the project manager. It is very important that the business analyst make sure that the criteria for vendor selection are synchronized with the prioritized requirements list.

Transition needs can be implemented as the after Go Live tasks

The transition requirements including the training needed for the users are captured by the business analysts. A project can only be finished for business analysts when all the requirements are completed, i.e. transition requirements have been applied. However, there are some instances where the project manager’s desire making the application of transition requirements separate from the Project scope and treat the transition needs as after Go live tasks. This type of condition generally occurs when the project has a non-negotiable control on the Go Live date.

Factors in Project Manager’s controls and theory while defining the solution scope

The solution is defined by the business analysts under the procedure of enterprise analysis. It is very important that the business analysts should get the input of the project manager on control and theory prior to explaining the solution scope.

Conclusion

In order to work with a project manager effectively, a business analyst should be capable to understand the important aspects of a project schedule, vendor selection criteria, stakeholder analysis, managing scope change, project scope and project constraints according to the view of a project manager.