Buisness Analysis/Project Management

[Steven Manns]

Hi everyone,

I just have a quick question to ask, do you think a person who specialises in buisness analysis and design would make a good project manager even if they lack self belief and have no previous leadership or management experience? And if so why?

Thanks Steve

[dhaughey]

Hi Steve,

Certainly business analysis is a good skill for a project manager and the rigour needed for business analysis is the type of attribute needed. Lack of self belief and management experience is going to be a problem. As a project manager you will often find you need to stand firm behind your decisions, while they are being challenged.

Most project manager experience a degree of self doubt, but with good planning and teamwork this is overcome. Project management is about people management in the main and you must transfer your confidence and self belief to your team to help them succeed.

I know this is a very general point and open to being challenged, but you'll usually find the best project managers are "left-brained" thinkers - logical, analytical and objective.

Hope this helps.
Duncan

[kwalford]

Hi Steve,

Certainly business analysis is a good skill for a project manager and the rigour needed for business analysis is the type of attribute needed. Lack of self belief and management experience is going to be a problem. As a project manager you will often find you need to stand firm behind your decisions, while they are being challenged.

Most project manager experience a degree of self doubt, but with good planning and teamwork this is overcome. Project management is about people management in the main and you must transfer your confidence and self belief to your team to help them succeed.

I know this is a very general point and open to being challenged, but you'll usually find the best project managers are "left-brained" thinkers - logical, analytical and objective.

Hope this helps.
Duncan

I think Duncan has a valid point here. I often make decsions and then question myself to whether they are right. I think the best approach is to fully analyse your plan, and ensure you are happy that it is the most beneficial, and then you can be confident in backing it when it comes under scrutiny. As my manager says to me, 'think about the impact' of the plan before pursuing it.

You have to be a leader and you do this be instilling integrity and confidence in your plan; you can only do this if you believe in what you are preaching yourself.

[Steven Manns]

Thanks for the replies this was much appreciated.

Just another quick question, if the buisness analyst became project manager and he had a non-existent company profile (like nobody knew of him) how could he elevate his visibility across the buisness and what benefits would this deliver?

Kind regards,
Steve

[begeland]

Steve-

A quick way to get noticed is to start sending your project status reports and revised project schedules up the chain of command. You can always apologize later for sending it to the wrong person, but if you start to engage your senior leadership in your project status information (make it very high level, of course) then you've done two things:

- You've put your name out there because if they're a leader in the company it's hard for them to ignore status information given to them about important projects going on in their organization
- You've educated your senior leadership about your project and made it more visible. That way if you run into roadblocks you may find you have an ally higher up than you thought. (like needing a key resource on a project in order to move forward)

You have to be careful, of course, because if the reporting structure on projects is firmly set, then this may backfire on you as it pertains to your relationship with, say, a PMO director. But if it is somewhat loose, then by all means do it. It can't hurt...it can only help. You want visibility and you'll get it this way.

[Steven Manns]

Thanks this will be very helpful