PM-Clinic: Where to put the business folks
This week in the pm-clinic discussion forum: Topic #56 – Where to put the business folks.
Welcome to the last month of the year – here’s a situation for you:
I manage a team of five PMs. Another manager runs the (large) production team of designers, programmers, QA. Folks on my PM team draw resources from his team to assemble project teams. Sometimes my PM team brings in Business Analysts (BA) to help with planning.
So, the other manager recently quit. His right-hand guy is acting manager. Day 3 on the job he invites me for coffee, and proposes to take over the BA positions. having them report through the production area to him, and not to the PM team. Just sign here, OK? No way, I said.
Where is the right home for business analysts or product planner types? What is a sound way to make arguments for where they should live? Does placing a role in a specific part of the organization necessarily stack the deck in a negative way? Or is this simply a political play by the acting manager for more power?
(Extra credit: same question, but with marketing or design).
Signed, The Prince
I like keeping the business analysts with the product. Implementation is a discipline that draws from multiple streams, and the BA work rightly belongs with the “business.” Think of yourself as managing the logistics of filling a WalMart truck, sending it to a store, and getting it unloaded. It doesn’t matter what’s on the truck. That’s the job of the BA.
I like marketing and design to be with the product, too. Disaggregation and down-shifting of elements of the value chain, my friend. That’s the business in 2006.