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Staffing: Role of Product/Business Analyst
1) How is a typical product management organization set up? I have product managers and I need to put together a job description for a junior product management position. I am thinking about a Product Analyst that has responsibility for requirements, some competitive analysis, acceptance testing and managing the development cycle. And a related question... What is the difference between Product Manager role and the Business Analyst role? Which organizations do these people TYPICALLY report into?
A product analyst or business analyst is usually more inwardly focused than outward. They spend time analyzing market and competitive data, refining requirements, and monitoring development. They spend time on the technical portion of the Pragmatic Marketing Framework.
We often see the Pragmatic Marketing Framework used to organize into three common roles of product management: strategy, technical, and go-to-market.
The product strategy role usually reports into the VP of product management or directly to the CEO. The technical product management role (often called product analyst or business analyst) is often in the development department. In many cases, the VP of Development creates this role because the artifacts from the product management team are poorly written and researched. The product marketing role is often found in the marketing department for the same reason; the VP of Marketing doesn’t feel that the positioning, messaging, and go-to-market planning are adequate.
Where these roles reside in the organization is not particularly relevant as long as their roles are clear to all groups.
Read more about organizing using the product management triad.
Answered by Steve Johnson
