Business Analyst Versus Product Manager

If product managers focus on the why of a solution business analysts do the heavy lifting to work with engineering to determine the how of a solution from a functional user perspective.
Business analyst versus product manager. A few of the product manager s responsibilities include portfolio management product vision product marketing and client management. Compared to the role of the business analyst who s roles includes business process modeling requirements gathering and business rule documentation. Business analysts seek to solve problems.
While it s critical for the product manager to understand why and how people use the product the product manager generally does not define how people use it while business analysts are responsible for defining the requirements for a business capability. It is an amalgamation of many roles such as business representative business analyst and project manager. Business analysts are responsible for gathering technical specifications so that the product can be developed.
In other words there are two key differences between product management and business analysis. Product managers seek to solve problems for people outside the organization. For product managers the ultimate goal is the product.
They are a designer of the overall project and they are acting as the subjective eyes of the customer. In the younger companies say 20 years old or younger the role of the business analyst is often non existent or at best a relic of the early days in these usually agile companies product managers lead the charge with product vision ownership customer development competitive analysis and product strategy. The product owner for those who are purists in the world of scrum is the voice of the customer.
Product managers are responsible for making decisions. In general the difference is that business analysts work for enterprises that consume technology and product managers work for vendors who provide technology to enterprises smaller companies and consumers. The business analyst is more of the facilitator role discovering the requirements from the product manager who might be collaborating with end users hopefully figuring out what the customer wants and bringing that information into the business analyst.
If product managers focus on the why of a solution business analysts do the heavy lifting to work with engineering to determine the how of a solution from a functional user perspective. Business analysts are focused on developing capabilities. A product owner is a subjective role.