Transformation needs specialists who understand one another
Business transformation depends on multiple professional disciplines - business analysts, project managers, programme managers and change managers contribute different things. Their responsibilities overlap, but they are not interchangeable.
A business analyst helps people understand the present state, define needs, evaluate options and preserve evidence.
A project manager organises the work required to turn an agreed objective into reality.
A programme manager considers how related projects, dependencies and organisational priorities fit together.
A change manager helps people adopt and sustain new ways of working.
That makes cross-training valuable.
A business analyst benefits from understanding how project managers plan and control delivery. A project manager benefits from understanding how analysts gather and specify requirements. Both work more effectively when they understand change adoption, testing, product development, commercial considerations and organisational strategy.
Cross-training does not mean trying to become every specialist at once, but knowing something about a neighbouring discipline gives someone three advantages as I see it:
First advantage
they understand what their collaborators need from them. A business analyst who understands user acceptance testing can develop requirements and acceptance criteria that testers can use. A project manager who understands business analysis is more likely to protect time for current-state discovery before pressing a team towards implementation.
Second Advantage
they can recognise missing capability. They can see when nobody has established the evidence behind a decision, managed the dependencies between projects or considered how employees will adopt the change.
Third Advantage
they understand the boundaries of their own role. This is as important as understanding the overlaps. People become poor collaborators when they repeatedly move into somebody else’s territory without recognising the expertise that already exists there.
Strong transformation practitioners therefore develop a deep core discipline and informed awareness around it. They can occasionally step left or right when the situation requires it. They can translate between professional perspectives. They can also recognise when the organisation needs another form of expertise rather than assuming they should fill every gap themselves.
The practitioner who understands the wider landscape can help the organisation identify what is missing without pretending that every missing capability belongs to them.