Perhaps It

With this Project Times, we’re running the first in a series of articles from Business Analyst Times by Bob Wysocki that asks the question, Is it Time for the BA and the PM to Get Hitched? He weighs in with the view that there is a lot of overlap between requirements gathering and management and wonders if the BA and the PM roles shouldn’t be rolled into one. It caused much controversy amongst the Business Analyst Times readers, and we’d love to hear what you think from a project manager’s standpoint. We have added a dedicated BA/PM discussion forum topic here.

Is the title “project manager” becoming trendy? Maybe it always was and we just didn’t notice! Chris Vandersluis doesn’t think so, but he’s concerned that the position of project manager is becoming trivialized on TV soaps and “reality” shows. In his article, Head for the Hills, he takes the PM industry to task for creating the expectation that anyone can become a project manager. He digs deeper to find out why.

On the other hand, Catherine Daw believes that project management isn’t always taken as seriously as it should at senior management levels. In Telling Truth to Power, Catherine addresses the importance of top management support for projects. But, she says, along with that is the need to be able to pass along bad news with the good, something that’s often difficult, especially if management is throwing stumbling blocks in the project’s way, and doesn’t really want to know.