Product Owner vs Business Analyst: What's the Differences?

It can be challenging to draw a clear distinction between the duties of product owner vs business analyst. Their duties frequently overlap, and each company defines each function according to its own internal requirements. A product owner (PO) may play a more business analyst-like position in some organizations, while a business analyst may also play a product owner-like role in others. To understand product owner and business analyst similarities and differences, and how they work together, consider taking a Business Analyst course to start your learning journey.

Who is a Product Owner?

A Product Owner sits at the center of any agile team. They convert the Product Manager's vision into manageable tasks, ensure clarity of goals, and verify team progress. The role is highly flexible, adapting to project, company, and team needs.
Using tools like Story Mapping and Team Backlog, they set goals, prioritize work, and manage the developers' backlog. They also use Agile User Story Maps and Product Roadmaps to prioritize customer requirements and collaborate with the team.

What is a Business Analyst?

Business Analysts are experts in all aspects, capable of assuming roles from Product Manager to Product Owner. Their primary duty is to articulate customer requirements, translating them into management and development schemas. With proper Business Management training, they ensure user stories are clear, aligned with desired outcomes, and that backlogs are prioritized. They ensure events align with project goals and provide advice on releases or adjustments. Story Mapping is crucial, allowing them to maneuver, modify, and improve Story Maps, enhancing customer needs and product goals. KnowledgeHut Business Management Training helps assess customer needs and product goals with hands-on projects.

Product Owner vs Business Analyst

Product owners and business analysts in today's firms have a wide range of responsibilities to fulfill for any product developed to perform effectively in the market for the company to realize the anticipated return on investment. Before delving more into the primary duties of any position, it is important to have a basic grasp of the two job kinds and the difference between business analyst and product owner. The main or key difference between Product Owner and Business Analyst in agile are outlined below:

Parameter	Business Analyst	Product Owner
Strategizing	Provides strategies that are relevant to the product's requirements.	Provides business-related strategies for developing the product.
Stages of project	It focuses more on the technical aspects of the product.	It focuses on customer-related aspects of a product.
Analyzing the product	Creates non-functional requirements for the product.	They conduct a competitive analysis of their product.
Creating customer perspectives	They can help us to break down the stories into useful tasks.	Explain the story development process from the customer's perspective
End goal	Their goal is to ensure that a technically correct product gets developed.	Their goal is to make sure that the product sells well and has a high business value.
Making changes	They will correct any technical issues during product development or delivery.	They assess the market to estimate the product's market value and suggest the necessary changes.
Different aspects of product	They ensure that the technical side of the software functions properly.	They manage the product's business side and ensure that it performs well on the market.

Difference Between Product Owner and Business Analyst

If your question was ‘What is the difference between a product owner and business analyst?’, then here are a few parameters that explain the differences: 

1. Strategizing

Product Owner is the overall plan for the project, and the whole product will be projected over the next couple of years. They collaborate with and communicate with users to determine their needs and formulate a strategy to develop the project. They are also able to translate the vision for the product into a format that can be understood by the developers to ensure that the needs of the end users are fulfilled. 

Business Analyst is required to be responsible for the requirements for software and solution experience and design of the product. They Business Analyst ensure that the right and correct questions are asked so that the product owner collaborates with the team to make the correct decisions and try to answer questions. The Business Analyst helps clarify the understanding of the product and system and provides the Product Owner with the evaluation of the scope, requirements, and minimum viable product as well as user stories that provide value to users. 

2. Stages of Project

Product Owner is an expert who is solely accountable for managing backlogs of products. It is an array of increments for the product that has to be included in the product. As the product is developed, it is required that the specifications of the product are constantly changing in line with the market and the needs of the customers and users. Hence, the Product Backlog needs to be efficiently managed so that increments of the product are organized efficiently. 

Business Analyst is to record all formal as well as informal specifications of the product based on the requirements of the company. Some examples of the duties of Business Analysts could include drafting requirements, such as user stories based on accepted criteria. When the product owner has made a user story, It is the Business Analyst's job to examine the work and ensure that the story's content meets all acceptance criteria. 

3. Analyzing the Product

Product Owner ensure that requirements prioritization is accurate and that feedback from the iteration is also considered. The Product Owner has the freedom to change the order in which the Backlog is prioritized depending on various factors such as revised estimates, requirements changes, and customer feedback. But, these changes have to be properly looked at and must not cause any confusion within your Agile team. 

Business Analysts can assist the Product Owner when he isn't immediately available to assist the developers with the solutions and requirements to complete the project. Business Analysts, alongside the Product Owner, communicate the product's vision to the team and assists them in achieving the goals and flow, as well as the complexity and dependencies. 

4. Creating Customer Perspectives

Product Owners have to know the requirements of the customer and must also be able to recommend the most effective options for their products. Customer feedback is crucial during the development process for the item. The market trends or the psychology and behavior of users should be fully explained to the customer, and the best features of the product should be suggested. 

Business Analysts collaborate with Project stakeholders and evaluate the software's development. They review the product playing-acting and other testing tasks to ensure the software meets all specific specifications. 

5. End Goal

Product Owners are responsible for overseeing every stage of product development, including Planning, Refinement Review, Planning, and Sprint. Planning involves working with Stakeholders to determine and arrange the steps to be taken for the following iteration. After that, product owners finalize the process in which the areas for improvement are identified, and the following sprint is scheduled. 

Business Analysts work with project team members to examine the software's progress as it develops. Through walkthroughs, plays, acting, or other tests, Business analysts will help ensure that the project aligns with all specific requirements. 

6. Making Changes

Product Owner should have understanding of market trends and a deep grasp of the competition and the user's issues can help determine which features are needed by identifying what those customers would like but aren't capable of imagining or asking for themselves. 

Business Analysts have a good knowledge of systems and products and can assist the PO with scope analysis, requirements analysis and scope, minimum viable product user stories, and prioritization to increase the value for the end-users. 

7. Dealing with Finances and Business

Product Owner is accountable for every step of the development process and the final product, which includes assessing the progress and performance and deciding whether the team should continue to the next step. 

Business Analyst leads the team, working in conjunction with PO to convey the product's vision and help the development team understand the flow of requirements, complexity, and dependencies.

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Product Owner and Business Analyst Similarity

Business analyst product owner job descriptions or roles have a lot in common, and they do overlap in aspects like responsibilities and skills:

1. A Product Owner and Business Analyst work hand in hand to oversee the project work and make the vision come to reality. The basic goal of a business analyst to product owner is to form one product through good collaboration and teamwork.  
2. This is the same for Agile teams, where the Product Owner and Business Analyst roles are merged. They must work together to ensure a successful release to market. 
3. Product Owner is typically responsible for the overall picture of market expectations and products. The Business Analyst oversees the execution of the sprint and closely monitors it. 
4. The Product Owner and Business Analyst work in close collaboration with the stakeholders ensuring that they are informed about every step of the project.

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What Should You Choose Between Product Owner vs Business Analyst?

Benefits of Being a Business Analyst

• The job role is a very high paying role.  
• These individuals have the freedom to handle problems in their own way.  
• There is no monotony in this job. There are new challenges every day.  
• Their work has a positive impact on the projects.  
• This is a very high demanding job.  

Benefits of Being a Product Owner

• Being a product owner you will have the freedom to run the project as you want.  
• You will be able to communicate with both the team and the stakeholders.  
• It is a crucial developmental role.  
• It is a very high-paying job role.  
• There has been a major growth in the demand for product owners.  

Keeping these pointers in mind, you can choose the field which best suits your liking. If you want to learn more, we suggest you go through the best Agile management courses which will help you learn in-depth about the job roles.

Conclusion

Agile Companies have grown over the years, and there are more opportunities for those who want to learn Agile Methodology. An Agile company has many important members and they understand the basic product owner and business analyst difference. These companies also understand the need for an excellent product owner and business analyst relationship to run the business. Although many people believe that both roles are similar or have a debate on agile business analyst vs product owner, it is important for them to realize that the Business Analyst is more focused on the technical aspects of product development while the Product.

Owner is more focused on providing maximum value to the company through the product. Although startups and smaller companies may only have one person who performs multiple roles, it is not common for businesses to have several. As the business grows, it becomes more common to have many professionals performing different roles. It is easier for people to pick their specialization based on their career interests and past job experiences. We recommend you go for KnowledgeHut Product Owner certification online and boost your learning.