As many projects continue to fail or veer off course, one question takes center stage: which role can truly ensure their successful completion—Project Manager, Business Analyst, or a combination of both?
The figures from the Standish Group (CHAOS Report), which are still widely cited in 2026, serve as a reminder that project success remains a major challenge for organizations.
- Only 31% of projects are “complete” successes—delivered on time, within budget, and within the planned scope.
- About 69% of projects encounter at least one significant challenge; many 2024 reports reflect these figures.
- Budget overruns remain common: the 2024–2025 summaries report high rates depending on the scope of the analysis, confirming the recurrence of this phenomenon, while data from Standish (1994) already documented massive overruns (52.7%).
- Scope creep is also very common(for example, it is blamed for 43% of failures in the construction industry).
- In the IT sector, performance is under particular pressure: only about 19% of projects meet all their objectives.
Given these observations, determining the appropriate balance between the roles of Project Manager and Business Analyst is no longer merely an organizational challenge, but also a key factor in building credibility, ensuring project maturity, and… providing clarity regarding career paths.
By clarifying the roles of project management, value analysis, and scope control, organizations create better conditions for their projects to succeed.
They also enable their talented employees to plan for the future, structure their professional development, and build a career aligned with their strengths—whether that means moving toward operational leadership (Project Manager), business requirements management (Business Analyst), or increasingly recognized hybrid career paths.
PROJECT MANAGER, BUSINESS ANALYST: TWO DISTINCT BUT COMPLEMENTARY ROLES
The Project Manager is the operational leader of the project: they plan, mediate, and monitor progress and the quality of the deliverables. They manage the project in terms of deadlines, costs, and resources.
Consolidated statistics published by Iseo Blue (2025) show that organizations with a high level of project management maturity achieve 77% of their objectives .
Conversely, a lack of structured management can be very costly: according to Zippia (2026), companies lose an average of 11.4% of their investments due to poor project management performance.
The Business Analyst, for their part, serves as the strategic link between business requirements and the final solution. They act as a conduit and a source of ideas between the business units and the solutions. They gather, organize, and model requirements, ensuring they align with operational objectives.
According to Jobera (2024), 32% of project failures are attributed to poor requirements management.
The PMBOK (Project Management Institute) and the BABOK (International Institute of Business Analysis) clearly distinguish between these two roles. However, they emphasize the need for close collaboration between them throughout the project lifecycle.
HYBRID PROFILE: OPPORTUNITY OR RISK?
Faced with budget constraints, short-term projects, or agile environments, some organizations prefer a versatile candidate who can handle both governance and business analysis.
This hybrid approach offers undeniable advantages: it reduces the number of interfaces, facilitates communication with stakeholders, and can speed up decision-making. The PMI’s Agile Practice Guide and the IIBA’s Agile Extension to the BABOK recognize this flexibility in roles such as that of Product Owner.
This is in line with the growing adoption of hybrid approaches (combining agile and structured methods), which are used in nearly 60% of projects today.
But this integration has itslimitations: cognitive overload, conflicting priorities, and a dilution of accountability. A poorly defined hybrid role can become a point of vulnerability, especially in projects with significant regulatory or technical stakes.
THE DUO SPECIALIZING IN COMPLEXITY… AND THE STRATEGIC VALUE OF BA SKILLS IN PROGRAM MANAGEMENT
For critical projects—such as ERP, data, and regulatory transformation— a specialized duo consisting of a Project Manager (PM) and a Business Analyst (BA) often remains the most robust approach. The PM maintains control over trade-offs, governance, and overall project management, while the BA deepens business understanding, structures requirements, challenges needs, and ensures functional consistency. This clear division allows for a complementary dual perspective: strategic from the PM’s side, and operational and analytical from the BA’s side.
In data-driven environments, this role is reinforced by frameworks such as theDAMA-DMBOK, which position the Business Analyst as a key player ininformation governance, particularly in the areas of quality, compliance, metadata definition, and business rule management. The Business Analyst no longer merely analyzes; they help structure the program’s information ecosystem.
But beyond this partnership, complex transformation programs demonstrate that business analysis skills are becoming a critical driver, even for leadership roles. They enable the structuring of requirements from start to finish, ensure cross-functional consistency across projects, enhance traceability, and build amature,integratedmanagement system where needs, solutions, and benefits remain aligned over the long term.
Thus, a Program Manager with advanced business analysis skills is often better equipped to manage the scope, anticipate impacts, ensure overall consistency, and secure value creation at the program level. However, when this hybrid role is not clearly defined, it can quickly become a point of vulnerability: cognitive overload, conflicting priorities, and a dilution of responsibilities. A clear governance model is therefore essential to ensure that hybridization is an asset, not a risk.
WHAT IMPACT WILL THIS HAVE ON CAREERS?
The debate also has implications for career paths.
- A specialized business analyst can advance to roles such as product owner, business manager, or even chief data officer.
- The Project Manager may aim for roles such as Program Manager, PMO Lead, or Transformation Director.
- A hybrid profile, on the other hand, offers flexibility but may lack clarity unless it is well-defined or backed by a certification (e.g., PMP, CBAP, CDMP).
There are various career paths. A business analyst looking to move into management can transition into project management after developing expertise in governance. A project manager can acquire skills in modeling, data, or facilitation to align more closely with business functions.
AND WHAT ABOUT DATA AND AI SKILLS IN ALL OF THIS?
The rise of data and AI (Artificial Intelligence) projects is changing the game. Expertise in data analysis or modeling is becoming a key differentiator. It is increasingly expected of business analysts… but also of project managers, who must understand the challenges of data governance and data quality.
In this context, cross-functional specialization (PM + data or BA + data) is often more effective than broad-based versatility. It allows professionals to remain marketable while delivering real value on strategic projects.
CONCLUSION: ADAPT TO THE PROJECT…
AND THE SKILLS DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
The right choice depends on the project context, as well as the level of maturity and the HR strategy (skills development). A hybrid profile can be useful for initiating a transition, but specialization often leads to greater efficiency as complexity increases. For companies, it is an organizational decision; for professionals, it is a career choice.
| Project | Recommended profile |
| Short-term or agile project | Well-structured hybrid profile |
| Regulatory proposal / data | Specialized PM and BA |
| An immature organization | Strong BA or extended hybrid |
| Structured organization | Specialization + coordination |
an article written by…
Alexandre MOSKWA
Practice Leader – Transformation & Organization
