Why project managers are vital to BRM success

There is a hidden solution for shifting business-relationship managers from a tactical to a strategic focus: Embrace the project manager.

It’s fascinating to observe the emerging wave of business-relationship managers (BRMs). There’s an assumption that the existing work executed by project managers is of little value. This misguided view promotes the notion that it’s possible for business-relationship managers to be effective and build credibility without project management support and buy-in.

Inversely, innovative and progressive business-relationship managers know that to be strategic, they must solve the tactical elements first. The most powerful business-relationship managers tightly partner with project managers to address tactical needs, enabling BRMs to focus on the strategic outlook.

The role already performed.

Reflect for a minute on your organization. What’s the dynamic between BRMs and project managers? Is it healthy and highly collaborative? Or is there increased friction? If there’s growing polarization, your business partners will lose tactical ground, relegating BRMs to a tactical role.

The role of business-relationship managers is newly designed but not newly performed. Much as in the ‘70s and ‘80s, when project managers were called designers, software engineers, and architects, someone else owned the role of the business-relationship manager. In most cases, this was the project manager.

The additional role of the business-relationship manager, however, was likely ineffectively executed due to the workload that prevented the project manager from focusing on relationships. This isn’t to excuse but to understand the phenomenon.

The hidden value here is that project managers understand what’s required to execute. They can manage the tactical for CIOs, empowering BRMs to drive the strategy.

Discovering strategic value through project manager synergies

Business-relationship managers are accountable for prioritization, demand management, and improving business process outcomes, e.g., value realization. It’s helpful to outline what’s in scope for most business relationship managers.

Business relationship managers in-scope:

  1. IT face of the business
  2. Business-area function representative and subject matter advisor (as required)
  3. Identify and capture IT demand
  4. Prioritize demand for business partners
  5. Co-own business processes
  6. Develop business cases
  7. High-level technology impact analysis
  8. Own organizational change management
  9. Improve business operations by applying business-process leading practices
  10. Assume accountability for all IT resources (internal and external) within the business partner’s area
  11. Coordinate vendor management (business area and impacted IT areas). Manage vendor contracts.

Business relationship managers out-of-scope:

  1. Managing project team
  2. Formally communicating project status, e.g., tactical
  3. Managing budget of project, e.g., PO, invoice, and payments
  4. Managing the PMO or project management lifecycle processes or deliverables

Key areas of focus for business-relationship managers:

  1. Demand capture and prioritization
  2. Business process modeling, e.g., business process and business components
  3. IT roadmap for business functions
  4. SLAs

Likewise, to leverage the project-manager role and unburden your business-relationship managers of tactical activities, understanding the project manager role is useful.

Project managers are accountable for the delivery of internal and external projects and programs within scope, schedule, budget, quality, and benefits.

Project managers in-scope:

  1. Manage scope, e.g., delivery of agreed-upon scope
  2. Manage schedule, e.g., on-time delivery
  3. Manage budget, e.g., financial forecasting, PO, invoice, and payments
  4. Manage quality, e.g., internal/external quality measures, PPM tools
  5. Manage benefits, e.g., project outcome realization
  6. Define the roles and responsibilities of the team
  7. Resource management of the team, e.g., utilization and allocation
  8. Manage and administer change control process, e.g., run the project change-control board
  9. Communication of project status

Project managers out-of-scope:

  1. Primary interface with business
  2. Demand capture and prioritization of business wants and needs
  3. Ownership of the business partners’ processes
  4. Owning the business process models
  5. Managing IT resources within the business partner’s area
  6. Managing SLAs with vendors or business areas

Key areas of focus for project managers:

  1. Deliver projects and programs aligned with the expected scope, schedule, budget, quality, and benefits.
  2. Clearly and consistently communicate the status of the project to impacted stakeholders.

CIOs can extend the capability to positively impact business partners strategically by visualizing in and out-of-scope areas for overlapping roles.

Savvy business-relationship managers know the greatest value comes from thinking and executing strategically. That’s difficult to do when you’re wading through bogs of technical debt.

A new breed

As business evolves and creates new roles, it’s useful to remember that newly defined roles were once the responsibility of others. I’ve had the pleasure of working with some amazing business-relationship managers—leaders that wanted to be part of something bigger. These were dreamers who saw the potential for their business partners and were creative enough to build relationships to empower those visions.

The common theme is that inspirational business-relationship managers know that their strategic success stands on the shoulders of tactical success.

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Peter is a technology executive with over 20 years of experience, dedicated to driving innovation, digital transformation, leadership, and data in business. He helps organizations connect strategy to execution to maximize company performance. He has been recognized for Digital Innovation by CIO 100, MIT Sloan, Computerworld, and the Project Management Institute. As Managing Director at OROCA Innovations, Peter leads the CXO advisory services practice, driving digital strategies. Peter was honored as an MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award Finalist in 2015 and is a regular contributor to CIO.com on innovation. Peter has led businesses through complex changes, including the adoption of data-first approaches for portfolio management, lean six sigma for operational excellence, departmental transformations, process improvements, maximizing team performance, designing new IT operating models, digitizing platforms, leading large-scale mission-critical technology deployments, product management, agile methodologies, and building high-performance teams. As Chief Information Officer, Peter was responsible for Connecticut’s Health Insurance Exchange’s (HIX) industry-leading digital platform transforming consumerism and retail-oriented services for the health insurance industry. Peter championed the Connecticut marketplace digital implementation with a transformational cloud-based SaaS platform and mobile application recognized as a 2014 PMI Project of the Year Award finalist, CIO 100, and awards for best digital services, API, and platform. He also received a lifetime achievement award for leadership and digital transformation, honored as a 2016 Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leader. Peter is the author of Learning Intelligence: Expand Thinking. Absorb Alternative. Unlock Possibilities (2017), which Marshall Goldsmith, author of the New York Times No. 1 bestseller Triggers, calls "a must-read for any leader wanting to compete in the innovation-powered landscape of today." Peter also authored The Power of Blockchain for Healthcare: How Blockchain Will Ignite The Future of Healthcare (2017), the first book to explore the vast opportunities for blockchain to transform the patient experience. Peter has a B.S. in C.I.S from Bentley University and an MBA from Quinnipiac University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. He earned his PMP® in 2001 and is a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Masters in Business Relationship Management (MBRM) and Certified Scrum Master. As a Commercial Rated Aviation Pilot and Master Scuba Diver, Peter understands first hand, how to anticipate change and lead boldly.