Comparing Product Owner vs. Business Analyst vs. Requirements Manager

Software development extends beyond engineering, it involves a range of roles that are critical to a project’s success. With 45% of software development projects running over budget on average, there’s a significant need for specialists who can support planning across the product, process, and business dimensions.

Some of these responsibilities may be handled by the customer or a project manager. However, thorough product planning, effective management, and clear approval workflows often require dedicated roles. This is where a business analyst (BA), a requirements manager (RM), and a product owner (PO) can help.

What are the differences between these roles and what workflows do they cover in a software development project?

In this article, we will describe the specific responsibilities of a business analyst, a requirements manager, and a product owner, as well as explain the value of allocating such specialists to your team.

A business analyst (BA) is a specialist who identifies business needs and challenges, as well as determines solutions that align with those goals and constraints. A BA can cover a wide range of workflows while being primarily solution-focused. Such a specialist bridges the gap between stakeholders and technical teams, ensuring that the final product brings business value.

The BA role in Agile and other project methodologies is typically focused on the early stages of the project.These are the workflows that are commonly covered by a business analyst:

• Project discovery and research. A BA analyzes the project’s business context, goals, and potential constraints. For example, when it comes to releasing a mobile fitness app, a BA can analyze the competition and the user needs to shape application features that will help it stand out from the competition.

• Stakeholder needs analysis. Business analysts communicate with key stakeholders, including team members, end users, and executives or sponsors, to gather their expectations, priorities, and pain points. This information helps the team develop a clear and aligned product vision.
• Process modeling. This is especially important for internal products designed to improve a company’s efficiency. A business analyst maps the organization’s current processes and models the future workflows that will be enhanced by the new product. For example, if a real estate SaaS provider struggles with listing properties, a business analyst can design an improved approach based on the integration with thoroughly curated MLS (multiple listing services). This helps the BA align stakeholder expectations and provide a clear roadmap for improvement.
• Business case development. A business analyst is also responsible for building the justification for a project, including cost-benefit analysis, risk assessment, and value proposition.
• Functional requirements definition. A business analyst defines functional requirements (features, workflows) and ensures non-functional needs (e.g., performance, security) are identified in collaboration with technical stakeholders. While architects cover technical details, a BA ensures that quality expectations are captured from a business perspective.
• Assumption identification. Business analysts list and validate assumptions that could impact the project. These assumptions can relate to stakeholder availability, technology capabilities, third-party integrations, or specific patterns in user behavior. By identifying these factors early, the team can take such assumptions into account during the planning stage and reduce their potential impact.

A requirements manager (RM) is a specialist who oversees requirements across a project and ensures they are accurate, consistent, and properly managed. Unlike a business analyst who is solution-oriented, a requirements manager is more process-focused.

Most workflows in which a requirements manager is involved are related to requirements governance and control. These are the common RM responsibilities:

• Requirements documentation. One of the key responsibilities of a requirements manager is ensuring that all requirements are clearly written, complete, and structured according to standards.
• Requirements versioning. Different stakeholders may have distinctive versions of the requirements. An RM ensures consistency by updating and maintaining these versions, while also tracking changes over time to preserve historical accuracy.
• Requirements validation and approval. A requirements manager coordinates review sessions with all critical stakeholders to ensure that the documented needs align with business goals and can be implemented.
• Traceability matrix. An RM establishes a matrix that helps teams to ensure full coverage and alignment of requirements. This matrix outlines business objectives, design elements, test cases, and development tasks. All these components can be connected to the list of requirements. By establishing these connections, the RM gains greater visibility into both the overall process and the management of requirements.
• Change management. An IT requirements manager oversees how requirements evolve in response to business or technological shifts. The key point here is to keep the project on the right track.
• Quality assurance for documentation. Finally, an RM is often responsible for verifying documents. The aim is to detect whether these documents meet quality standards, are free from ambiguity, as well as provide efficient support for project workflows.

A product owner (PO) is a specialist commonly used in the Agile methodology. A PO typically defines the product vision and ensures that the development team delivers value to the business and end users. The product owner’s role has a lot in common with the one of a business analyst. The main difference between a product owner and a business analyst is that a PO is more product-oriented as such a specialist focuses on making decisions that balance user needs, technical constraints, and business goals.

A PO is deeply involved in strategic and tactical product decisions. Common product owner responsibilities include:

• Development of a product vision and roadmap. A technical product owner defines the long-term direction of the product, such as its potential integration with AI or expansion to other industries. Such a specialist should also communicate them clearly to the team and stakeholders.
• Backlog ownership. A PO creates a project backlog where each update, bug fix, and technical task is prioritized and recorded. A product owner is also responsible for refining and prioritizing this backlog to ensure it reflects business priorities and user needs.
• Sprint goal setting. Another responsibility of a product owner is setting clear and achievable goals for each sprint in Agile. A PO closely collaborates with the development team and aligns sprint goals with a long-term product strategy.
• Outcome alignment. In addition to tracking all the product improvements, a PO ensures that all such updates contribute to desired outcomes.
• Product-market fit management. A product owner researches the market to validate that the product aligns with current demands. For example, a PO for a healthcare management system is responsible for monitoring trends in data protection regulations in order to keep the product secure and compliant.
• Prioritization for value. Product development often involves trade-off decisions, for example, balancing between app usability and more fortified security. These choices are the product owner’s responsibility, as this specialist should make decisions that drive the highest possible value with available resources and time.

In many projects, the responsibilities of business analysts (BAs), requirements managers (RMs), and product owners (POs) can overlap. These roles often collaborate closely, covering different aspects of the same workflows to ensure strategic alignment, process clarity, and delivery of business value.

The roles of a business analyst and a product owner largely overlap as both are focused on aligning the product with stakeholders and business requirements. However, a BA is more involved in early planning and analyzing detailed business requirements. Meanwhile, a product owner prioritizes features and decisions that maximize product value for stakeholders and is often more involved across the entire project life cycle.

These are the workflows where both a BA and a PO are involved:

• Defining goals and scoping features. Despite different focus areas, both a BA and a PO collaboratively work on defining business goals and translating them into clearly scoped features.
• MVP shaping. A business analyst and a product owner collaborate closely to define the minimum viable product (MVP), an early version of the product that includes core features and is designed to gather initial user feedback. They frame its functionality and its terms of measurable business outcomes.
• Customer persona to feature mapping. A business analyst and a product owner convert customer insights into actionable features that address real user needs.

The difference between a business analyst and a requirements manager is more evident than when it comes to the BA vs. PO comparison. However, there are several workflows where these specialists cooperate closely:

• Requirements gathering and management. While a BA is primarily responsible for gathering the product’s functional requirements, an RM takes responsibility for structuring them. The RM also complements the business analyst by ensuring requirements traceability.
• Requirements definition and formalization. A BA often defines the requirements in a loose format. They are delivered to an RM who formalizes them and creates different requirements’ versions.
• Assurance of requirements’ completeness and consistency. Both a business analyst and a requirements manager are involved in reviewing the project requirements to ensure they are clearly defined, well-formulated, and internally consistent.

There are also particular processes that require the involvement of both a PO and an RM. Here are a few key examples:

• Defining product features and their acceptance criteria. A product owner decides what features to build and when. Meanwhile, a software requirements manager ensures that each feature has clear and testable acceptance criteria.
• Stakeholder needs and change management. A product owner ensures that features align with stakeholder needs, while a requirements manager handles any resulting changes and facilitates smooth documentation handoffs to the development team.

Together, a BA, an RM, and a PO take responsibility for aligned product value delivery with requirements integrity. Such specialists ensure that:

• Stakeholders are aligned on vision and goals
• Product roadmap is well-prioritized and structured
• Each feature is valuable, clearly defined, testable, and ready for development.

This collaborative effort ensures that business strategy, technical feasibility, and process governance come together to drive successful product delivery.

You can see the primary workflows of a BA, an RM, and a PO, as well as the workflows where the responsibilities of these specialists overlap, in the image below.

Let’s summarize the key similarities and differences that are important in the context of the product owner vs. business analyst vs. requirements manager comparison. These factors are outlined in the table below.

Consiquently, here are some suggestions on when you need a BA, an RM, or a PO for your project:

• You may need a BA at the early stages of the project, especially if you are working with complex domains and new systems. Having a skilled specialist in the role of a business analyst might be necessary when it comes to developing internal systems, enterprise software, or integration-heavy solutions that require process mapping and modeling.
• A requirements manager adds significant value to large-scale or long-term projects, especially those governed by strict regulations. They help the team manage input from multiple stakeholders who may have differing or evolving expectations. When a product requires regulatory compliance and detailed, well-maintained documentation, the involvement of a requirements manager becomes essential.
• A PO is specifically important in Agile environments, where continuous backlog prioritization and rapid feedback loops are essential. Such a specialist serves as the central decision-maker, ensuring that development efforts stay aligned with business value. Ultimately, product owner’s skills are well-suited for customer-facing products and startups, where user feedback plays a key role in shaping the product roadmap.

In different scenarios, assistance from an experienced business analyst, requirements manager, or product owner can be essential for your project’s success. And there are also cases where you need assistance with each of the three roles.

Finding skilled specialists capable of covering business analysis, requirements management, and product ownership might be a challenging task. Leobit is ready to assist. We can help you plan your product, and process, as well as business and stakeholder alignment by running a discovery phase, covering BA, RM, or PO needs, or providing you with a dedicated business analyst as a team extension.

Our specialists possess significant expertise in providing business analysis services to diverse clients, providing them with:

• Cost reduction
• Minimized development risks
• Alignment with market needs
• Stakeholder alignment
• Accelerated product delivery
• Enhanced user satisfaction
• Better quality through clear requirements
• Structured project documentation
• Data-driven decision-making.

We can extend your existing team or provide a dedicated software development team with professionals that cover all aspects of your project, including business analysis, requirements management, and product ownership. Many of our specialists are trained to cover more than one role, depending on the engagement model. For example, our senior business analyst can take on product owner’s roles and responsibilities during the delivery phase or work as a requirements manager in heavily regulated environments.

This flexibility brings significant benefits:

• Reduces overhead and team size for mid-size projects
• Ensures consistency from discovery through delivery
• Enables faster onboarding and smoother communication
• Bridges process, product, and business expertise in one role

Our approach allows you to adapt engagement models as the project evolves — starting with a BA during discovery, and then extending the role to PO or RM workflows during implementation.

While the roles and responsibilities of a business analyst, a requirements manager, and a product owner often overlap, such specialists cover different workflows and aspects of product development. In many cases, these professionals complement each other, ensuring the project’s alignment with business goals, efficient processes, and stakeholder fit.

We at Leobit are ready to help you cover the essential workflows by providing a business analyst, a requirements manager, a product owner, or a senior specialist ready to cover all of the roles mentioned above. With our significant experience in project discovery and planning, we will help you anticipate the challenges, seize the opportunities, and establish efficient workflows necessary for the project’s success.

Contact us to discuss your needs and let’s see how we help you meet your business goals.