https://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analystsen-USTelligent Community 12https://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analystsThu, 18 Apr 2024 15:52:11 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:2bf55545-73cd-4d40-b3b3-fad9b64c718fAppian Max Teamhttps://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts#commentsCurrent Revision posted to Article by Appian Max Team on 4/18/2024 3:52:11 PM<br /> <div> <p><img style="max-height:669px;max-width:1189px;" alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/2378x1338/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/2318.heuristics_2D00_checklist_2D00_arch.jpg" /></p> <p>There are several roles that fit into the category of a <a href="/learn/">low-code planner</a>, but two of the most important are product owners and analysts. Although planners aren&rsquo;t always involved in development work themselves, they&rsquo;re essential when starting a new Appian project. A planner will work to define the processes to be automated, prioritize development efforts, and ensure coordination across business units.</p> <p>Let&rsquo;s take a look at how product owners and analysts function as low-code planners, how they differ from one another, and how to best prepare them for success.</p> <h2><strong>Product owner</strong></h2> <p>The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the development team&rsquo;s work. However, their larger role is to represent the needs of the business, not the development team&rsquo;s. To keep communication clear, there should only be one product owner per project. That doesn&rsquo;t mean a product owner is solely responsible for all decisions or initiatives on a project, only that they serve as the single point of contact between the development team and the business.</p> <p>Some of the product owner&rsquo;s core responsibilities include: articulating critical business needs, prioritizing development requirements, ensuring requirements are visible, transparent, and clearly communicated to all team members, and collaboratively creating a backlog of work to be done by the development team.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One mistake we made when first starting out was just trying to find people with past Appian experience. What we found out was that finding, either internally or externally, the people with the right competencies and then teaching them about Appian was the better approach.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Fortune 500 Insurance Firm</em></span></div> <p>As the point of contact between the development team and the business, it&rsquo;s crucial that product owners keep a constant channel of communication with the development team. In addition, good product owners will also have a deep understanding of the business, such that they feel confident in making important prioritization decisions.</p> <h3>Product owner qualifications</h3> <p>As mentioned earlier, the product owner represents the business, so it&rsquo;s important to look for people already familiar with the ins and outs of an organization. The best product owners will have broad relationships across the business, extensive domain knowledge, decision-making skills, and a proven track record of accountable ownership. Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Here&rsquo;s our suggested minimum criteria for identifying low-code product owners:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>6+ years experience with the business&nbsp;</li> <li>Hands-on experience with the service or activity to be owned</li> <li>Experience prioritizing a backlog and writing user stories</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <p>Additionally, we suggest product owners earn their <a href="https://www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified/product-owner-track/certified-scrum-product-owner">Certified Scrum Product Owner certification</a> from the Scrum Alliance.</p> <h3>Appian training (product owner)</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-overview">Appian Overview</a>: Product owners may benefit from our Appian Overview training in order to better understand the terminology and capabilities of Appian.</p> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: If the product owner is more heavily involved with the day-to-day work of the development team, as in the case of a project manager, then the Appian Foundations course is recommended. The course provides a healthy amount of our suggested delivery methodology, including topics such as application planning, translation of requirements into application components, and leveraging low-code tools for creating design documents and proofs of concept.</p> <h2><strong>Analyst</strong></h2> <p>The analyst&rsquo;s job is to help the product owner convert the needs of the business into actionable backlog items. It&rsquo;s best to look for someone with strong communication and presentation skills, so as to better facilitate an open dialogue between team members. Additionally, analysts should excel at problem solving and be familiar with Appian terminology. To better assist in requirements gathering, analysts should have some basic training in planning, testing and designing low-code applications.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One internal role that has a lot of the same skills required to be successful on Appian projects are the &lsquo;power&rsquo; report users. I found them across our business analytics teams. They have a mix of technical and business skills that fit well with the Appian framework.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Global Engineering Firm</em></span></div> <p>A common task an analyst must perform is choosing the most appropriate automation tool for a project or workflow. Whether that&rsquo;s an integration, decision object, or robotic process automation (RPA), analysts must be well-versed with the capabilities and terminology of the Appian low-code platform to make these decisions. For this reason, some organizations (including Appian) nominate a developer on the team to fill the analyst role. While it&rsquo;s acceptable to keep the roles of analysts and developers separate, it&rsquo;s important that both are sufficiently trained on the Appian platform.</p> <h3>Analyst qualifications</h3> <p>If you plan on using your developers as analysts, then the background criteria is the same as for <a href="/success/w/article/2982/build-your-low-code-development-team">low-code developers.</a>&nbsp;If you&rsquo;re looking for a non-developer to fill the analyst role, then we&rsquo;ve found the following criteria to be helpful:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>4+ years experience in a business role working with IT and technical stakeholders</li> <li>2+ years experience with successful ownership of business analysis tasks on a technical project (requirements, analysis, design)</li> <li>Familiarity with planning, designing, testing, and deploying enterprise software applications</li> <li>Strong background in logical data modeling and the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)</li> <li>Strong problem solving and design skills</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <h3>Appian training for the Analyst</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: Provides the tools to follow Appian&rsquo;s suggested methodology, speak the language of developers, and write better requirements for applications.</p> <p><a href="/learn/certifications/p/certified-analyst">Appian Certified Analyst</a>: Helps validate the knowledge and skills required to work alongside Appian developers.</p> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: People</div> https://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts/revision/10Tue, 20 Feb 2024 15:18:40 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:2bf55545-73cd-4d40-b3b3-fad9b64c718fjoel.larinhttps://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts#commentsRevision 10 posted to Article by joel.larin on 2/20/2024 3:18:40 PM<br /> <div> <p><img style="max-height:669px;max-width:1189px;" alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/2378x1338/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/2318.heuristics_2D00_checklist_2D00_arch.jpg" /></p> <p>There are several roles that fit into the category of a <a href="/learn/">low-code planner</a>, but two of the most important are product owners and analysts. Although planners aren&rsquo;t always involved in development work themselves, they&rsquo;re essential when starting a new Appian project. A planner will work to define the processes to be automated, prioritize development efforts, and ensure coordination across business units.</p> <p>Let&rsquo;s take a look at how product owners and analysts function as low-code planners, how they differ from one another, and how to best prepare them for success.</p> <h2><strong>Product owner</strong></h2> <p>The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the development team&rsquo;s work. However, their larger role is to represent the needs of the business, not the development team&rsquo;s. To keep communication clear, there should only be one product owner per project. That doesn&rsquo;t mean a product owner is solely responsible for all decisions or initiatives on a project, only that they serve as the single point of contact between the development team and the business.</p> <p>Some of the product owner&rsquo;s core responsibilities include: articulating critical business needs, prioritizing development requirements, ensuring requirements are visible, transparent, and clearly communicated to all team members, and collaboratively creating a backlog of work to be done by the development team.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One mistake we made when first starting out was just trying to find people with past Appian experience. What we found out was that finding, either internally or externally, the people with the right competencies and then teaching them about Appian was the better approach.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Fortune 500 Insurance Firm</em></span></div> <p>As the point of contact between the development team and the business, it&rsquo;s crucial that product owners keep a constant channel of communication with the development team. In addition, good product owners will also have a deep understanding of the business, such that they feel confident in making important prioritization decisions.</p> <h3>Product owner qualifications</h3> <p>As mentioned earlier, the product owner represents the business, so it&rsquo;s important to look for people already familiar with the ins and outs of an organization. The best product owners will have broad relationships across the business, extensive domain knowledge, decision-making skills, and a proven track record of accountable ownership. Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Here&rsquo;s our suggested minimum criteria for identifying low-code product owners:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>6+ years experience with the business&nbsp;</li> <li>Hands-on experience with the service or activity to be owned</li> <li>Experience prioritizing a backlog and writing user stories</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <p>Additionally, we suggest product owners earn their <a href="https://www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified/product-owner-track/certified-scrum-product-owner">Certified Scrum Product Owner certification</a> from the Scrum Alliance.</p> <h3>Appian training (product owner)</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-overview">Appian Overview</a>: Product owners may benefit from our Appian Overview training in order to better understand the terminology and capabilities of Appian.</p> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: If the product owner is more heavily involved with the day-to-day work of the development team, as in the case of a project manager, then the Appian Foundations course is recommended. The course provides a healthy amount of our suggested delivery methodology, including topics such as application planning, translation of requirements into application components, and leveraging low-code tools for creating design documents and proofs of concept.</p> <h2><strong>Analyst</strong></h2> <p>The analyst&rsquo;s job is to help the product owner convert the needs of the business into actionable backlog items. It&rsquo;s best to look for someone with strong communication and presentation skills, so as to better facilitate an open dialogue between team members. Additionally, analysts should excel at problem solving and be familiar with Appian terminology. To better assist in requirements gathering, analysts should have some basic training in planning, testing and designing low-code applications.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One internal role that has a lot of the same skills required to be successful on Appian projects are the &lsquo;power&rsquo; report users. I found them across our business analytics teams. They have a mix of technical and business skills that fit well with the Appian framework.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Global Engineering Firm</em></span></div> <p>A common task an analyst must perform is choosing the most appropriate automation tool for a project or workflow. Whether that&rsquo;s an integration, decision object, or robotic process automation (RPA), analysts must be well-versed with the capabilities and terminology of the Appian low-code platform to make these decisions. For this reason, some organizations (including Appian) nominate a developer on the team to fill the analyst role. While it&rsquo;s acceptable to keep the roles of analysts and developers separate, it&rsquo;s important that both are sufficiently trained on the Appian platform.</p> <h3>Analyst qualifications</h3> <p>If you plan on using your developers as analysts, then the background criteria is the same as for <a href="/success/w/article/2982/build-your-low-code-development-team">low-code developers.</a>&nbsp;If you&rsquo;re looking for a non-developer to fill the analyst role, then we&rsquo;ve found the following criteria to be helpful:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>4+ years experience in a business role working with IT and technical stakeholders</li> <li>2+ years experience with successful ownership of business analysis tasks on a technical project (requirements, analysis, design)</li> <li>Familiarity with planning, designing, testing, and deploying enterprise software applications</li> <li>Strong background in logical data modeling and the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)</li> <li>Strong problem solving and design skills</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <h3>Appian training for the Analyst</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: Provides the tools to follow Appian&rsquo;s suggested methodology, speak the language of developers, and write better requirements for applications.</p> <p><a href="/learn/certifications/p/certified-analyst">Appian Certified Analyst</a>: Helps validate the knowledge and skills required to work alongside Appian developers.</p> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: People</div> https://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts/revision/9Tue, 20 Feb 2024 15:15:33 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:2bf55545-73cd-4d40-b3b3-fad9b64c718fjoel.larinhttps://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts#commentsRevision 9 posted to Article by joel.larin on 2/20/2024 3:15:33 PM<br /> <div> <p>There are several roles that fit into the category of a <a href="/learn/">low-code planner</a>, but two of the most important are product owners and analysts. Although planners aren&rsquo;t always involved in development work themselves, they&rsquo;re essential when starting a new Appian project. A planner will work to define the processes to be automated, prioritize development efforts, and ensure coordination across business units.</p> <p>Let&rsquo;s take a look at how product owners and analysts function as low-code planners, how they differ from one another, and how to best prepare them for success.</p> <h2><strong>Product owner</strong></h2> <p>The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the development team&rsquo;s work. However, their larger role is to represent the needs of the business, not the development team&rsquo;s. To keep communication clear, there should only be one product owner per project. That doesn&rsquo;t mean a product owner is solely responsible for all decisions or initiatives on a project, only that they serve as the single point of contact between the development team and the business.</p> <p>Some of the product owner&rsquo;s core responsibilities include: articulating critical business needs, prioritizing development requirements, ensuring requirements are visible, transparent, and clearly communicated to all team members, and collaboratively creating a backlog of work to be done by the development team.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One mistake we made when first starting out was just trying to find people with past Appian experience. What we found out was that finding, either internally or externally, the people with the right competencies and then teaching them about Appian was the better approach.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Fortune 500 Insurance Firm</em></span></div> <p>As the point of contact between the development team and the business, it&rsquo;s crucial that product owners keep a constant channel of communication with the development team. In addition, good product owners will also have a deep understanding of the business, such that they feel confident in making important prioritization decisions.</p> <h3>Product owner qualifications</h3> <p>As mentioned earlier, the product owner represents the business, so it&rsquo;s important to look for people already familiar with the ins and outs of an organization. The best product owners will have broad relationships across the business, extensive domain knowledge, decision-making skills, and a proven track record of accountable ownership. Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Here&rsquo;s our suggested minimum criteria for identifying low-code product owners:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>6+ years experience with the business&nbsp;</li> <li>Hands-on experience with the service or activity to be owned</li> <li>Experience prioritizing a backlog and writing user stories</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <p>Additionally, we suggest product owners earn their <a href="https://www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified/product-owner-track/certified-scrum-product-owner">Certified Scrum Product Owner certification</a> from the Scrum Alliance.</p> <h3>Appian training (product owner)</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-overview">Appian Overview</a>: Product owners may benefit from our Appian Overview training in order to better understand the terminology and capabilities of Appian.</p> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: If the product owner is more heavily involved with the day-to-day work of the development team, as in the case of a project manager, then the Appian Foundations course is recommended. The course provides a healthy amount of our suggested delivery methodology, including topics such as application planning, translation of requirements into application components, and leveraging low-code tools for creating design documents and proofs of concept.</p> <h2><strong>Analyst</strong></h2> <p>The analyst&rsquo;s job is to help the product owner convert the needs of the business into actionable backlog items. It&rsquo;s best to look for someone with strong communication and presentation skills, so as to better facilitate an open dialogue between team members. Additionally, analysts should excel at problem solving and be familiar with Appian terminology. To better assist in requirements gathering, analysts should have some basic training in planning, testing and designing low-code applications.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One internal role that has a lot of the same skills required to be successful on Appian projects are the &lsquo;power&rsquo; report users. I found them across our business analytics teams. They have a mix of technical and business skills that fit well with the Appian framework.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Global Engineering Firm</em></span></div> <p>A common task an analyst must perform is choosing the most appropriate automation tool for a project or workflow. Whether that&rsquo;s an integration, decision object, or robotic process automation (RPA), analysts must be well-versed with the capabilities and terminology of the Appian low-code platform to make these decisions. For this reason, some organizations (including Appian) nominate a developer on the team to fill the analyst role. While it&rsquo;s acceptable to keep the roles of analysts and developers separate, it&rsquo;s important that both are sufficiently trained on the Appian platform.</p> <h3>Analyst qualifications</h3> <p>If you plan on using your developers as analysts, then the background criteria is the same as for <a href="/success/w/article/2982/build-your-low-code-development-team">low-code developers.</a>&nbsp;If you&rsquo;re looking for a non-developer to fill the analyst role, then we&rsquo;ve found the following criteria to be helpful:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>4+ years experience in a business role working with IT and technical stakeholders</li> <li>2+ years experience with successful ownership of business analysis tasks on a technical project (requirements, analysis, design)</li> <li>Familiarity with planning, designing, testing, and deploying enterprise software applications</li> <li>Strong background in logical data modeling and the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)</li> <li>Strong problem solving and design skills</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <h3>Appian training for the Analyst</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: Provides the tools to follow Appian&rsquo;s suggested methodology, speak the language of developers, and write better requirements for applications.</p> <p><a href="/learn/certifications/p/certified-analyst">Appian Certified Analyst</a>: Helps validate the knowledge and skills required to work alongside Appian developers.</p> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: People</div> https://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts/revision/8Tue, 20 Feb 2024 15:15:05 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:2bf55545-73cd-4d40-b3b3-fad9b64c718fjoel.larinhttps://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts#commentsRevision 8 posted to Article by joel.larin on 2/20/2024 3:15:05 PM<br /> <p></p> <div> <p>There are several roles that fit into the category of a <a href="/learn/">low-code planner</a>, but two of the most important are product owners and analysts. Although planners aren&rsquo;t always involved in development work themselves, they&rsquo;re essential when starting a new Appian project. A planner will work to define the processes to be automated, prioritize development efforts, and ensure coordination across business units.</p> <p>Let&rsquo;s take a look at how product owners and analysts function as low-code planners, how they differ from one another, and how to best prepare them for success.</p> <h2><strong>Product owner</strong></h2> <p>The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the development team&rsquo;s work. However, their larger role is to represent the needs of the business, not the development team&rsquo;s. To keep communication clear, there should only be one product owner per project. That doesn&rsquo;t mean a product owner is solely responsible for all decisions or initiatives on a project, only that they serve as the single point of contact between the development team and the business.</p> <p>Some of the product owner&rsquo;s core responsibilities include: articulating critical business needs, prioritizing development requirements, ensuring requirements are visible, transparent, and clearly communicated to all team members, and collaboratively creating a backlog of work to be done by the development team.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One mistake we made when first starting out was just trying to find people with past Appian experience. What we found out was that finding, either internally or externally, the people with the right competencies and then teaching them about Appian was the better approach.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Fortune 500 Insurance Firm</em></span></div> <p>As the point of contact between the development team and the business, it&rsquo;s crucial that product owners keep a constant channel of communication with the development team. In addition, good product owners will also have a deep understanding of the business, such that they feel confident in making important prioritization decisions.</p> <h3>Product owner qualifications</h3> <p>As mentioned earlier, the product owner represents the business, so it&rsquo;s important to look for people already familiar with the ins and outs of an organization. The best product owners will have broad relationships across the business, extensive domain knowledge, decision-making skills, and a proven track record of accountable ownership. Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Here&rsquo;s our suggested minimum criteria for identifying low-code product owners:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>6+ years experience with the business&nbsp;</li> <li>Hands-on experience with the service or activity to be owned</li> <li>Experience prioritizing a backlog and writing user stories</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <p>Additionally, we suggest product owners earn their <a href="https://www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified/product-owner-track/certified-scrum-product-owner">Certified Scrum Product Owner certification</a> from the Scrum Alliance.</p> <h3>Appian training (product owner)</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-overview">Appian Overview</a>: Product owners may benefit from our Appian Overview training in order to better understand the terminology and capabilities of Appian.</p> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: If the product owner is more heavily involved with the day-to-day work of the development team, as in the case of a project manager, then the Appian Foundations course is recommended. The course provides a healthy amount of our suggested delivery methodology, including topics such as application planning, translation of requirements into application components, and leveraging low-code tools for creating design documents and proofs of concept.</p> <h2><strong>Analyst</strong></h2> <p>The analyst&rsquo;s job is to help the product owner convert the needs of the business into actionable backlog items. It&rsquo;s best to look for someone with strong communication and presentation skills, so as to better facilitate an open dialogue between team members. Additionally, analysts should excel at problem solving and be familiar with Appian terminology. To better assist in requirements gathering, analysts should have some basic training in planning, testing and designing low-code applications.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One internal role that has a lot of the same skills required to be successful on Appian projects are the &lsquo;power&rsquo; report users. I found them across our business analytics teams. They have a mix of technical and business skills that fit well with the Appian framework.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Global Engineering Firm</em></span></div> <p>A common task an analyst must perform is choosing the most appropriate automation tool for a project or workflow. Whether that&rsquo;s an integration, decision object, or robotic process automation (RPA), analysts must be well-versed with the capabilities and terminology of the Appian low-code platform to make these decisions. For this reason, some organizations (including Appian) nominate a developer on the team to fill the analyst role. While it&rsquo;s acceptable to keep the roles of analysts and developers separate, it&rsquo;s important that both are sufficiently trained on the Appian platform.</p> <h3>Analyst qualifications</h3> <p>If you plan on using your developers as analysts, then the background criteria is the same as for <a href="/success/w/article/2982/build-your-low-code-development-team">low-code developers.</a>&nbsp;If you&rsquo;re looking for a non-developer to fill the analyst role, then we&rsquo;ve found the following criteria to be helpful:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>4+ years experience in a business role working with IT and technical stakeholders</li> <li>2+ years experience with successful ownership of business analysis tasks on a technical project (requirements, analysis, design)</li> <li>Familiarity with planning, designing, testing, and deploying enterprise software applications</li> <li>Strong background in logical data modeling and the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)</li> <li>Strong problem solving and design skills</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <h3>Appian training for the Analyst</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: Provides the tools to follow Appian&rsquo;s suggested methodology, speak the language of developers, and write better requirements for applications.</p> <p><a href="/learn/certifications/p/certified-analyst">Appian Certified Analyst</a>: Helps validate the knowledge and skills required to work alongside Appian developers.</p> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: People</div> https://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts/revision/7Tue, 20 Feb 2024 15:14:55 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:2bf55545-73cd-4d40-b3b3-fad9b64c718fjoel.larinhttps://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts#commentsRevision 7 posted to Article by joel.larin on 2/20/2024 3:14:55 PM<br /> <p></p> <div> <p>There are several roles that fit into the category of a <a href="/learn/">low-code planner</a>, but two of the most important are product owners and analysts. Although planners aren&rsquo;t always involved in development work themselves, they&rsquo;re essential when starting a new Appian project. A planner will work to define the processes to be automated, prioritize development efforts, and ensure coordination across business units.</p> <p>Let&rsquo;s take a look at how product owners and analysts function as low-code planners, how they differ from one another, and how to best prepare them for success.</p> <h2><strong>Product owner</strong></h2> <p>The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the development team&rsquo;s work. However, their larger role is to represent the needs of the business, not the development team&rsquo;s. To keep communication clear, there should only be one product owner per project. That doesn&rsquo;t mean a product owner is solely responsible for all decisions or initiatives on a project, only that they serve as the single point of contact between the development team and the business.</p> <p>Some of the product owner&rsquo;s core responsibilities include: articulating critical business needs, prioritizing development requirements, ensuring requirements are visible, transparent, and clearly communicated to all team members, and collaboratively creating a backlog of work to be done by the development team.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One mistake we made when first starting out was just trying to find people with past Appian experience. What we found out was that finding, either internally or externally, the people with the right competencies and then teaching them about Appian was the better approach.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Fortune 500 Insurance Firm</em></span></div> <p>As the point of contact between the development team and the business, it&rsquo;s crucial that product owners keep a constant channel of communication with the development team. In addition, good product owners will also have a deep understanding of the business, such that they feel confident in making important prioritization decisions.</p> <h3>Product owner qualifications</h3> <p>As mentioned earlier, the product owner represents the business, so it&rsquo;s important to look for people already familiar with the ins and outs of an organization. The best product owners will have broad relationships across the business, extensive domain knowledge, decision-making skills, and a proven track record of accountable ownership. Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Here&rsquo;s our suggested minimum criteria for identifying low-code product owners:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>6+ years experience with the business&nbsp;</li> <li>Hands-on experience with the service or activity to be owned</li> <li>Experience prioritizing a backlog and writing user stories</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <p>Additionally, we suggest product owners earn their <a href="https://www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified/product-owner-track/certified-scrum-product-owner">Certified Scrum Product Owner certification</a> from the Scrum Alliance.</p> <h3>Appian training (product owner)</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-overview">Appian Overview</a>: Product owners may benefit from our Appian Overview training in order to better understand the terminology and capabilities of Appian.</p> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: If the product owner is more heavily involved with the day-to-day work of the development team, as in the case of a project manager, then the Appian Foundations course is recommended. The course provides a healthy amount of our suggested delivery methodology, including topics such as application planning, translation of requirements into application components, and leveraging low-code tools for creating design documents and proofs of concept.</p> <h2><strong>Analyst</strong></h2> <p>The analyst&rsquo;s job is to help the product owner convert the needs of the business into actionable backlog items. It&rsquo;s best to look for someone with strong communication and presentation skills, so as to better facilitate an open dialogue between team members. Additionally, analysts should excel at problem solving and be familiar with Appian terminology. To better assist in requirements gathering, analysts should have some basic training in planning, testing and designing low-code applications.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One internal role that has a lot of the same skills required to be successful on Appian projects are the &lsquo;power&rsquo; report users. I found them across our business analytics teams. They have a mix of technical and business skills that fit well with the Appian framework.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Global Engineering Firm</em></span></div> <p>A common task an analyst must perform is choosing the most appropriate automation tool for a project or workflow. Whether that&rsquo;s an integration, decision object, or robotic process automation (RPA), analysts must be well-versed with the capabilities and terminology of the Appian low-code platform to make these decisions. For this reason, some organizations (including Appian) nominate a developer on the team to fill the analyst role. While it&rsquo;s acceptable to keep the roles of analysts and developers separate, it&rsquo;s important that both are sufficiently trained on the Appian platform.</p> <h3>Analyst qualifications</h3> <p>If you plan on using your developers as analysts, then the background criteria is the same as for <a href="/success/w/article/2982/build-your-low-code-development-team">low-code developers.</a>&nbsp;If you&rsquo;re looking for a non-developer to fill the analyst role, then we&rsquo;ve found the following criteria to be helpful:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>4+ years experience in a business role working with IT and technical stakeholders</li> <li>2+ years experience with successful ownership of business analysis tasks on a technical project (requirements, analysis, design)</li> <li>Familiarity with planning, designing, testing, and deploying enterprise software applications</li> <li>Strong background in logical data modeling and the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)</li> <li>Strong problem solving and design skills</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <h3>Appian training for the Analyst</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: Provides the tools to follow Appian&rsquo;s suggested methodology, speak the language of developers, and write better requirements for applications.</p> <p><a href="/learn/certifications/p/certified-analyst">Appian Certified Analyst</a>: Helps validate the knowledge and skills required to work alongside Appian developers.</p> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: People</div> https://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts/revision/6Tue, 20 Feb 2024 15:14:09 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:2bf55545-73cd-4d40-b3b3-fad9b64c718fjoel.larinhttps://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts#commentsRevision 6 posted to Article by joel.larin on 2/20/2024 3:14:09 PM<br /> <div> <p></p> <p>There are several roles that fit into the category of a <a href="/learn/">low-code planner</a>, but two of the most important are product owners and analysts. Although planners aren&rsquo;t always involved in development work themselves, they&rsquo;re essential when starting a new Appian project. A planner will work to define the processes to be automated, prioritize development efforts, and ensure coordination across business units.</p> <p>Let&rsquo;s take a look at how product owners and analysts function as low-code planners, how they differ from one another, and how to best prepare them for success.</p> <h2><strong>Product owner</strong></h2> <p>The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the development team&rsquo;s work. However, their larger role is to represent the needs of the business, not the development team&rsquo;s. To keep communication clear, there should only be one product owner per project. That doesn&rsquo;t mean a product owner is solely responsible for all decisions or initiatives on a project, only that they serve as the single point of contact between the development team and the business.</p> <p>Some of the product owner&rsquo;s core responsibilities include: articulating critical business needs, prioritizing development requirements, ensuring requirements are visible, transparent, and clearly communicated to all team members, and collaboratively creating a backlog of work to be done by the development team.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One mistake we made when first starting out was just trying to find people with past Appian experience. What we found out was that finding, either internally or externally, the people with the right competencies and then teaching them about Appian was the better approach.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Fortune 500 Insurance Firm</em></span></div> <p>As the point of contact between the development team and the business, it&rsquo;s crucial that product owners keep a constant channel of communication with the development team. In addition, good product owners will also have a deep understanding of the business, such that they feel confident in making important prioritization decisions.</p> <h3>Product owner qualifications</h3> <p>As mentioned earlier, the product owner represents the business, so it&rsquo;s important to look for people already familiar with the ins and outs of an organization. The best product owners will have broad relationships across the business, extensive domain knowledge, decision-making skills, and a proven track record of accountable ownership. Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Here&rsquo;s our suggested minimum criteria for identifying low-code product owners:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>6+ years experience with the business&nbsp;</li> <li>Hands-on experience with the service or activity to be owned</li> <li>Experience prioritizing a backlog and writing user stories</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <p>Additionally, we suggest product owners earn their <a href="https://www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified/product-owner-track/certified-scrum-product-owner">Certified Scrum Product Owner certification</a> from the Scrum Alliance.</p> <h3>Appian training (product owner)</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-overview">Appian Overview</a>: Product owners may benefit from our Appian Overview training in order to better understand the terminology and capabilities of Appian.</p> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: If the product owner is more heavily involved with the day-to-day work of the development team, as in the case of a project manager, then the Appian Foundations course is recommended. The course provides a healthy amount of our suggested delivery methodology, including topics such as application planning, translation of requirements into application components, and leveraging low-code tools for creating design documents and proofs of concept.</p> <h2><strong>Analyst</strong></h2> <p>The analyst&rsquo;s job is to help the product owner convert the needs of the business into actionable backlog items. It&rsquo;s best to look for someone with strong communication and presentation skills, so as to better facilitate an open dialogue between team members. Additionally, analysts should excel at problem solving and be familiar with Appian terminology. To better assist in requirements gathering, analysts should have some basic training in planning, testing and designing low-code applications.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One internal role that has a lot of the same skills required to be successful on Appian projects are the &lsquo;power&rsquo; report users. I found them across our business analytics teams. They have a mix of technical and business skills that fit well with the Appian framework.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Global Engineering Firm</em></span></div> <p>A common task an analyst must perform is choosing the most appropriate automation tool for a project or workflow. Whether that&rsquo;s an integration, decision object, or robotic process automation (RPA), analysts must be well-versed with the capabilities and terminology of the Appian low-code platform to make these decisions. For this reason, some organizations (including Appian) nominate a developer on the team to fill the analyst role. While it&rsquo;s acceptable to keep the roles of analysts and developers separate, it&rsquo;s important that both are sufficiently trained on the Appian platform.</p> <h3>Analyst qualifications</h3> <p>If you plan on using your developers as analysts, then the background criteria is the same as for <a href="/success/w/article/2982/build-your-low-code-development-team">low-code developers.</a>&nbsp;If you&rsquo;re looking for a non-developer to fill the analyst role, then we&rsquo;ve found the following criteria to be helpful:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>4+ years experience in a business role working with IT and technical stakeholders</li> <li>2+ years experience with successful ownership of business analysis tasks on a technical project (requirements, analysis, design)</li> <li>Familiarity with planning, designing, testing, and deploying enterprise software applications</li> <li>Strong background in logical data modeling and the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)</li> <li>Strong problem solving and design skills</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <h3>Appian training for the Analyst</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: Provides the tools to follow Appian&rsquo;s suggested methodology, speak the language of developers, and write better requirements for applications.</p> <p><a href="/learn/certifications/p/certified-analyst">Appian Certified Analyst</a>: Helps validate the knowledge and skills required to work alongside Appian developers.</p> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: People</div> https://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts/revision/5Thu, 05 Oct 2023 17:57:12 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:2bf55545-73cd-4d40-b3b3-fad9b64c718fAppian Max Teamhttps://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts#commentsRevision 5 posted to Article by Appian Max Team on 10/5/2023 5:57:12 PM<br /> <p><img style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/2378x1338/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/appianPlannersBanner.png" /></p> <div> <p>There are several roles that fit into the category of a <a href="/learn/">low-code planner</a>, but two of the most important are product owners and analysts. Although planners aren&rsquo;t always involved in development work themselves, they&rsquo;re essential when starting a new Appian project. A planner will work to define the processes to be automated, prioritize development efforts, and ensure coordination across business units.</p> <p>Let&rsquo;s take a look at how product owners and analysts function as low-code planners, how they differ from one another, and how to best prepare them for success.</p> <h2><strong>Product owner</strong></h2> <p>The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the development team&rsquo;s work. However, their larger role is to represent the needs of the business, not the development team&rsquo;s. To keep communication clear, there should only be one product owner per project. That doesn&rsquo;t mean a product owner is solely responsible for all decisions or initiatives on a project, only that they serve as the single point of contact between the development team and the business.</p> <p>Some of the product owner&rsquo;s core responsibilities include: articulating critical business needs, prioritizing development requirements, ensuring requirements are visible, transparent, and clearly communicated to all team members, and collaboratively creating a backlog of work to be done by the development team.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One mistake we made when first starting out was just trying to find people with past Appian experience. What we found out was that finding, either internally or externally, the people with the right competencies and then teaching them about Appian was the better approach.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Fortune 500 Insurance Firm</em></span></div> <p>As the point of contact between the development team and the business, it&rsquo;s crucial that product owners keep a constant channel of communication with the development team. In addition, good product owners will also have a deep understanding of the business, such that they feel confident in making important prioritization decisions.</p> <h3>Product owner qualifications</h3> <p>As mentioned earlier, the product owner represents the business, so it&rsquo;s important to look for people already familiar with the ins and outs of an organization. The best product owners will have broad relationships across the business, extensive domain knowledge, decision-making skills, and a proven track record of accountable ownership. Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Here&rsquo;s our suggested minimum criteria for identifying low-code product owners:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>6+ years experience with the business&nbsp;</li> <li>Hands-on experience with the service or activity to be owned</li> <li>Experience prioritizing a backlog and writing user stories</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <p>Additionally, we suggest product owners earn their <a href="https://www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified/product-owner-track/certified-scrum-product-owner">Certified Scrum Product Owner certification</a> from the Scrum Alliance.</p> <h3>Appian training (product owner)</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-overview">Appian Overview</a>: Product owners may benefit from our Appian Overview training in order to better understand the terminology and capabilities of Appian.</p> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: If the product owner is more heavily involved with the day-to-day work of the development team, as in the case of a project manager, then the Appian Foundations course is recommended. The course provides a healthy amount of our suggested delivery methodology, including topics such as application planning, translation of requirements into application components, and leveraging low-code tools for creating design documents and proofs of concept.</p> <h2><strong>Analyst</strong></h2> <p>The analyst&rsquo;s job is to help the product owner convert the needs of the business into actionable backlog items. It&rsquo;s best to look for someone with strong communication and presentation skills, so as to better facilitate an open dialogue between team members. Additionally, analysts should excel at problem solving and be familiar with Appian terminology. To better assist in requirements gathering, analysts should have some basic training in planning, testing and designing low-code applications.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One internal role that has a lot of the same skills required to be successful on Appian projects are the &lsquo;power&rsquo; report users. I found them across our business analytics teams. They have a mix of technical and business skills that fit well with the Appian framework.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Global Engineering Firm</em></span></div> <p>A common task an analyst must perform is choosing the most appropriate automation tool for a project or workflow. Whether that&rsquo;s an integration, decision object, or robotic process automation (RPA), analysts must be well-versed with the capabilities and terminology of the Appian low-code platform to make these decisions. For this reason, some organizations (including Appian) nominate a developer on the team to fill the analyst role. While it&rsquo;s acceptable to keep the roles of analysts and developers separate, it&rsquo;s important that both are sufficiently trained on the Appian platform.</p> <h3>Analyst qualifications</h3> <p>If you plan on using your developers as analysts, then the background criteria is the same as for <a href="/success/w/article/2982/build-your-low-code-development-team">low-code developers.</a>&nbsp;If you&rsquo;re looking for a non-developer to fill the analyst role, then we&rsquo;ve found the following criteria to be helpful:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>4+ years experience in a business role working with IT and technical stakeholders</li> <li>2+ years experience with successful ownership of business analysis tasks on a technical project (requirements, analysis, design)</li> <li>Familiarity with planning, designing, testing, and deploying enterprise software applications</li> <li>Strong background in logical data modeling and the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)</li> <li>Strong problem solving and design skills</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <h3>Appian training for the Analyst</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: Provides the tools to follow Appian&rsquo;s suggested methodology, speak the language of developers, and write better requirements for applications.</p> <p><a href="/learn/certifications/p/certified-analyst">Appian Certified Analyst</a>: Helps validate the knowledge and skills required to work alongside Appian developers.</p> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: People</div> https://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts/revision/4Fri, 02 Jun 2023 12:56:51 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:2bf55545-73cd-4d40-b3b3-fad9b64c718fjoel.larinhttps://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts#commentsRevision 4 posted to Article by joel.larin on 6/2/2023 12:56:51 PM<br /> <p><img style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/2378x1338/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/appianPlannersBanner.png" /></p> <div> <p>There are several roles that fit into the category of a <a href="/learn/">low-code planner</a>, but two of the most important are product owners and analysts. Although planners aren&rsquo;t always involved in development work themselves, they&rsquo;re essential when starting a new Appian project. A planner will work to define the processes to be automated, prioritize development efforts, and ensure coordination across business units.</p> <p>Let&rsquo;s take a look at how product owners and analysts function as low-code planners, how they differ from one another, and how to best prepare them for success.</p> <h2><strong>Product owner</strong></h2> <p>The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the development team&rsquo;s work. However, their larger role is to represent the needs of the business, not the development team&rsquo;s. To keep communication clear, there should only be one product owner per project. That doesn&rsquo;t mean a product owner is solely responsible for all decisions or initiatives on a project, only that they serve as the single point of contact between the development team and the business.</p> <p>Some of the product owner&rsquo;s core responsibilities include: articulating critical business needs, prioritizing development requirements, ensuring requirements are visible, transparent, and clearly communicated to all team members, and collaboratively creating a backlog of work to be done by the development team.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One mistake we made when first starting out was just trying to find people with past Appian experience. What we found out was that finding, either internally or externally, the people with the right competencies and then teaching them about Appian was the better approach.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Fortune 500 Insurance Firm</em></span></div> <p>As the point of contact between the development team and the business, it&rsquo;s crucial that product owners keep a constant channel of communication with the development team. In addition, good product owners will also have a deep understanding of the business, such that they feel confident in making important prioritization decisions.</p> <h3>Product owner qualifications</h3> <p>As mentioned earlier, the product owner represents the business, so it&rsquo;s important to look for people already familiar with the ins and outs of an organization. The best product owners will have broad relationships across the business, extensive domain knowledge, decision-making skills, and a proven track record of accountable ownership. Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories.</p> <p>Here&rsquo;s our suggested minimum criteria for identifying low-code product owners:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>6+ years experience with the business&nbsp;</li> <li>Hands-on experience with the service or activity to be owned</li> <li>Experience prioritizing a backlog and writing user stories</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <p>Additionally, we suggest product owners earn their <a href="https://www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified/product-owner-track/certified-scrum-product-owner">Certified Scrum Product Owner certification</a> from the Scrum Alliance.</p> <h3>Appian training (product owner)</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-overview">Appian Overview</a>: Product owners may benefit from our Appian Overview training in order to better understand the terminology and capabilities of Appian.</p> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: If the product owner is more heavily involved with the day-to-day work of the development team, as in the case of a project manager, then the Appian Foundations course is recommended. The course provides a healthy amount of our suggested delivery methodology, including topics such as application planning, translation of requirements into application components, and leveraging low-code tools for creating design documents and proofs of concept.</p> <h2><strong>Analyst</strong></h2> <p>The analyst&rsquo;s job is to help the product owner convert the needs of the business into actionable backlog items. It&rsquo;s best to look for someone with strong communication and presentation skills, so as to better facilitate an open dialogue between team members. Additionally, analysts should excel at problem solving and be familiar with Appian terminology. To better assist in requirements gathering, analysts should have some basic training in planning, testing and designing low-code applications.</p> <div style="margin-bottom:3rem;margin-top:3rem;"> <div style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:100%;"> <div><img alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/75x100/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/Quote-Marks_5F00_orange_2D00_01.png" /></div> <span style="font-size:145%;"><strong>One internal role that has a lot of the same skills required to be successful on Appian projects are the &lsquo;power&rsquo; report users. I found them across our business analytics teams. They have a mix of technical and business skills that fit well with the Appian framework.</strong></span></div> <span style="display:inline-block;font-size:115%;margin-top:0.8rem;"><em>Appian Platform Owner, Global Engineering Firm</em></span></div> <p>A common task an analyst must perform is choosing the most appropriate automation tool for a project or workflow. Whether that&rsquo;s an integration, decision object, or robotic process automation (RPA), analysts must be well-versed with the capabilities and terminology of the Appian low-code platform to make these decisions. For this reason, some organizations (including Appian) nominate a developer on the team to fill the analyst role. While it&rsquo;s acceptable to keep the roles of analysts and developers separate, it&rsquo;s important that both are sufficiently trained on the Appian platform.</p> <h3>Analyst qualifications</h3> <p>If you plan on using your developers as analysts, then the background criteria is the same as for <a href="/success/w/article/2982/build-your-low-code-development-team">low-code developers.</a>&nbsp;If you&rsquo;re looking for a non-developer to fill the analyst role, then we&rsquo;ve found the following criteria to be helpful:</p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li>4+ years experience in a business role working with IT and technical stakeholders</li> <li>2+ years experience with successful ownership of business analysis tasks on a technical project (requirements, analysis, design)</li> <li>Familiarity with planning, designing, testing, and deploying enterprise software applications</li> <li>Strong background in logical data modeling and the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)</li> <li>Strong problem solving and design skills</li> <li>Superb communication and presentation skills</li> </ul> <h3>Appian training for the Analyst</h3> <p><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: Provides the tools to follow Appian&rsquo;s suggested methodology, speak the language of developers, and write better requirements for applications.</p> <p><a href="/learn/certifications/p/certified-analyst">Appian Certified Analyst</a>: Helps validate the knowledge and skills required to work alongside Appian developers.</p> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: People</div> https://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts/revision/3Mon, 12 Dec 2022 03:17:22 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:2bf55545-73cd-4d40-b3b3-fad9b64c718fjoel.larinhttps://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts#commentsRevision 3 posted to Article by joel.larin on 12/12/2022 3:17:22 AM<br /> <p><img style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/2378x1338/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/appianPlannersBanner.png" /></p> <div style="margin:10px 21% 10px 21%;"> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">There are several roles that fit into the category of a <a href="/learn/">low-code planner</a>, but two of the most important are product owners and analysts. Although planners aren&rsquo;t always involved in development work themselves, they&rsquo;re essential when starting a new Appian project. A planner will work to define the processes to be automated, prioritize development efforts, and ensure coordination across business units.</span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Let&rsquo;s take a look at how product owners and analysts function as low-code planners, how they differ from one another, and how to best prepare them for success. </span></p> <h2><strong>Product owner</strong></h2> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the development team&rsquo;s work. However, their larger role is to represent the needs of the business, not the development team&rsquo;s. To keep communication clear, there should only be one product owner per project. That doesn&rsquo;t mean a product owner is solely responsible for all decisions or initiatives on a project, only that they serve as the single point of contact between the development team and the business. </span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Some of the product owner&rsquo;s core responsibilities include: a</span><span style="font-size:inherit;font-weight:400;">rticulating critical business needs, p</span><span style="font-weight:400;">rioritizing development requirements, e</span>nsuring requirements are visible, transparent, and clearly communicated to all team members, and c<span style="font-weight:400;">ollaboratively creating a backlog of work to be done by the development team.</span></p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> </div> <div style="text-align:center;"> <p style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:70%;"><span><span style="font-size:200%;"><strong>&quot;One mistake we made when first starting out was just trying to find people with past Appian experience. What we found out was that finding, either internally or externally, the people with the right competencies and then teaching them about Appian was the better approach.&quot;</strong></span></span></p> <p>Appian Platform Owner, Fortune 500 Insurance Firm</p> </div> <div style="margin:10px 21% 10px 21%;"> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">As the point of contact between the development team and the business, it&rsquo;s crucial that product owners keep a constant channel of communication with the development team. In addition, good product owners will also have a deep understanding of the business, such that they feel confident in making important prioritization decisions.</span></p> <h3>Product owner qualifications</h3> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">As mentioned earlier, the product owner represents the business, so it&rsquo;s important to look for people already familiar with the ins and outs of an organization. The best product owners will have broad relationships across the business, extensive domain knowledge, decision-making skills, and a proven track record of accountable ownership. Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories. </span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories. </span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Here&rsquo;s our suggested minimum criteria for identifying low-code product owners:</span></p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">6+ years experience with the business&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Hands-on experience with the service or activity to be owned</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Experience prioritizing a backlog and writing user stories</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Superb communication and presentation skills</span></li> </ul> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Additionally, we suggest product owners earn their <a href="https://www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified/product-owner-track/certified-scrum-product-owner">Certified Scrum Product Owner certification</a> from the Scrum Alliance.</span></p> <h3>Appian training (product owner)</h3> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;"><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-overview">Appian Overview</a>: Product owners may benefit from our Appian Overview training in order to better understand the terminology and capabilities of Appian.</span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;"><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: If the product owner is more heavily involved with the day-to-day work of the development team, as in the case of a project manager, then the Appian Foundations course is recommended. The course provides a healthy amount of our suggested delivery methodology, including topics such as application planning, translation of requirements into application components, and leveraging low-code tools for creating design documents and proofs of concept.</span></p> <h2><strong>Analyst</strong></h2> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">The analyst&rsquo;s job is to help the product owner convert the needs of the business into actionable backlog items. It&rsquo;s best to look for someone with strong communication and presentation skills, so as to better facilitate an open dialogue between team members. Additionally, analysts should excel at problem solving and be familiar with Appian terminology. To better assist in requirements gathering, analysts should have some basic training in planning, testing and designing low-code applications.</span></p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> </div> <div style="text-align:center;"> <p style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:70%;"><span><span style="font-size:200%;"><strong>&quot;One internal role that has a lot of the same skills required to be successful on Appian projects are the &lsquo;power&rsquo; report users. I found them across our business analytics teams. They have a mix of technical and business skills that fit well with the Appian framework&quot;</strong></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:center;">Appian Platform Owner, Global Engineering Firm</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> </div> <div style="margin:10px 21% 10px 21%;"> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">A common task an analyst must perform is choosing the most appropriate automation tool for a project or workflow. Whether that&rsquo;s an integration, decision object, or robotic process automation (RPA), analysts must be well-versed with the capabilities and terminology of the Appian low-code platform to make these decisions. For this reason, some organizations (including Appian) nominate a developer on the team to fill the analyst role. While it&rsquo;s acceptable to keep the roles of analysts and developers separate, it&rsquo;s important that both are sufficiently trained on the Appian platform.</span></p> <h3>Analyst qualifications</h3> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">If you plan on using your developers as analysts, then the background criteria is the same as for <a href="/success/w/article/2982/build-your-low-code-development-team">low-code developers.</a>&nbsp;If you&rsquo;re looking for a non-developer to fill the analyst role, then we&rsquo;ve found the following criteria to be helpful:</span></p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">4+ years experience in a business role working with IT and technical stakeholders</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">2+ years experience with successful ownership of business analysis tasks on a technical project (requirements, analysis, design)</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Familiarity with planning, designing, testing, and deploying enterprise software applications</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Strong background in logical data modeling and the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Strong problem solving and design skills</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Superb communication and presentation skills</span></li> </ul> <h3>Appian training for the Analyst</h3> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;"><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: Provides the tools to follow Appian&rsquo;s suggested methodology, speak the language of developers, and write better requirements for applications.</span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;"><a href="/learn/certifications/p/certified-analyst">Appian Certified Analyst</a>: Helps validate the knowledge and skills required to work alongside Appian developers.</span></p> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: People</div> https://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts/revision/2Fri, 09 Dec 2022 18:12:34 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:2bf55545-73cd-4d40-b3b3-fad9b64c718fDevon Leehttps://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts#commentsRevision 2 posted to Article by Devon Lee on 12/9/2022 6:12:34 PM<br /> <p><img style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/2378x1338/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/appianPlannersBanner.png" /></p> <div style="margin:10px 21% 10px 21%;"> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">There are several roles that fit into the category of a <a href="/learn/">low-code planner</a>, but two of the most important are product owners and analysts. Although planners aren&rsquo;t always involved in development work themselves, they&rsquo;re essential when starting a new Appian project. A planner will work to define the processes to be automated, prioritize development efforts, and ensure coordination across business units.</span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Let&rsquo;s take a look at how product owners and analysts function as low-code planners, how they differ from one another, and how to best prepare them for success. </span></p> <h2><strong>Product owner</strong></h2> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the development team&rsquo;s work. However, their larger role is to represent the needs of the business, not the development team&rsquo;s. To keep communication clear, there should only be one product owner per project. That doesn&rsquo;t mean a product owner is solely responsible for all decisions or initiatives on a project, only that they serve as the single point of contact between the development team and the business. </span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Some of the product owner&rsquo;s core responsibilities include: a</span><span style="font-size:inherit;font-weight:400;">rticulating critical business needs, p</span><span style="font-weight:400;">rioritizing development requirements, e</span>nsuring requirements are visible, transparent, and clearly communicated to all team members, and c<span style="font-weight:400;">ollaboratively creating a backlog of work to be done by the development team.</span></p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> </div> <div style="text-align:center;"> <p style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:70%;"><span><span style="font-size:200%;"><strong>&quot;One mistake we made when first starting out was just trying to find people with past Appian experience. What we found out was that finding, either internally or externally, the people with the right competencies and then teaching them about Appian was the better approach.&quot;</strong></span></span></p> <p>Appian Platform Owner, Fortune 500 Insurance Firm</p> </div> <div style="margin:10px 21% 10px 21%;"> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">As the point of contact between the development team and the business, it&rsquo;s crucial that product owners keep a constant channel of communication with the development team. In addition, good product owners will also have a deep understanding of the business, such that they feel confident in making important prioritization decisions.</span></p> <h3>Product owner qualifications</h3> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">As mentioned earlier, the product owner represents the business, so it&rsquo;s important to look for people already familiar with the ins and outs of an organization. The best product owners will have broad relationships across the business, extensive domain knowledge, decision-making skills, and a proven track record of accountable ownership. Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories. </span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories. </span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Here&rsquo;s our suggested minimum criteria for identifying low-code product owners:</span></p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">6+ years experience with the business&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Hands-on experience with the service or activity to be owned</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Experience prioritizing a backlog and writing user stories</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Superb communication and presentation skills</span></li> </ul> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Additionally, we suggest product owners earn their <a href="https://www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified/product-owner-track/certified-scrum-product-owner">Certified Scrum Product Owner certification</a> from the Scrum Alliance.</span></p> <h3>Appian training (product owner)</h3> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;"><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-overview">Appian Overview</a>: Product owners may benefit from our Appian Overview training in order to better understand the terminology and capabilities of Appian.</span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;"><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: If the product owner is more heavily involved with the day-to-day work of the development team, as in the case of a project manager, then the Appian Foundations course is recommended. The course provides a healthy amount of our suggested delivery methodology, including topics such as application planning, translation of requirements into application components, and leveraging low-code tools for creating design documents and proofs of concept.</span></p> <h2><strong>Analyst</strong></h2> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">The analyst&rsquo;s job is to help the product owner convert the needs of the business into actionable backlog items. It&rsquo;s best to look for someone with strong communication and presentation skills, so as to better facilitate an open dialogue between team members. Additionally, analysts should excel at problem solving and be familiar with Appian terminology. To better assist in requirements gathering, analysts should have some basic training in planning, testing and designing low-code applications.</span></p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> </div> <div style="text-align:center;"> <p style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:70%;"><span><span style="font-size:200%;"><strong>&quot;One internal role that has a lot of the same skills required to be successful on Appian projects are the &lsquo;power&rsquo; report users. I found them across our business analytics teams. They have a mix of technical and business skills that fit well with the Appian framework&quot;</strong></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:center;">Appian Platform Owner, Global Engineering Firm</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> </div> <div style="margin:10px 21% 10px 21%;"> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">A common task an analyst must perform is choosing the most appropriate automation tool for a project or workflow. Whether that&rsquo;s an integration, decision object, or robotic process automation (RPA), analysts must be well-versed with the capabilities and terminology of the Appian low-code platform to make these decisions. For this reason, some organizations (including Appian) nominate a developer on the team to fill the analyst role. While it&rsquo;s acceptable to keep the roles of analysts and developers separate, it&rsquo;s important that both are sufficiently trained on the Appian platform.</span></p> <h3>Analyst qualifications</h3> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">If you plan on using your developers as analysts, then the background criteria is the same as for <a href="/w/appian-max/1630/appian-planners/edit/appian.com">low-code developers.</a>&nbsp;If you&rsquo;re looking for a non-developer to fill the analyst role, then we&rsquo;ve found the following criteria to be helpful:</span></p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">4+ years experience in a business role working with IT and technical stakeholders</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">2+ years experience with successful ownership of business analysis tasks on a technical project (requirements, analysis, design)</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Familiarity with planning, designing, testing, and deploying enterprise software applications</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Strong background in logical data modeling and the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Strong problem solving and design skills</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Superb communication and presentation skills</span></li> </ul> <h3>Appian training for the Analyst</h3> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;"><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: Provides the tools to follow Appian&rsquo;s suggested methodology, speak the language of developers, and write better requirements for applications.</span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;"><a href="/learn/certifications/p/certified-analyst">Appian Certified Analyst</a>: Helps validate the knowledge and skills required to work alongside Appian developers.</span></p> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: People</div> https://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts/revision/1Fri, 09 Dec 2022 17:21:55 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:2bf55545-73cd-4d40-b3b3-fad9b64c718fDevon Leehttps://community.appian.com/success/w/article/2985/appian-planners-product-owners-and-analysts#commentsRevision 1 posted to Article by Devon Lee on 12/9/2022 5:21:55 PM<br /> <p><img style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" alt=" " src="/resized-image/__size/2378x1338/__key/communityserver-wikis-components-files/00-00-00-00-45/appianPlannersBanner.png" /></p> <div style="margin:10px 21% 10px 21%;"> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">There are several roles that fit into the category of a <a href="/learn/">low-code planner</a>, but two of the most important are product owners and analysts. Although planners aren&rsquo;t always involved in development work themselves, they&rsquo;re essential when starting a new Appian project. A planner will work to define the processes to be automated, prioritize development efforts, and ensure coordination across business units.</span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Let&rsquo;s take a look at how product owners and analysts function as low-code planners, how they differ from one another, and how to best prepare them for success. </span></p> <h2><strong>Product owner</strong></h2> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the development team&rsquo;s work. However, their larger role is to represent the needs of the business, not the development team&rsquo;s. To keep communication clear, there should only be one product owner per project. That doesn&rsquo;t mean a product owner is solely responsible for all decisions or initiatives on a project, only that they serve as the single point of contact between the development team and the business. </span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Some of the product owner&rsquo;s core responsibilities include: a</span><span style="font-size:inherit;font-weight:400;">rticulating critical business needs, p</span><span style="font-weight:400;">rioritizing development requirements, e</span>nsuring requirements are visible, transparent, and clearly communicated to all team members, and c<span style="font-weight:400;">ollaboratively creating a backlog of work to be done by the development team.</span></p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> </div> <div style="text-align:center;"> <p style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:70%;"><span><span style="font-size:200%;"><strong>&quot;One mistake we made when first starting out was just trying to find people with past Appian experience. What we found out was that finding, either internally or externally, the people with the right competencies and then teaching them about Appian was the better approach.&quot;</strong></span></span></p> <p>Appian Platform Owner, Fortune 500 Insurance Firm</p> </div> <div style="margin:10px 21% 10px 21%;"> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">As the point of contact between the development team and the business, it&rsquo;s crucial that product owners keep a constant channel of communication with the development team. In addition, good product owners will also have a deep understanding of the business, such that they feel confident in making important prioritization decisions.</span></p> <h3>Product owner qualifications</h3> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">As mentioned earlier, the product owner represents the business, so it&rsquo;s important to look for people already familiar with the ins and outs of an organization. The best product owners will have broad relationships across the business, extensive domain knowledge, decision-making skills, and a proven track record of accountable ownership. Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories. </span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Product owners don&rsquo;t necessarily need to have extensive technical training or knowledge, but it helps if they&rsquo;re familiar with basic Agile practices like building backlogs and reviewing user stories. </span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Here&rsquo;s our suggested minimum criteria for identifying low-code product owners:</span></p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">6+ years experience with the business&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Hands-on experience with the service or activity to be owned</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Experience prioritizing a backlog and writing user stories</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Superb communication and presentation skills</span></li> </ul> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Additionally, we suggest product owners earn their <a href="https://www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified/product-owner-track/certified-scrum-product-owner">Certified Scrum Product Owner certification</a> from the Scrum Alliance.</span></p> <h3>Appian training (product owner)</h3> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;"><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-overview">Appian Overview</a>: Product owners may benefit from our Appian Overview training in order to better understand the terminology and capabilities of Appian.</span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;"><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: If the product owner is more heavily involved with the day-to-day work of the development team, as in the case of a project manager, then the Appian Foundations course is recommended. The course provides a healthy amount of our suggested delivery methodology, including topics such as application planning, translation of requirements into application components, and leveraging low-code tools for creating design documents and proofs of concept.</span></p> <h2><strong>Analyst</strong></h2> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">The analyst&rsquo;s job is to help the product owner convert the needs of the business into actionable backlog items. It&rsquo;s best to look for someone with strong communication and presentation skills, so as to better facilitate an open dialogue between team members. Additionally, analysts should excel at problem solving and be familiar with Appian terminology. To better assist in requirements gathering, analysts should have some basic training in planning, testing and designing low-code applications.</span></p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> </div> <div style="text-align:center;"> <p style="line-height:200%;margin:0 auto;text-align:justify;width:70%;"><span><span style="font-size:200%;"><strong>&quot;One internal role that has a lot of the same skills required to be successful on Appian projects are the &lsquo;power&rsquo; report users. I found them across our business analytics teams. They have a mix of technical and business skills that fit well with the Appian framework&quot;</strong></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:center;">Appian Platform Owner, Global Engineering Firm</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> </div> <div style="margin:10px 21% 10px 21%;"> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">A common task an analyst must perform is choosing the most appropriate automation tool for a project or workflow. Whether that&rsquo;s an integration, decision object, or robotic process automation (RPA), analysts must be well-versed with the capabilities and terminology of the Appian low-code platform to make these decisions. For this reason, some organizations (including Appian) nominate a developer on the team to fill the analyst role. While it&rsquo;s acceptable to keep the roles of analysts and developers separate, it&rsquo;s important that both are sufficiently trained on the Appian platform.</span></p> <h3>Analyst qualifications</h3> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;">If you plan on using your developers as analysts, then the background criteria is the same as for <a href="/w/appian-max/1630/appian-planners/edit/appian.com">low-code developers.</a>&nbsp;If you&rsquo;re looking for a non-developer to fill the analyst role, then we&rsquo;ve found the following criteria to be helpful:</span></p> <ul style="font-size:115%;"> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">4+ years experience in a business role working with IT and technical stakeholders</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">2+ years experience with successful ownership of business analysis tasks on a technical project (requirements, analysis, design)</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Familiarity with planning, designing, testing, and deploying enterprise software applications</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Strong background in logical data modeling and the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Strong problem solving and design skills</span></li> <li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">Superb communication and presentation skills</span></li> </ul> <h3>Appian training for the Analyst</h3> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;"><a href="/learn/courses/p/appian-foundations">Appian Foundations</a>: Provides the tools to follow Appian&rsquo;s suggested methodology, speak the language of developers, and write better requirements for applications.</span></p> <p style="font-size:115%;"><span style="font-weight:400;"><a href="/learn/certifications/p/certified-analyst">Appian Certified Analyst</a>: Helps validate the knowledge and skills required to work alongside Appian developers.</span></p> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div>