Benefits of operations experience

"I work in operations, I don't think my experience will be of any value if I want to move into a BA or PM role"

You are wrong my friend.

If you are in operations today, there is nothing stopping you from having a great career in projects either as a BA or PM.

Almost everyone I know, who is currently working in BA/PM roles, has come into projects FROM a BAU/operations background.

These people often provide the greatest value to the projects team.

Why?

Because projects ultimately deliver outcomes for people working in operations. For example:
- sales,
- support,
- engineering,
- R&D,
- manufacturing

"Pfft.. yeah right! Where could I possible add value?"

A short list of BA/PM activities where you might:
- project objectives,
- project requirements,
- dealing with vendors,
- cost considerations,
- As-is and to-be processes
- solution options,
- solution designs,
- testing
- etc etc etc...

Basically, any BA/PM life-cycle activity can benefit from operations experience.

Taking from my own experience, it was my first hand experience of working in operations in fulfilment and support that helped me move into my first formal BA role.
Following this, other projects came along that gave me more exposure to other areas of a business, sales processes, environments & integrations, systems knowledge etc.

The take away from this post,
There is nothing stopping a person who is in operations today deciding they want a future in BA/PM work

Note: I will also try and cover some specific topic areas in future posts about what people need to look out for when trying to make the transition.