How much technical knowledge is essential for a BA to progress to management roles?
I think this depends on the management role and the structure of the particular company.
If the management role includes managing highly technical people or products, you might need quite a bit of technical knowledge.
If the management role is more "business oriented", you will likely need more traditional, broad management skills like those you would get in a college management program.
Evaluate where you want to go in your company and talk with several current managers to understand their position. If they tell you things like, "I wish I knew more about network protocols and security", that posiition may be more technical. If you here them say, "Dealing with people and internal politics takes all my time", that position will likely need more of the traditional management training.
Hope this helps
Brad Botz
Prime Proficiency
If you are talking about project management you should focus on the skills that have strong overlap across the two roles; namely scope management and communications.
Get good at writing reports, especially progres reports and issues papers.
Also work on shaping your requirements specs into things like product breakdown structures.
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