A Day in life of BRM / Behind the scenes

Being a Business Relationship Manager (BRM) is a challenging role to explain and justify, primarily because it involves a unique blend of skills and responsibilities that aren’t always visible or easily quantifiable. This involves a lot of behind-the-scenes work such as strategic thinking, drive value and relationship management.

I would like to share some of my insights and reasons why the role can be difficult for others to understand:

You act as a crucial link between the IT department and the business units. This means you need to understand both the technical aspects of IT and the strategic goals of the business. This dual perspective can be hard for others to understand because they are more familiar with one side than the other. If you are not able to understand the technology where you are engaging other stakeholders to solve the problem, then business will treat you as connector and do not understand your contribution.

BRM primary goal is to ensure that IT initiatives align with business objectives. This involves a lot of understanding of business needs, opportunity finding, demand shaping, translating them into IT requirements, and ensuring that IT projects or initiatives deliver value. The strategic nature of this work can make it less visible and harder to quantify.

Building and maintaining strong relationships with stakeholders is a key part of the role. This involves a lot of communication, negotiation, and conflict resolution, which can be time-consuming and emotionally demanding. The success of these efforts is often measured in terms of improved collaboration and trust, which are intangible and hard to measure.

BRMs often act as problem solvers, addressing issues that arise between IT and business units. This can involve troubleshooting, mediating conflicts, and finding creative solutions to complex problems. The ad-hoc and reactive nature of this work can make it difficult to plan and justify.

Part of the role involves identifying opportunities for improvement in both IT and business processes. This requires a deep understanding of both areas and the ability to drive change, which can be met with resistance and require significant effort to implement.

Justifying the value of the IT BRM role can be challenging because the benefits are often long-term and strategic rather than immediate and tactical. Demonstrating the impact of improved alignment, better relationships, and more effective problem-solving can be difficult without clear metrics.

IT BRM role is multifaceted and involves a lot of soft skills and strategic thinking that aren’t always visible or easily measured. This can make it challenging to explain and justify the role to others who may not fully understand the breadth and depth of its responsibilities.

Below are the few task/works which are performed in a day in life of BRM.

Routine/Administrative work

Email checking and working on escalation
Filling reports, dashboards and work tracker / KPI.
Internal IT Meetings/ Tower meetings
Review monthly budget

Working with Business partners

1:1 Meeting with key business stakeholders or department heads to discuss their IT needs and challenges. Actively listen to their concerns, gather requirements, and translate business needs into actionable IT solutions.
Opportunity finding/discovery
Future strategic alignment and drive innovation
Prepare and present regular reports to senior management on the status of IT projects, and the overall health of the IT portfolio, Communicating IT initiatives etc.
Promote IT services/new rollout and Value demonstration
Analyze feedback from business stakeholders to identify areas for improvement in IT service delivery

Provider/Service related

Escalation tickets / Expedite requests, Regional concerns to IT Tower leads
Conduct a brief check-in with the service delivery leads to ensure projects are on track and address any potential roadblocks. This may involve reviewing project timelines, discussing resource allocation, and mitigating risks.
Relevant service meeting with tower leads / Procurement etc.
Review SOP, Services for Value to Impact

Personal Development

Spend time on meaningful relationships
Skill development. Conduct research on emerging technologies and industry best practices to stay ahead of the curve and identify opportunities for innovation.
Learn to say NO.
Not reacting on every request
Doing someone else job
Going in useless meetings

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