Business Analyst

Role: Business Analyst


Location: St louis, Missouri


Duration: 6 Months

Job Description:

• The Business Analyst (BA) works as a liaison to business and technical stakeholders in order to elicit, analyze, communicate and validate requirements to create or change business processes, policies, information and information systems.
• Collaborating with both the information technology project teams and business clients, the BA collects, clarifies and translates business requirements into documentation and conceptual design, from which applications and solutions are developed.
• Establishes collaborative relationship with business staff.
• Responsible for eliciting requirements from the business, ensuring that the intent of each requirement is well understood and documented, not just the literal meaning of requirements.
• Communicates requirements to the IS technical team so that effective and innovative technical solutions may be designed.

RESPONSIBILITIES/JOB DUTIES Estimate % of Time Spent on Each Duty Check if Essential Job Duty


1. Serves as a liaison between the business community and the IT organization in order to provide technical solutions to meet user needs. Possesses expertise in the business unit(s) they support and business management, as well as an understanding of the IT organization's systems and capabilities. Assists in the business process redesign (including process flows, use cases, and user interfaces) and documentation as needed for new technology. Translates high level business requirements into functional specifications for the IT organization and manages changes to such specifications in alignment with the approved project scope and ACE's Member Relationship Management (MRM) strategy. 25%


2. Analyzes business partner's operations to understand their strengths and weaknesses to determine opportunities to automate processes and functions. 20%


3. Develops and organizes Test Plans and traceable Test Cases based on business requirements. Administrates User testing and supports related Test Phase tasks including Regression testing. 10%


4. Ensures the project methodology and I.S. project processes are appropriately administered, documented, and managed in a timely manner. 10%


5. Performs gap-fit analysis, supports and documents the evaluation of vendor package software as potential solutions to meet business requirements. May make recommendations for buy vs. build decision. 5%


6. Performs and completes assigned project tasks to committed effort and dates. Provides management support of overall project schedule by facilitating work assigned to the extended project team members (as appropriate), including functional and legal reviews, analysis, and approvals required from the business staff. 5%

7 Organizes and conduct meetings, briefings and demonstrations. Writes and distributes minutes of project meetings, tracking action plan commitments. 5%


8. Configures package or custom applications by modifying table-driven application setups which control system functionality through parameters. Communicates with business regarding the use and set up of these parameters. May also be required to understand scripting code (XML) and explain it to the business users. 5%


9. Negotiates agreements and commitments by facilitating communication between business unit(s) and IT from initial requirements to final implementation. 5%

• Elicits from the business what they clearly need, translates for IT staff and works to deliver solutions using innovative design.
• Facilitates communication between the business and I.S. project team members throughout the project life cycle.
• Builds strong relationships with business staff and management, in order to facilitate project success.
• Documents and understands the project scope thoroughly.
• Provides test plans and testing scripts to ensure quality.
• Resolves issues of missing or misunderstood requirements.
• Supports business unit with implementation of new systems or modifications to existing systems.
• Supports the Senior Business Analysts and/or Project Leaders during all phases of the project life-cycle.
• Works with IT Management, Project Leaders, Project Team Members, and Outside Technology Vendors to provide technology processes and business solutions that support the Enterprise MRM strategy.
• The Business Analyst devises and designs computer system solutions to address complex business problems.
• Works with both technical and business staff to implement solutions in a cost and time effective fashion.
• Work is creative and not routine.
• Receives only general supervision; discusses or seeks approval on complex matters.

Education:

• Four year college degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business Administration or other related field or equivalent work experience.

Experience

• Three to five years of relevant technical work experience or comparable business-unit experience required. Typically 3 to 5 years of IT experience (or equivalent experience working as a business team member, on IT projects). Additional experience working in process engineering and project management preferred.
• Skills
• Proven interpersonal skills working in a team environment, creating a motivation for high achievement.
• Demonstrated ability to conceptualize and communicate business imperatives to the project team and technical solutions to the business partners.
• Must understand technical problems and solutions in relation to the current, as well as the future business environment. Must be able to recommend plans to integrate new and existing processes.
• Good verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to express complex technical concepts in terms non-technical people can understand.