Senior Business Analyst

University of British Columbia•Vancouver, BC

About The Position

The Office of the CIO (OCIO) manages a significant portfolio of IT-enabled projects with a five-year execution plan and ongoing additions. The Program Delivery office is seeking a Senior Business Analyst to analyze business needs and develop strategies for automated systems to support short- and long-term business goals. This role involves expertise in business process discovery and definition, requirements definition, analysis and design, configuration, implementation, testing, training, facilitation, and documentation for enterprise solutions. The Senior Business Analyst will lead the business analysis process, manage portions of the project lifecycle related to business analysis, including project planning, scheduling, strategies, and communicating status, risks, issues, and decisions to project managers.

Requirements

Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline.
Minimum of eight years of related experience including at least two years of managerial experience, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.
Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one’s own.
Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one’s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Nice To Haves

Degree in an IT or Business Administration related discipline preferred.
Project Management Professional designation is an asset.
Change Management professional designation is an asset.
Business Analysis professional designation is an asset.
Supervisory experience is an asset.
Experience with implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Recruitment Systems, Salesforce, APIs, MuleSoft, Utility Management Systems, Student Information Systems, Workday or other similar off-the-shelf (COTS).
Project experience in a higher-education environment, policy and regulatory compliance situations is an asset.
Experience demonstrates progressive responsibility, preferably in a university or other public sector environment.
Experience with preparing RFPs, managing RFIs/RFPs for evaluation, selection and procurement of products and/or services from vendors.
Experience in change management, data management, and solution and enterprise architecture.
Technical expertise and experience in Information technology project management of large scale, commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) systems including related experience in managing systems development, enterprise architecture, and business process change, quality assurance and testing as it applies to COTS and custom systems, data migration and systems integration.
Effectively manage multiple tasks and priorities, work in a fast-paced environment, and manage responsibilities and tasks to meet time sensitive, critical deadlines.
Intermediate knowledge of applications development methodologies, as well as development and implementation best practices, "rules of thumb", and benchmarks.
An understanding of key trends and players in the IT industry.
Effective leadership, consulting, consensus building, conflict resolution, and negotiation and team-building skills are an asset.
Collaboration - Identifies and improves communication to bring conflict within the team into the open and facilitate resolution. Openly shares credit for team accomplishment. Monitors individual and team effectiveness and recommends improvement to facilitate collaboration. Considered a role model as a team player. Demonstrates high level of enthusiasm and commitment to team goals under difficult or adverse situations; encourages others to respond similarly. Strongly influences team strategy and processes.
Communication for Results - Converses with, writes strategic documents for, and creates/delivers presentations to internal business leaders as well as external groups. Leads discussions with senior leaders and external partners in ways that support strategic planning and decision-making. Seeks a consensus with business leaders. Debates opinions, tests understanding, and clarifies judgments. Identifies underlying differences and resolves conflict openly and empathetically. Explains the context of multiple, complex interrelated situations. Asks searching, probing questions, plays devil's advocate, and solicits authoritative perspectives and advice prior to approving plans and recommendations.
Problem-Solving - Diagnoses problems using formal problem-solving tools and techniques from multiple angles and probes underlying issues to generate multiple potential solutions. Proactively anticipates and prevents problems. Devices facilitates buy-in, makes recommendations, and guides the implementation of corrective and/or preventive actions for complex issues that cross organizational boundaries and are unclear in nature. Identifies potential consequences and risk levels. Seeks support and buy-in for problem definition, methods of resolution, and accountability.
Accountability - Sets enhanced objectives for self and others. Monitors performance trends and identifies opportunities to improve standards. Provides regular feedback and suggests alternative approaches necessary to ensure that organizational objectives and superior standards are achieved. Delegates responsibility and reallocates resources as needed to ensure that priorities are met for initiatives within the area of responsibility.
Analytical Thinking - Determines criteria for assessing issues and opportunities. Establishes clear goals and priorities needed to assess performance. Identifies relationships and linkages between different information sources. Anticipates issues that are not readily apparent on the surface. Identifies root causes and effects. Establishes clear goals and priorities. Anticipates potential problems and develops solutions needed to resolve them. Systemically analyzes relationships between apparently independent problems and issues. Reviews and cross-reviews reports. Identifies trends as well as isolated events. Translates analytical reports into management presentations, and provides guidance to resolve issues. Anticipates the possible outcome of potential solutions. Identifies areas of significant concern or opportunity. Probes and initiates research to identify critical problems.
Business Enterprise Knowledge - Directs and coordinates the development and implementation of process-based solutions that cross organizational lines. Creates business case for investment in process and technological enhancements. Sets clear explanations for the integration and alignment of technology and business functions, focusing on the strategic value provided.

Responsibilities

Plan, organize, manage, monitor, and be responsible for the business analysis activities of projects.
Understand business context, project justification, business goals, and priorities and update and maintain documentation on such.
Understand and apply business architecture concepts to ensure strategic alignment with organizational goals, outcomes, and business value.
Recommend types of working groups, and leads working groups to support the discovery and analysis of business processes and requirements and the design of new solutions.
Document current state business process, capture issues and opportunities and understand proposed future state, identifying gaps to achieve that state.
Develop business requirements documents, solutions requirements documents, functional requirements.
Partner with and support architects in the creation of current and future state architecture.
Create process maps, data maps, data models, data flow diagrams and work with and support data architects.
Collaborate with integration architects to design integrations.
Prepare RFPs, including functional and non-functional requirements.
Participate in developing RFP scoring mechanisms and facilitating and managing the scoring processes.
Recommend options for the implementation of business solutions.
Support change management by working with change management teams, creating training materials, and managing training when required.
Provide guidance and leadership to testing teams (end users etc.) and/or develops user test cases and validates test results during user acceptance testing, system acceptance testing and operational acceptance testing.
Lead and conduct workflow and gap analysis for operational support processes.
Acquire and maintain a working knowledge of the university's technical and business environment.
Participate in the continuous improvement of the business analysis methodology via recommendations and suggestions, lessons learned and working groups.
Advise and mentor project teams on various methodologies including waterfall and agile methodologies.
Lead, mentor, and coach other Business Analysts on process, techniques, and good practices and provide guidance on project-specific situations.
Actively seeks ongoing career development through self-motivated professional development in the field of business analysis.
Analyzes business needs utilizing a structured requirements process (gathering, analyzing, documenting, and managing changes).
Develops overall strategies and provides advice on options, risks, and costs versus benefits.
Communicates with stakeholders of varying technical ability and subject matter expertise and explains services to clients of all management levels to ensure they have a clear understanding of IT roles, processes, and activities.
Manages liaison relationship with clients to ensure technical solutions meet user needs.
Conducts feasibility studies and drafts proposals for evaluation by appropriate users and managers.
Develops and assists in the presentation of business cases.
Leads short- and long-term planning sessions to implement integrated business process improvements.
Identifies, elicits, and documents business requirements, defines business rules, and communicates requirements for the implementation of business solutions.
Prepares functional, system, and program specifications bridging multiple projects.
Reviews test plans and monitors the testing process to ensure that business results are adequately tested with minimal risk.
Procures technical assistance to help in problem resolution.
Provides technical leadership, coaching, and mentoring to less-experienced individuals.
Maintains appropriate professional designations and up-to-date knowledge of current information technology techniques and tools.
Performs other related duties as required.
Plans, directs, and supervises work of project team members, such as other business analysts, consultants, quality assurance analysts, and other staff assigned to the project.