Summary
A senior business analyst has a good understanding of strategic arenas and leads large or complex projects. At this role level, you will:
have functional or people management responsibilities, or a combination of both
mentor others
develop best practice
own stakeholder relationships
manage community of practice activities within a business area
Background
| Description | Background |
|---|---|
| Shows a holistic, analytical approach to situation investigation and problem definition. Has strong interpersonal skills and is confident in dealing with stakeholders. Is skilled in the use of a defined range of business analysis skills and techniques within the business change and software development lifecycles. Possesses a good understanding of business and business skills. | Prior Knowledge and Skills |
Work Activity Components
| Title | Details |
|---|---|
| Advice and guidance (Level 4) | Provides advice and guidance to support adoption of methods and tools, and the adherence to policies and standards. |
| Strategic context (Level 4) | Understands the strategic context for a complex business area and questions the appropriateness and alignment of decisions taken prior to and during the execution of change. |
| Development needs (Level 4) | Supports the identification and prioritisation of development needs for a professional practice area. Identifies development activities that align with organisational priorities, learning and development strategies and career pathways. |
| Requirements baselines (Level 4) | Establishes the requirements baselines, obtains formal agreement to requirements, and ensures traceability to source. Investigates, manages and applies authorised requests for changes to baselined requirements in line with change management policy. |
| Problem definition (Level 4) | Uses a broad range of techniques to diagnose the root cause of a complex business problem and composes a statement setting out a clear definition of the problem. |
| Scope definition (Level 4) | Defines the objectives, boundaries and deliverables of complex changes to a business process, product or system and assists with the definition of scope for complex changes. |
Behavioural Skills
| Title | Details |
|---|---|
| Analytical Thinking | Acquiring a proper understanding of a problem or situation by breaking it down systematically into its component parts and identifying the relationships between these parts. Selecting the appropriate method/tool to resolve the problem and reflecting critically on the result, so that what is learnt is identified and assimilated. |
| Conceptual Thinking | Acquiring understanding and insights regarding the underlying issues in complex problems or situations through the development of abstract representations, the identification of patterns and the analysis of hypotheses. |
| Strategic Perspective | Keeping organisational objectives and strategies in mind, and ensuring courses of action are aligned with the strategic context. |
| Customer Focus | Understanding the needs of the internal or external customer and keeping these in mind when taking actions or making decisions. |
| Organisational Awareness | Understanding the hierarchy and culture of own, customer, supplier and partner organisations and being able to identify the decision makers and influencers. |
| Interacting with People | Establishing relationships, contributing to an open culture and maintaining contacts with people from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines. Effective, approachable and sensitive communicator in different communities and cultures. Ability to adapt style and approach to meet the needs of different audiences. |
| Teamwork | Working collaboratively with others to achieve a common goal. |
| Critical Thinking | The ability to think clearly and rationally; review and evaluation of processes and outputs; the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking; reasoned thinking involving critique. |
Technical Skills
| Title | Details | Depth |
|---|---|---|
| Corporate, Industry and Professional Standards | Applying relevant standards, practices, codes, and assessment and certification programmes to the specific organisation or business domain. | Familiar with |
Other Skills
| Title | Details | Depth |
|---|---|---|
| Value Chain Concepts | Identification and representation of the primary and support activities required to deliver a product or service in order to analyse aspects such as inefficiencies and costs. | Familiar with |
| Information Elicitation Techniques | The selection and application of information elicitation methods, tools and techniques that are appropriate to the information required and the sources available. | Proficient in |
| Function or Department Operations | The activities, structure, and position in the organisation of the functions or departments for which services are provided. | Familiar with |
| Techniques for Effective Meetings | Methods and techniques for running effective meetings and for understanding and influencing the roles played by participants. | Familiar with |
| Coaching Techniques | Methods and techniques for coaching individuals or groups by a balanced combination of support and direction, which could include use of virtual learning environments plus add-ons to augment feedback specific to work items, workflow or career plans. | Aware of |
| Standards Writing Techniques | Principles, methods and techniques for establishing, documenting, and maintaining standards. | Aware of |
Training
| Title | Details |
|---|---|
| Facilitation | Methods and techniques for managing (or facilitating) a meeting or group session (both face-to-face and online) and then through a series of planned activities the creation, by consensus, of products (e.g. lists of business issues, requirements, technical options, etc.). |
| Coaching | Concepts, methods and techniques for providing coaching in subject specialisms to individuals or groups (e.g. GROW model). |
| Information and Data Modelling | Tools and techniques used to investigate, analyse and model the structure, relationships and use of data and information within an organisation. |
| Mentoring | Methods and techniques for providing mentoring support to less experienced individuals. |
| Benefits Management | The process and technique applied to identify, quantify, monitor and review benefits in order that they are realised from a business or IT change initiative. |
| Security Awareness | Tools and techniques to help users and employees understand the role they play in helping to combat information security breaches and for IT and security professionals to prevent and mitigate risk. |
Professional Development Activity (PDA)
| Title | Details | PDA Group |
|---|---|---|
| Deputising | Standing in for supervisor or manager on a temporary basis during periods of absence. | Broadening Activities |
| Job Shadowing and Special Assignments | Undertaking temporary periods or secondments in other roles, particularly those that offer a new perspective on own function or exposure to other environments and cultures. | Broadening Activities |
| Research Assignments | Exploring a topic which is not part of own normal responsibilities and presenting findings to colleagues and/or management | Increasing Knowledge |
| Gaining Knowledge of Activities of Employing Organisation | Developing an understanding of the potentially diverse range of activities (service, governance, administrative, regulatory, commercial, charitable, industrial, etc.) undertaken by the employing organisation. | Increasing Knowledge |
| Gaining Knowledge of IT Concepts and Techniques | Undertaking study, learning and, where possible, practice in IT concepts and techniques external to own function. | Increasing Knowledge |
| Participation in Professional Body Affairs | Taking an active part in professional body affairs at branch, specialist group, committee or board level. | Participation in Professional Activities |
| Negotiating and Influencing | Undertaking learning and practice of negotiating with and influencing others. | Developing Professional Skills |
Qualification Components
| Title | Awarding Bodies |
|---|---|
| FEDIP Senior Practitioner | FEDIP - The Federation for Informatics Professionals in Health and Care |
| BCS Practitioner Certificate in Business Analysis Practice | BCS - The Chartered Institute of IT |
| BCS Professional Certificate in Agile Business Analysis | BCS - The Chartered Institute of IT |
| IQBBA Certified Advanced Level Business Analyst | IQBBA The International Qualification Board for Business Analysis |
| CBAP Certified Business Analysis Professional | IIBA International Institute of Business Analysis |
Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework Skills
| Skill | Level |
|---|---|
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Agile working Agile delivery involves encouraging teams to build incrementally, test and iterate their work based on regular feedback and other useful data. |
Practitioner Agile working You can: identify and compare the best processes or delivery methods to use, including measuring and evaluating outcomes help the team to decide the best approach help teams to manage and visualise outcomes, prioritise work and adhere to agreed minimum viable product (MVP), priorities and scope |
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Business analysis Availability and capacity management involves ensuring services are available with as little down-time or disruption as possible, whilst making sure we have sufficient resources to support emerging business needs. |
Practitioner Business analysis You can:
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Business modelling Business modelling involves documenting how your business operates and intends to achieve its goals. |
Practitioner Business modelling You can:
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Business process improvement Business process improvement involves analysing and modifying existing and new processes to make them more efficient. |
Practitioner Business process improvement You can:
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Business process testing Business process testing involves confirming that existing or new business processes are efficient and usable, from beginning to end. |
Practitioner Business process testing You can:
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Methods and tools Metadata management involves establishing policies and processes that ensure data can be accessed across an organisation. |
Practitioner Methods and tools You can:
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Requirements definition and management Prototyping a service or product involves exploring, testing and sharing different concepts before committing to the final design. |
Practitioner Requirements definition and management You can:
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Stakeholder relationship management (business analysis) Stakeholder relationship management involves managing stakeholder requirements and communications throughout a project, while remaining focused on the user needs. |
Practitioner Stakeholder relationship management You can:
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Systems analysis Strategy involves creating a plan to achieve a team or organisation's objectives. |
Practitioner Systems analysis You can:
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Testing (business analysis) Testing involves ensuring that requirements have been fully met by using appropriate tools and techniques to verify that a product or service works. |
Practitioner Testing (business analysis) You can: recommend the value of testing and apply the relevant tools and techniques to ensure test validity advise on business scenarios and develop acceptance criteria to ensure requirements can be traced to develop functionality review prototypes, test plans and test outcome reporting |
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User experience analysis |
Practitioner User experience analysis You can: advise on the approach to analysis, prioritisation and validation of user experience needs recommend a range of techniques to analyse the user experience and ensure that it meets business and user needs articulate and communicate how user experience needs affect the design of a system in a project or programme of work |
The Professional Body Responsible for this job family is BCS. This job role profile was created in collaboration with BCS, using Role Model Plus.