Specialist: Business Analysis

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together…one story at a time.

Job Summary

Investigate and document relevant business requirements, for potential opportunities, solutions and problem solving with the appropriate business and or technological solutions which will meet the business requirements.

Job Description

Accountability: Requirements Planning

• Identify which stakeholders (dependent on complexity) need to be involved in the decision, who will be consulted regarding the solution and who will be informed of the approach and the rationale for using it.
• Determine and contract with the Project Manager the business analysis activities that must be performed and the deliverables that must be produced.
• Estimate the effort required to perform that work, and identify the management tools required to measure the progress of those activities and deliverables.
• Determine the composition of the communications plan and schedule for communications regarding business analysis activities. Record and organize the activities to provide a basis for setting expectations for business analysis work, meetings, walkthroughs, and other communications.
• Define the process that will be used to approve requirements for implementation and manage changes to the solution or requirements scope.

Accountability: Requirements Elicitation

• Identify and understand the "as-is" or current business state business processes, rules, policies, and designs relating to the project by actively engaging with identified stakeholders on all levels within the organization.
• Utilize industry proven elicitation techniques to derive envisaged changes to "as-is" or current business state business domain, thereby defining the future business domain which will ultimately form the objectives, goals, and deliverables of the project. (The extend of elicitation techniques usage will vary based on the size and complexity of the project)
• Elicitation techniques include, but are not limited to the following
• Conducting interviews with internal and external stakeholders
• Performing and documenting interface analysis
• Setting up and conducting of JAD (Joint Application Development) / requirements workshops
• Conducting brainstorming / focus group sessions
• Utilizing prototypes
• Conducting surveys
• Compile a project glossary to define the terminology used by stakeholders and the project team during each project to avoid confusion and improve communication quality.

Accountability: Business Analysis scoping and design

• Determine the purpose of the project and its major objectives to deliver a successful project.
• Perform GAP Analysis by comparing the "As Is" solution to the "To Be" solution to determine the piece of work that needs to be performed.
• Determine what is "in scope" and “out of scope" for the identified project to ensure that there are no scope creeping possibilities going forward.
• Determine, using workshops, the respective business impacts associated with the project scope to ensure that all aspects of the project have been covered to have a successful implementation of the project.
• Determine the project objectives together with Subject Matter Experts and Project Sponsor based on SMART principles, e.g., objectives need to be Specific, Measurable, agreed upon, Realistic and Time Based.
• Identify opportunities and / or threats associated with project scope to ensure that there are no unwanted surprises once the project has been implemented.
• Determine risks and issues associated with requirements scope to ensure that they are mitigated and resolved by the time the project has been implemented.
• Propose a future design based on the project scope and information elicited from Subject Matter Experts and Project Sponsor.
• Design/or deliver new processes, rules and policies relating to the project scope which will be used to communicate the respective changes to all stakeholders involved in the project.
• Determine the overlaps or alignment that needs to take place between the current project and any other initiatives currently being run within the Bank to ensure that there is no duplication of efforts.

Accountability: Requirement’s definition structuring & specification

• Design the “to be” business architecture by using the best practice design principles and document using accepted tools e.g., Case Wise or agreed upon template to ensure the correct structuring of the requirements.
• Identify interfaces and integration points to ensure integrated functional specifications by conducting workshops with IT Systems Analysts, Group Strategy, Enterprise Architecture, and where necessary, external vendors.
• Document functional and non-functional specifications in the Business Requirements Definition document (e.g., business use cases) to ensure that the stakeholder requirements are fully met.
• Develop a functional decomposition of identified requirements through consultation with stakeholders to ensure that the business requirements will be developed and delivered by the project.
• Obtain quotations from applicable sources and identify all costs and produce the various stage business cases (0,1 & 2) to ensure funding requirements are met.
• Manage the base lining and changes of requirements through the agreed change request process.
• Exposure to African Countries

Accountability: Key stakeholder management

• Manage relationships with all key role players to ensure that all aspects of the business requirements are addressed.
• Conduct presentations of business cases, recommendations, business requirements and proposed solutions to ensure that all stakeholders have a good understanding of the business analysis effort and proposed solution.
• Facilitate workshops with key role players to obtain a detailed understanding of the problem or requirement.
• Manage the business analysis work stream to ensure that the business analysis activities are completed as per the business analysis plan.

Accountability: Validation & verification

• Verify the test cases produced and test results to ensure that sufficient test scenarios are documented and executed.
• Verify all interface BRD's produced to ensure alignment to the overall requirements
• Assess the solution/s by benchmarking with Industry and Barclays to ensure the solution is compliant in terms of required standards, design and fit to the Business and Enterprise Architecture.
• Conduct peer review sessions to facilitate information sharing and constructive critiquing
• Evaluate the vendors' products/solutions and the integration capability of the products / solutions with Barclays to ensure the solution is compliant in terms of required standards, design and fit to the Enterprise and Business Architecture.
• Validate documented solutions in walk-through workshop/s with stakeholders to ensure stakeholder buy-in.

Education Required

• BSc, BSc (Eng.), BSc (Comp Science) BSc (Information Systems) or BCom (Informatics) or equivalent NQF level 6 qualification

Education Preferred:

• Recognized Diploma in Business Management Analysis, Indelicacy SAP, Data bases, Hadoop, and advantage SQL
• Advanced Excel

Experience Required:

• Three (3) years’ experience as a Business Analyst
• Two (2) years experience in business analysis/ business consulting
• Two (2) years experience in financial industry
• Two (2) years experience in business case building knowledge
• Two (2) years experience workshop facilitation skills
• Two (2) years experience in Business Processes Re-engineering knowledge
• Three (3) years experience of a Change Lifecycle methodology
• Three (3) years direct involvement in business-change projects

Knowledge & Skills:

• Problem solving and analysis skills.
• Understanding of project management
• Report writing skills
• Business Planning & Design
• Command of business analysis techniques
• Innovative problem solving skills
• Stakeholder management
• Understanding of business requirements gathering
• Understanding of operations, process and IT
• Workshop facilitation skills
• Information technology literacy
• Knowledge of Barclays products, services & policies
• Process re-engineering skills

Competencies:

• Working with people
• Presenting and communicating information
• Writing and reporting
• Analyzing
• Creating and innovating
• Delivering results and meeting customer expectations
• Learning and researching

Education

Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: Physical, Mathematical, Computer and Life Sciences (Required)

Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.

Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised