Business Analyst - 0796

POSITION TITLE: BUSINESS ANALYST / INTAKE MANAGER

ROLE: This is a split role with the individual serving as Business Analyst and Intake Manager.

As Business Analyst, you will work with the Actuarial team point of contact to understand and document the business requirements for new features/processes or changes/enhancements to current processes. You will focus on the business domain, its processes, systems, data, and priorities. You will become a trusted expert on both the IT and Business process to drive collaboration and coordination across functions. You will assist the Actuarial contact and management to set priorities based on business need and value delivery.

As Intake Manager, you will be responsible for ensuring the success of the Agile Kanban team by coaching the team and stakeholders on Agile core principles and practices, enabling the appropriate adoption of core Agile principles in a Kanban setting, manage the team's day to day activities and resolve impediments that the team encounters.

Success in this position will be assessed based on both responsibilities:

BSA strong working relationships with the team and business, demonstrate increasing ability to 1) contribute effectively to business priorities, and 2) advocate for business needs/goals across functions ensuring system solutions meet business objectives.

Intake Manager management and successful delivery of work products while maintaining positive team culture.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Business Systems Analyst responsibilities include:

• Learn the business and technical processes to become a trusted advisor for both business (Actuarial/Finance) and IT
• Partner with the Actuarial point-of-contact to understand actuarial needs, write stories to stock the backlog, define clear acceptance criteria and assist with backlog refinement.
• Assist the team with test planning, test scripting, test execution and validation of test results
• Promote a culture of strong process governance, recommending controls and risk mitigations as needed
• Act as the Face/Voice of the team, and represent the team in the Agile Sync and Scrum ceremonies of Features teams serviced (with a focus on dependencies)
• Manage process documentation, including promoting the creation and maintenance of necessary process documentation
• Engage with teams upstream and downstream of your processes to effectively communicate impacts to your team and business partners
• Engage Business Analysts in other functions to share best practices and encourage consistency of process
• Inform management, including LTC Actuarial Customer Relationship Manager of issues and escalations
• Continuously evaluate the business and technical processes to identify opportunities for improving effectiveness and efficiency.
• Intake Manager usually has two primary areas of responsibilities:
• To make sure that work items flow
• Manage Kanban ceremonies - Prioritization, stand up and ad hoc sessions (as the situation demands)
• Co-ordinate the scoping and sizing of new work items
• Order work items from the backlog and facilitate prioritization of what comes next
• Ensure work items on the Kanban board are not in a blocked state for too long
• Position the deliveries for success by continuously addressing the dependencies (business and technical risks etc.) throughout the process flow
• Manage the velocity at any given point of time to avoid resource overburn or underutilization.
• To facilitate change and continuous improvement activities
• Guide and facilitate the team to capture, aggregate, and present meaningful metrics (tickets completed, time dedicated, etc.)
• Continuously evaluate the metrics to identify opportunities for improving effectiveness and efficiency
• Guide discussions so the team has identified a true root cause for a given problem
• Minimize the recurrence of issues by identifying and developing a proactive approach to resolution
• Continuously guide discussions on improving consistency of i) Intake and ii) Request Fulfillment process, and reducing personnel risk associated with a single individual
• Coach the team members on Kanban and ensure Kanban principles are actively adopted.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• A strong understanding of and hands-on experience with Agile practices, especially Kanban.
• Ability to prioritize multiple customer requests based upon business value
• Ability to effectively communicate (verbal and written) and influence a variety of audiences including IT developers, Business Analysts, business partners, stakeholders, and management
• Must have strong cross-functional teamwork skills
• Ability to observe business situations, recognize roadblocks and guide team to implement solutions to those roadblocks
• Ability to influence and indirectly manage team members to meet deliverables
• Ability to adapt to changing priorities while consistently meeting deadlines with accuracy
• Excellent organizational and time management skills
• Ability to work independently with minimum supervision
• Ability to lead, partner with and challenge peer groups
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills; able to identify areas of improvement and make sound recommendations to solve problems
• Ability to dive into details and enjoy working with people to solve problems
• Strong data analytical and visualization skills with large and complex data sets
• Hands on experience with large database queries (ex. SQL), complex MSFT Excel applications and Business Intelligence tools
• Additional Qualifications (helpful but not required):
• Experience in the insurance or financial services industry, especially Actuarial Science
• Experience working in a data-centric environment with complex transformations and business rules
• Experience supporting applications hosted both on premise and on Cloud based infrastructure.