Business Analyst

Business Analyst - Vitality Life systems

About VitalityLife Systems

VitalityLife, alongside sister brand VitalityHealth, provide insurance services to the UK market. VitalityLife specialises in selling life insurance directly to individuals, families and businesses; via financial advisers and insurance brokers. Working for VitalityLife Systems, you'll experience an exciting mix of creativity and innovation, within a framework of challenging objectives and a passion for delivering the best. We think work should be fun and sociable, and we want our people to get the most out of every day. Our people are chosen for their skills, knowledge, enthusiasm and attitude but above all, their belief that anything can be achieved.

Key Purpose

Understanding the business requirements and through a structured process documenting, validating and translating it into functional specifications that are used by developers to craft a technical solution

Testing and validating the functionality of the technical solution against the business requirements

Interfacing between the business client and the development team with regards to the business and functional requirements

Ensuring that the business requirements are delivered in the implemented solution

Working with multiple business areas and multiple teams that require deep integration of solutions

Building and maintaining strong relationships with clients and acting as a consultant on the application

Areas of responsibility may include but not limited to

Act as a consultant to the client on the application Participate in client planning forums and advise on solutions

Challenge the business in their thinking, especially to understand the intent of the business requirement

Assist business to articulate the benefits they wish to realize with the solution

Pursue enquiries with clients to understand the "why" rather than the "what" of the business request

Facilitating the development of a Business Case

Customer Requirements Specification (CRS)

Follow a structured process to listen to, understand and document client requirements If needed, facilitate activities like interviews or JAD sessions to expand the understanding of the business requirements

If required, perform analytical tasks, data extracts, run queries or any other form of analysis to gather information

Following up with clients to clear up ambiguity and possible misunderstanding

Documenting the requirements in a Customer Requirements Specifications (CRS) document (which may include UML models, business process documents)

Ensuring alignment between the Business Case and the CRS

Review the functional requirements with the client, using appropriate formats such as presentations and walk-through discussions and obtain sign-off on CRS

Product Requirements Specification (PRS)

Design and validate the functional solution

This involves interpreting the CRS into a set of Functional Requirements Specifications (FRS)

Apply knowledge of the system, interfaces and dependencies to highlight integration aspects that must be considered

Identify a set of stakeholders that need to be involved in creating and validating the PRS

Interview business and technical owners, as well as experienced members of the development team (Development Manager, Architect, Business Analyst Senior)

Identify and Involve other teams and domains that must be integrated to for the solution to work Build & demonstrate GUI prototypes, to validate the designs

Perform modelling & build data models that simulate the solution

Identify and design a set of test cases/scripts, test scenario's and test data sets to accompany the PRS

Validate the PRS and Test Basket with the client and identified stakeholders and obtain sign-off Solution Proposal:

Review the approved CRS and PRS with the development team

If required, revert back to client or other stakeholders if technical issues require business decisions in order to proceed

Answer queries from the development team on business or functional aspects of the required solution

Defend the client business requirements.

Project Documentation

Perform Project Management activities, such as providing the client as well as relevant team members with estimates of the duration of tasks

Provide updates to project schedules

Maintain and update the scheduling system

Coordinate work activities between the client and development team (e.g. scheduling JAD sessions)

Maintain project documentation

Provide input to technical design, and liaise between the client and the technical team

Act as a project manager: define & manage risks, define and document scope, update and report on progress, assign tasks and manage delivery

Manage and prevent scope creep

If required, conduct a Post Implementation Review (PIR)

Release Notes & Training Material

Update and publish release notes related to the current system changes implemented and notify impacted parties

Assist trainers with queries or release notes

Present initiation papers to other teams at the Channel Forums

Develop procedure manuals for the system (for use by development team)

Maintain and update the CRS and PRS with any added content

Upload CRS, PRS and TS to the SharePoint server and load links into the scheduling system

Keep status updated

Check documents in and out of system

During go-live, perform live monitoring of the new system

If required, make configuration settings/updates, version number changes, workflow and configuration table changes

Query Report

Respond to incidents escalated by the Incidents team

Log issues in the appropriate issues logging system

Conduct preliminary analysis on issues

Provide reporting to Development Manager or PM on project activities and status.

Service Level Agreements

Agree required support functions with business prior to go live, and document in SLA

During go-live, provide end user support if required Be on standby for possible client issues during go-live

Provide ad-hoc "walk through" support on site with clients

During go-live, participate in the resolution of serious errors by implementing emergency changes

Provide assistance when presentations are done to external clients (e.g. Brokers)

Technical Competencies: Project Management SQL queries Business Writing Skills Presentation and Facilitation Skills Solution Architecture Process Mapping Entity Diagram mapping Software testing pack design, functional testing

Education And Experience

Education

Processes: ITIL (Incident, Change, Release, Problem Management), CMMI Technologies: SQL, UML, XML and OO Other: Software architecture, facilitating JAD sessions, data modelling techniques, UML Process Design, Industry compliance standards and legislation

Experience 5 years solid Business Analysis experience. SQL, UML, XML and OO experience

EMPLOYMENT EQUITY

The Companys approved Employment Equity Plan and Targets will be considered as part of the recruitment process. As an Equal Opportunities employer, we actively encourage and welcome people with various disabilities to apply.