Business analyst

You can demonstrate knowledge of Agile methodology. You can apply an Agile mindset to all aspects of your work. You can work in a fast-paced, evolving environment and use an iterative method and flexible approach to enable rapid delivery. You can appreciate the importance of Agile project delivery for digital projects in government. You can be unafraid to take risks and willing to learn from mistakes. You can ensure the team knows what each other is working on and how this relates to practical government objectives and user needs.

You can apply structured approaches to identify, investigate, analyse and communicate complex business problems and opportunities. You can analyse data and information relating to business goals, objectives, functions and processes. You can define requirements to improve processes, systems and services. You can conduct options analysis, assess feasibility and operational impact, quantify potential business benefits and contribute to business case development. You can ensure solutions align with the vision, objectives, business and user needs and provide the expected benefits and outcomes. You can work to enable all or part of the business to make informed, strategic and tactical decisions.

You can represent real world situations at varying levels of detail or complexity, to aid the communication and understanding of different scenarios (existing, proposed or conceptual). You can visualise processes, organisational structures, systems, data and roles and responsibilities, communicating clearly how they interact with one another.

You can lead the analysis, identification, design, prioritisation and implementation of process and business changes to improve business operations and services. You can improve business performance by identifying where changes can be made and how technology can be used, defining the costs and benefits of new approaches, and establishing metrics of success. You can be involved in the implementation or management of business improvements.

You can apply business analysis and evaluation skills to support the design, execution and assessment of business process tests and usability evaluations. You can apply these skills to assess how appropriate the defined business process and end-to-end service are going to be. You can assess the efficiency, usability and impact of business processes and end-to-end services.

You can provide advice, guidance and recommendations based on your specialist knowledge and experience. You can understand and address stakeholder and strategic business issues, framing problems so they can be easily understood and troubleshooting where required.

You can demonstrate a strong understanding of enterprise architecture and its subdomains, with a particular focus on business architecture. You can understand the organisational landscape and strategy of an organisation, and can support the creation of future state architecture aligned to strategy. You can translate business drivers, goals and constraints into business objectives. You can define required capabilities and support organisational changes to create operating models that meet business objectives. You can describe and influence relationships between organisational structures, processes, technology, people and skills within and outside of an enterprise, to achieve transition to the new state.

You can use, define, tailor, implement and improve methods and tools. You can use the most appropriate tools and techniques to support the planning, analysis, development, testing, implementation and improvement of systems and services. You can advise on the best methodologies for the work, assess the effectiveness of different approaches (such as Agile or plan-driven) and recommend tools to support organisational collaboration. You can build capability in methods and tools, ensuring they are adopted consistently and used effectively.

You can identify, analyse, challenge and validate business and user requirements. You can manage requirements throughout the whole delivery life cycle and ensure that requirements can be traced in the design, build, test, tender and evaluation phases, so that the solution aligns with business goals. You can co-ordinate and review the prioritisation of requirements, ensuring the solution works for key stakeholders and is within operational, budgetary, technical and regulatory considerations. You can assess the context of the work and apply appropriate methods (such as Agile or plan-driven) for managing the requirements life cycle. You can create and maintain documents to record the method used and support knowledge transfer and reuse.

You can identify, analyse, manage and monitor relationships with and between internal and external stakeholders. You can communicate with stakeholders clearly and regularly, clarifying mutual needs and commitments through consultation and consideration of impacts while focusing on user and business needs. You can understand how to develop or apply communication strategies to build relationships, using informal and formal channels to engage with stakeholders at all levels. You can resolve conflict where required to achieve the desired result.

You can analyse IT system capabilities and requirements to inform the development of bespoke IT systems or software packages, ensuring technology solutions meet business requirements. You can work with other digital professionals to design user system interfaces, identify gaps in functionality and assess the effect of software changes, creating and iterating models and specifications for IT systems when required. You can understand business perspectives and technical concepts and can communicate between users, development teams and external suppliers. You can use techniques such as data modelling to identify and define data needs.

You can support the testing of a technical solution to ensure it meets business and user needs, focusing on functionality and usability of software throughout the systems development life cycle.

You can understand the importance of user experience and accessibility requirements. You can use user research to inform decision making and apply design principles to ensure the user interface is intuitive. You can be involved in the analysis, validation and prioritisation of user needs and understand how needs tie to system, product or service requirements. You can balance user needs against business priorities.