Business Analyst - onsite in Frankfort, KY

We have a BA position open to join our team in Frankfort, KY. The IT Business Analyst (BA) will assist the Project Manager (PM) in the management of the project work by facilitating communication with the business unit/customer, project team, and other stakeholders as necessary related to requirements and proposed solution for the project. The BA will elicit business requirements (features & user stories) for assigned project requests, and manage the product backlog. For each upcoming sprint, the BA will decompose the user stories to a consumable level that is understood by the developers. The BA will lead the team in the identification of acceptance criteria for the decomposed user stories. The BA will ask business stakeholders probing questions and communicate that information to the development team to ensure they understand the requested work.

The BA is expected to understand the business processes and to use that knowledge to make recommendations for business process improvements as well as improve the value to
the end user and the project.

An ideal candidate will support the Client project management lifecycle by:
· Driving the adoption and integration of the BA roles and processes
· Assess customers’ current capabilities and needs and identify potential products as solutions
· Act as a liaison between project stakeholders
· Identify business needs and drivers of value and success
· Work with technical teams to determine and justify a solution approach that maximizes customer value through improvements to workflow, production, efficiency and/or effectiveness
· Provide technical and non-technical assistance to the PMO to develop project documentation
· Work with project/business stakeholders and/or users to gather, document, vet and validate solution (system and software) requirements
· Work with the development team on task creation and estimating
· Work with the technical development team to ensure that requirements are effectively implemented
· Work with project/business stakeholders and/or users to facilitate user acceptance testing
· Work with customer contacts after solution delivery to understand ongoing needs and issues along with associated business drivers, and assist in triaging within Client to engage resources to provide the appropriate response/resolution
· Assist the Project Manager with management of the project by “owning” the analysis and testing components of the project.
· Lead the development team through the Working phase of the project by researching and answering questions about the defined work, identified bugs and assisting in technical roadblocks - escalating as defined in the project’s technical escalation process.
· Create and maintain the testing plan for the project following an iterative development methodology.
· Employ an iterative development methodology and lead the effort in defining features, user stories and acceptance criteria.
· Manage user story (requirements), use case, and artifact gathering processes and clearly communicate to the business and technical team members what is needed.
· Ask probing questions to fully understand user stories with the ability to provide feedback on possible implications of any and all requests.
· Accurately and concisely articulate issues, questions, and recommendations to business stakeholders, team members, and management.
· Work with the business unit to manage the expectations for project completion.
· Understand the “as-is” and “to-be” business processes to ensure all parties are working toward the same goal.
· Model the expected system interactions, particularly when software is being developed.
· Look for gaps in data requirements between what is in place and what is needed.
· Model the data requirements or work with the appropriate people to ensure that the data will support the new solution.
· Create mock-ups of the new user interfaces as needed.
· Support the business unit and development team by discussing business and technical impacts of and dependencies related to priority decisions.
· Work closely with stakeholders in developing user scenarios as needed.
· Work with continuous improvement in mind in order to identify and document system recommendations for current and future development.
· Work with users to update business processes and procedures guidelines.

Minimum Requirements
· Bachelor’s Degree with a focus in IT or equivalent combination of experience/knowledge
· 2-3 Years’ experience working with businesses to identify and document IT needs and facilitate solutions
· Experience and comfort with business analysis, requirements definition & vetting
· Knowledge of and experience with agile process
· Strong analytical, design and problem solving skills
· Ability to work independently/self-reliant and show initiative with minimum supervision
· Ability to quickly learn new technology and apply appropriately to business situations
· Strong team player who enjoys working in a fast paced team atmosphere
· Ability to work under pressure; meet strict deadlines
· Ability to listen effectively and seek clarification
· Ability to build a rapport with clients
· Excellent written and oral communication skills in English. Must be able to effectively and comfortably communicate with all types of individuals from the customer technical expert to the customer executive management