Business Systems Analyst - Appian

Note:  we are unable to hire in every state 

Summary: The Business Systems Analyst, Senior collaborates with the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and other Agile Team members to translate software requirements into clear, actionable user stories and deliverables for the delivery team. The Business Systems Analyst, Senior serves as a key liaison between business stakeholders and technical teams, supporting effective execution across the Development Life Cycle. This role operates within a SAFe Agile environment and is accountable for ensuring requirements are clearly understood, well-defined, and ready to support successful delivery. In addition, the Senior BSA provides advanced analytical leadership, supports complex initiatives, and mentors other analysts to elevate team performance and delivery quality.

Key Responsibilities: “To simplify complexities for each customer.”

The Business Systems Analyst, Senior, demonstrates advanced proficiency and a deep understanding of core responsibilities, independently handling complex and high-impact work. The role requires minimal supervision and regularly supports, guides, and mentors others.

• Requirements Elicitation, Documentation & Process Mapping
  • Work closely with business and technical stakeholders to gather, identify, and define detailed business and technical requirements. Create clear, concise, and well-structured documentation, including business requirements, functional specifications, process maps, and user stories that describe system features and functionality from the end-user perspective. Analyze and document current and future-state business processes and workflows to support a shared understanding of requirements and solution scope. Ensure requirements and process documentation align with business goals, objectives, and agreed-upon solution scope.
• Requirements Research & Analysis
  • Conduct research and analysis to determine what the system must do to fulfill requirements across the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), spanning all requirement types, including business, functional, non-functional, and transitional requirements. Clarify and refine requirements with stakeholders to resolve ambiguities, manage expectations, and maintain clear communication across teams. Analysis may include modeling, journey mapping, story mapping, and, when appropriate, limited code or API review using tools such as Swagger.
• Adherence to BSA Standards & Contribution to Knowledge Sharing
  • Adhere to established BSA standards, processes, and documentation guidelines. Actively participate in BSA Communities of Practice and assist in the identification, documentation, communication, and maintenance of business analysis practices to ensure alignment with Agile methodology, organizational objectives, and BSA community goals. Create and maintain informational documentation to support knowledge sharing within the BSA team and Agile Teams.
• Adherence to Agile and SAFe Practices
  • Operate within a SAFe Agile environment by following established Agile principles, practices, and ceremonies. Apply Agile documentation principles and support consistent, high-quality execution across iterations.
• Backlog Management & Agile Execution Support
  • Refining and maintaining the product backlog using agreed-upon tools such as Jira. Responsibilities include identifying and documenting user stories, defining and refining shell stories, splitting stories appropriately, analyzing and documenting stories using modeling techniques, performing story mapping, and ensuring stories are properly tied to epics. Actively participate in backlog refinement sessions and Agile ceremonies, confirming stories meet the Definition of Ready, align with team goals and delivery timelines, and support maintaining at least two iterations of ready work in accordance with SAFe standards.
• Facilitation & Collaboration
  • Facilitate and actively participate in meetings to ensure prioritized objectives are clearly defined and supported for timely execution. Lead or co-facilitate refinement sessions and contribute meaningfully to Agile ceremonies. Serve as a bridge between business users, technical teams, and other stakeholders by helping manage differing viewpoints constructively, promoting collaboration, alignment with goals, and a positive working environment. When needed, provide short-term support by backfilling Agile roles such as Product Owner or Scrum Master, with appropriate guidance.
• Testing, Validation & Implementation Support
  • Provide ongoing support to delivery teams during testing and implementation. Responsibilities include answering user-story-related questions, collaborating with Product Owners and stakeholders to clarify requirements, reviewing technical designs for alignment with requirements and underlying needs, coordinating user acceptance testing, developing test plans, validating system changes, assisting with script writing, and supporting day-to-day production issues as needed.
• Communication & Stakeholder Management
  • Identify and engage with key business and technical stakeholders to ensure their needs, concerns, and feedback are understood and incorporated into system and process requirements. Collaborate across teams and departments to support successful solution delivery. Serves as the bridge between business users, IT teams, and other stakeholders, all of whom might have differing viewpoints, requirements, or expectations.
• Continuous Learning & Innovation
  • Actively pursue opportunities to develop business analysis, technical, and domain knowledge. Stay current with industry trends, emerging technologies, and evolving methodologies. Contribute ideas and creative solutions to improve processes, systems, or services, supporting a culture of continuous improvement and adaptability. Think outside the box, solve problems in unique ways, and drive improvements that will make a difference in our organization.
• Confluence Management
  • Play a key role in the management of the BSA Confluence and ensure process documentation is accurate, up to date, and continuously enhanced, encouraging other BSAs to contribute. Create informational documentation for BSA team and/or Agile Teams for knowledge sharing where applicable.
• Coaching & Mentoring
  • Mentor newer analysts and provide training to team members when applicable. Identify areas of opportunity and guide BSAs with techniques which promote improvement and growth.
• Complex Projects
  • Lead and manage larger and more complex projects. At the request of the business, conduct more sophisticated data and business analysis to solve complex problems.

• Strategic Planning 
  • Engage in strategic planning and provide insights to guide long-term business and technology initiatives. Collaboratively improve strategies and procedures related to business analysis activities and deliverables.

Qualifications/Education/Certifications:

    Bachelor's degree from four-year College or university; plus, six to eight years of related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

Required:

• Must have significant hands-on experience with Appian
• Must have hands-on experience with AI
• Must have hands-on experience with process mapping
• An understanding of SQL (Depends on assignment)
• Sense of urgency: The ability to respond quickly and effectively to tasks, deadlines, and challenges, often within a fast-paced or high-pressure environment ensuring that goals and objectives are met in a timely manner without compromising quality.
• Analytical Thinking and Problem Solving: The ability to identify patterns, analyze complex data, and develop solutions to problems in business processes or systems.
• Communication Skills: Effective communication (written, verbal, and non-verbal) to facilitate understanding and collaboration among stakeholders, team members, and management.
• Interaction Skills: The ability to facilitate meetings, work collaboratively with different stakeholders, manage conflicts, and build consensus.
• Stakeholder Analysis: Understanding the needs, expectations, and influences of stakeholders, and the ability to engage them in the business analysis process.
• Modeling Skills: The ability to create and use various models, diagrams, and visualizations to represent business processes, workflows, or system designs.
• Documentation and Specification: The ability to document requirements, processes, and other key artifacts clearly and in a structured way.
• Adaptability: The ability to adjust to changing conditions, requirements, and unexpected challenges.
• Conflict Resolution: The ability to recognize, address, and resolve conflicts that may arise during the business analysis process or with stakeholders.

Preferred:

• Experience in Healthcare, Pharmacy Benefits Management and/or Ancillary Benefits Management, workers’ compensation and/or insurance industry
• Experience working in an Agile environment.
• Certifications such as Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP), SAFe® (Scaled Agile Framework) certifications, or Appian Certifications.
• Experience with the following:

• Java
• Mongo
• Kafka
• DataDog
• Splunk
• ActiveBatch
• SOAP webservice
• REST API
• MS SQL Server
• Jira / Confluence
• GIT
• SwaggerHub
• Appian
• MS Office / Power Platform

Physical Demands/Working Conditions:

Duties are performed primarily in a home office setting utilizing computer equipment.  Travel to attend meetings and visit locations throughout the country may be required.  While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit and talk or hear.  The employee is frequently required to use hands.  The employee is occasionally required to stand and walk.

*** Job descriptions will be reviewed and are subject to changes of business necessity.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.