The American College of Financial Services is seeking an experienced and highly motivated Business Analyst to join the Application Development team. This role is responsible for leading business analysis activities across enterprise technology initiatives, ensuring that business needs are clearly defined, translated into actionable requirements, and delivered through effective collaboration with technical teams.
The ideal candidate is a self-directed and technically fluent Business Analyst who can independently drive analysis efforts, manage backlogs, facilitate stakeholder discussions, and ensure development teams have the clarity needed to deliver high-quality solutions. This individual will play a key role in enterprise application initiatives, integrations, and ongoing platform enhancements, particularly across enterprise applications, web platforms, and integrations.
This role requires strong analytical thinking, Agile experience, and the ability to take ownership of initiatives from discovery through delivery.
Business Analysis & Requirements Ownership
- Lead the elicitation, documentation, and prioritization of business and technical requirements across enterprise systems.
- Translate business needs into clear, structured user stories, functional requirements, and acceptance criteria that support development teams.
- Independently analyze business processes and system functionality to identify gaps, risks, and opportunities for improvement.
- Maintain ownership of requirements from initial discovery through delivery and validation.
- Ensure stories are fully refined and development-ready prior to sprint planning.
Agile Delivery & Backlog Management
- Act as a key contributor to the Agile delivery process, supporting backlog refinement, sprint planning, reviews, and retrospectives.
- Partner with product owners and technical leads to maintain a well-organized, prioritized backlog.
- Ensure development teams have clear, complete requirements and business context needed to execute effectively.
- Proactively manage story updates, dependencies, and clarifications throughout the sprint lifecycle.
Business Process Analysis & Optimization
- Evaluate current-state workflows and identify inefficiencies, operational gaps, or system limitations.
- Develop future-state process designs aligned with organizational goals and system capabilities.
- Produce process maps, workflow diagrams, and system interaction models to support business and technical understanding.
- Recommend solutions that balance business needs, system capabilities, and technical feasibility.
Stakeholder Collaboration & Facilitation
- Facilitate requirements workshops, discovery sessions, and stakeholder interviews to gather insights and validate solutions.
- Serve as a trusted liaison between business stakeholders and technical teams, ensuring alignment and clarity.
- Communicate requirements, priorities, and implementation impacts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Build strong working relationships with stakeholders to ensure solutions align with business objectives.
Technical & System Understanding
- Develop and maintain a working knowledge of the College’s enterprise application ecosystem, including CRM platforms, integrations, and web systems.
- Understand system capabilities, data structures, and integration patterns to ensure requirements are technically viable and well defined.
- Collaborate with developers and architects to validate technical feasibility and implementation approaches.
Testing & Solution Validation
- Define and document acceptance criteria, test scenarios, and validation requirements.
- Support the development of UAT plans and test cases to ensure solutions meet defined requirements.
- Partner with QA and business stakeholders to validate functionality and confirm successful delivery.
Documentation & Knowledge Management
- Maintain clear and structured documentation including:
- Business requirements
- User stories and acceptance criteria
- Process diagrams
- Functional specifications
- System workflows
- Ensure documentation remains accurate, current, and accessible throughout the project lifecycle.
Change Impact & Solution Adoption
- Assess the operational impact of new features and system changes on business processes.
- Support change readiness through documentation, stakeholder communication, and training coordination.
- Help ensure new solutions are successfully adopted and understood by end users.
Continuous Improvement & Delivery Excellence
- Identify opportunities to improve analysis practices, delivery processes, and documentation standards.
- Apply lessons learned from projects to strengthen future initiatives.
- Stay informed on emerging business analysis practices, Agile methodologies, and enterprise technology trends
