Business Systems Analyst - Rocky Hill, United States - Aspen Insurance Group

Description

Role purpose

Primary focus is taking accountability for the specification of technical requirements for the IT components of an enhancement or strategic initiatives implementation. The specifications are to be used by developers and testers in an end-to-end delivery across Data, IT and downstream technologies.

• In doing so, the Business Systems Analyst must:

• demonstrate leadership and take into account stakeholder perspectives

• demonstrate impeccable customer servicing skills and team working

• negotiate with elegance and know when to escalate

• work closely and coordinate with business stakeholders, business PM, EPMO, Data, Infrastructure and Service Management teams, supplier partners

• act as an internal management consultant to frame a business concern – using inhouse and supplier team members

• interpret business needs and how to apply technology to enable them

• conduct appropriate due diligence to ensure that the solution meets the need

• assess the right balance between delivery, affordability, execution risk, strategic objectives and alignment to architecture principles and policies

• mentor and support junior staff – demonstrate our values and professionalism

• will be required to manage Aspen staff, contractors, suppliers or consultants

• have a good working knowledge of the business function and their requirements

Policy, Process and Procedures

• Produce deliverables in accordance with Aspen's 'best practice' quality procedures, in order to ensure consistency and quality across the Business Technology & Delivery function

• Adhere to Aspen's delivery methodology to ensure outputs are delivered within the defined frameworks and are compliant with IT governance procedures

• Proactively manage workloads and any competing priorities, taking appropriate action where necessary, in order to address potential issues that could impact delivery

• Comply with external and internal regulatory and statutory policies, procedures and regulations to ensure Aspen meets regulatory obligations

• Evidence of having followed best practice e.g., Peer Review of artefacts, use of correct templates

• Evidence of having met Aspen's delivery methodology requirements e.g., use of correct templates

• Deadlines met, or challenges identified and communicated so that any impacts to delivery can be mitigated

• All obligations met e.g., regulatory / mandatory training completed, policies read, timesheets completed

Environmental Awareness/Customer Focus

• Be comfortable with driving and challenging business stakeholders on requirements, in order to identify true underlying needs

• Serve as the conduit / liaison between business (internal and external customers) and IT, and any applicable support teams, including third parties, to support collaboration and ensure good communication between parties, for example, within Agile work-streams, it may be necessary to take on the role of (proxy) Product Owner, to act as the bridge between the business SMEs and development teams.

• Communicate effectively with users and IT suppliers & take ownership of issues, including application support requests, in order to resolve and address queries and help to improve the end user experience

• Collaborate with architects, developers and subject matter experts in order to follow the technical vision and understand trade-offs between usability and performance needs

• Manage stakeholder expectations through relevant and regular communication to provide our stakeholders with visibility on progress and transparency around any challenges or issues

• Build mutually beneficial and sustainable relationships across Aspen in order to encourage openness, collaboration and team work

• Play an active and proactive role in developing the maturity of Aspen's IT team and our ability to support our stakeholders, so to as to ensure we look to continuously improve our ways of working

• Operate as an effective team member by supporting colleagues and contributing in the delivery and achievement of overall team and business objectives, in order to promote continuous improvement and team collaboration

• Successful delivery of business outcomes evidenced through successful project delivery and positive feedback from business stakeholders

• Positive feedback from project colleagues and business stakeholders: timely communication of updates / escalations, evidence of positive collaboration with stakeholders

• Positive feedback from stakeholders: timely communication of updates / escalations, timely resolution of issues, evidence of taking ownership of deliverables and requests

• Positive feedback from stakeholders: evidence of recommendations / advice provided, evidence of understanding of technical vision

• Regular, open and timely communications with stakeholders

• Feedback from stakeholders and peers

Technical Performance

• Elicit, document and prioritise business & technical requirements, and technical specifications (where required), through engagement with relevant business stakeholders and the appropriate application of commonly-used techniques, to a high level of quality, in order to ensure clarity over the vision and scope of a piece of work

• Capture and document business processes ('as-is' & 'to-be'), so as to ensure clear understanding of impacted areas of the business and the desired 'end-state'

• Be responsible for managing and prioritising backlogs of features, epics and user stories, elaborating user stories to a level of detail sufficient for development, and ensuring full traceability throughout, in order to provide clarity over the requirements for developers and testers and ensure requirements are prioritised to deliver business value

• Critically evaluate information gathered from multiple sources, reconcile conflicts, and decompose high-level information, in order to completely understand true requirements and uncover dependencies and challenges

• Provide input into change deliverables throughout the lifecycle of a project, e.g., business impact and change readiness assessments, to ensure the needs of the business are understood and to support the business through the change

• Facilitate User Acceptance Testing, including the preparation of test scripts, in order to support the business users during the testing phases of the project

• Take an active role (and be prepared to facilitate, where appropriate) in Project / Programme and Other Meetings/Workshops to support project delivery

• Undertake any other duties of a similar nature that the company reasonably requests to be performed that are within the expertise and skills of the jobholder, in order to assist in delivery activities where necessary. These may be subject to periodic review and any updates and changes to be introduced after consultation with the person concerned

• Successful Project delivery: low number of post implementation issues, positive feedback from business stakeholders, evidence of use of standard techniques and quality assurance of deliverables

• Successful Project delivery: low number of post implementation issues, positive feedback from business stakeholders

• Successful Project delivery: low number of defects and post- implementation issues, positive feedback from developers, testers and business stakeholders, evidence of prioritised, fully elaborated requirements and traceability from solution through to testing

• Successful Project delivery: low number of post implementation issues, positive feedback from business stakeholders

• Evidence of support provided to stakeholders throughout the change, positive feedback from stakeholders

• Successful co-ordination of UAT, successful project delivery, feedback from stakeholders

• Feedback from stakeholders, evidence of meetings etc. that have been held

• Feedback from stakeholders, peers, manager, completion of any additional duties

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

• Excellent knowledge and understanding of business analysis principles, tools, techniques and methodologies

• Professional accreditation in BCS/ISEB, or equivalent in Business Analysis desirable

• CII qualifications desirable

• Bachelor's Degree in MIS/Computer Science or Business or equivalent education/work experience

• Familiarity with different project / programme management methodologies and ways of working, e.g., Waterfall / Agile

• Familiarity with different flavours of Agile, e.g., Scrum, Kanban, and with popular tools used within Agile, e.g., TFS, Azure DevOps.

• Ability to work effectively at all management levels.

• Strong influencing and facilitation skills.

• Good analytical and problem-solving skills.

• Ability to work in a fast moving environment with rapidly evolving targets.

• Strong customer focus.

• A high proficiency in working through complex business challenges and determining the root cause of problems

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and the ability to interact professionally with a diverse group of stakeholders, including, managers, 3rd party vendors and subject matter experts

• Excellent analytical and problem solving skills; ability to take the initiative and identify creative solutions to problems

• Strong influencing and facilitation skills

• Ability to work in a fast-moving environment with rapidly evolving targets

• Good decision-making skills, taking into consideration conflicting opinions and emerging facts

• Excellent people-management skills

• Ability to work in sensitive situations

• 5 years+ experience in the insurance industry.

• 3 - 5 years' + business analysis experience with a proven record of successful delivery throughout the full project lifecycle from inception to post-implementation and BAU

• Experience of working in a multi- vendor environment, with third party providers and distributed teams in different locations across the globe

• Experience of working with or in an Insurance, Reinsurance or Finance function beneficial