Senior Business Analyst - ASPEN

Senior Business Analyst – ASPEN – Docotel Group

Location: Chicago, IL (Hybrid)

Duration: 6 months with potential extension

Industry

Experience:

Public School

Position Overview: The Business Analyst (Consultant) will demonstrate the value of data‑centric improvements across Aspen, focusing on data quality, continuous improvement, system modernization, and transparency to improve district operations and student outcomes. The role partners closely with central office leaders, IT teams, and school‑level staff to identify needs, streamline processes, quantify the impact of current challenges, and articulate measurable value of system upgrades.

The analyst will support the rollout of enhancements for three priority projects. The ideal candidate brings strong analytical abilities, exceptional writing skills, and the ability to translate complex systems and data into clear, actionable stories and business cases.

• Lead efforts to define and measure the tangible value of Aspen modernization initiatives across the district, including identifying inefficiencies, quantifying time saved through automation, assessing improvements in data quality, and calculating operational and instructional benefits.
• Develop value frameworks that articulate measurable outcomes such as reduced manual effort, increased system accuracy, improved compliance, enhanced user engagement, and greater equity in digital access.
• Build benefit models that capture operational, academic, and workforce impacts across school, network, and district levels.
• Quantify time savings, efficiency gains, data quality improvements, and scalability benefits for current and future‑state solutions.

• Quantify operational inefficiencies such as inaccurate records, high manual processing time, inconsistent course mappings, manual SECA scheduling, and lack of mobile access to Aspen.
• Develop value cases for each project, including expected improvements in data quality, staff efficiency, student/parent engagement, compliance and audit accuracy, and equity and access.

• Business cases and value impact models
• Data dictionaries and mapping documents
• Gap analyses and process flows
• User stories and acceptance criteria
• Stakeholder journey maps
• Analysis of large data sets (SECA assignments, course codes, student portal usage metrics) to support project recommendations and validate expected impact.

• Serve as a liaison between business units (Teaching & Learning, Innovation, ODLSS, Portfolio, IT, etc.) and technical teams to understand needs and align project goals.
• Lead interviews, workshops, and requirements‐gathering sessions with school staff, schedulers, department leads, and product owners.
• Translate stakeholder needs into business, functional, and technical requirements for each project.
• Prioritize requirements based on business value, system impact, and equity considerations.
• Document current‐state challenges and map future‐state workflows.

• Assist in creating communication plans, timelines, training materials, and implementation guides.
• Support drafting memos, maintaining documentation repositories, and ensuring version control.
• Help develop policy guides, templates, and rubrics tied to data transparency and continuous improvement.
• Provide ongoing data analysis to monitor project impact and inform cross‑functional district priorities.

• Develop end‑to‑end business cases for system redesigns, data governance initiatives, and AI learning ecosystems.
• Lead requirements gathering through interviews, workshops, process mapping, and analysis of current‑state systems.
• Translate findings into detailed functional requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, and future‑state workflows.
• Collaborate with IT, product, data, and academic teams to validate feasibility and ensure alignment with district policy, data governance, and instructional strategies.
• Support vendor evaluation, RFP development, and system capability assessments.