Business Analyst

It is inspiring to work in an organization where individuals are deeply committed to the mission and values that drive our success. We are dedicated to delivering expert pension service to Illinois public educators as they earn their promised retirement security.

Under the direction of the Deputy Director of Quality & Compliance, the Business Analyst (BA) primary focus is understanding user business processes, workflows, and product and/or project vision through effective communication and collaboration. Responsibilities include facilitating strategy and process improvement meetings, documenting key takeaways, and creating user stories to align with stakeholder requirements. The Business Analyst provides technical support for enterprise software applications, modifies existing business processes, workflows and configurations.

Demonstrates a working knowledge of enterprise applications and how they interrelate to other applications within the system. Utilizes the built in toolsets within applications to tune the processing, data manipulation and integrations as required.

This role entails analyzing business requests, researching feasible options, and improving systems while minimizing complexity. Additional tasks include writing technical documentation, supporting production issues, collaborating with technical teams and business areas to identify solutions, and assisting in test planning and participate in testing as needed. The BA also works closely with the Product Owner and/or Project Manager to identify and address issues, provides training and knowledge transfer, participates in Change Management, IT audits, and may perform system administration when necessary.

Formal presentations, effective stakeholder communication, and a proactive approach to end-user support and product/project success are central to this position.

This position serves on a cross-functional Agile Scrum team; this role involves active participation in Scrum ceremonies, including daily stand-ups, sprint planning, reviews, and retrospectives.

• Open to new ideas and encourages innovative practices amongst peers
• Practices positive interactions - leans on encouragement in place of judgement
• Impresses responsibility on others by displaying ownership in tasks
• Acts in the interest of the overall team
• Able to multi-task in a fast paced, fluid work environment
• Capable of presenting technical ideas and concepts in business-friendly language
• Strong communication skills, emotional intelligence, humility, and drive

• Serve as a Business Analyst (BA) on a cross-functional Agile Scrum team. Participate in daily stand-ups, sprint planning, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
• Communicate and collaborate with users to understand their business processes, workflows, and the overall vision for the product and/or project.
• Coordinate and facilitate business strategy and process improvement meetings with users capturing meeting minutes, specifications and documenting any key takeaways.
• Create user stories based on requirements from internal and external stakeholders, aligning product design and development efforts.
• Analyze business requests, determine feasibility, research areas for improvement, and identify the best options to meet business needs.
• Communicate plans effectively and conduct structured walkthroughs of requirements with cross-functional team members, business users, and leadership.
• Improve existing systems and processes while minimizing complexity by leveraging IT resource expertise, identifying automation opportunities and assisting in finding cost-effective solutions.
• Serve as a liaison between business users and Quality Engineering staff to discuss test considerations and scenarios
• Coordinates with operational teams on testing strategies, planning and tracking, and keeping in alignment with requirements and solutions
• Review manual and automated test plans, provide guidance on test scenarios, edge cases, non-functional requirements, and assist with testing as needed
• Identify issues with new or improved functionality by participating in smoke testing, risk-based testing and user acceptance testing during each iteration cycle and communicate any potential impacts on daily operations.
• Actively support end users throughout the project lifecycle to ensure business needs and expectations are met.
• Coordinate research and resolution to questions pertaining to product backlog items, service tickets, and reports.
• Facilitate discussions and actively participate in data conversion and/or archiving activities.
• Perform research utilizing various repositories to extrapolate and analyze the data in order to provide solutions to the development team and business users.
• Write clear and concise functional documentation, technical reports, and system specifications to support the design of technical solutions.
• Work closely with the development team to convey user goals and needs, and to address any issues that arise to find innovative…