Functional Analyst, Senior

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Support the alignment of business strategy with system implementations by collaborating with SO, BPU, and stakeholders.
• Identify and propose the best solution approach that meets business needs and ensures regulatory compliance.
• Understand and guide the stakeholders on the features, functions, and capabilities of package and custom-developed solutions.
• Analyze and identify impacts within and across products, applications, integrations, and reporting and highlight any gaps.
• Support SO team in the structuring of incremental values (IVs) for delivery planning.
• Prepare high-level specifications to document key functionality and impacted processes and systems.
• Facilitate story mapping sessions with portfolio leads and delivery teams to ensure features and epics are broken down into small, independent stories.
• Elicit, capture, and document requirements through refinement sessions with SO/BPU to prepare and maintain documentation utilizing user stories, use cases, diagrams, process flows, and mock-ups.
• Capture acceptance criteria to confirm agreement on system expectations with the entire team.
• Coordinate requirements planning & monitoring and dependencies for project delivery.
• Facilitate Definition of Ready (DoR) sessions to ensure a mutual understanding among Solution Owner teams, delivery teams, BPU, and stakeholders.
• Communicate status of assignments, identify gaps/issues impacting targeted timeframes for deliverables, and communicate potential solutions for successful delivery.
• Support the delivery team on requirements by participating in daily stand-ups, defect triage, three-amigos, and other events/ceremonies.
• Produce quality artifacts with minimal rework to ensure the accuracy of deliverables while adhering to requirement standards.
• Provide feedback and coaching for continued growth and enhance others' skills and performance.
• Assist in the investigation and resolution of incidents as needed.

Business Analysis/Elicitation Skills

• Analyze and document the current state system processes and functionality to ensure the project stakeholders understand the context and implications of changes.
• Collaborate with applicable stakeholders to understand and diagram existing or new business processes using a variety of modeling techniques.
• Understand and demonstrate expertise in applying appropriate requirements elicitation techniques (interviews, surveys, brainstorming sessions, etc.).
• Prepares high-level specifications to document key functionality and impacted process and systems and obtains high-level estimates from delivery teams for new projects and/or initiatives, as required.
• Facilitate story mapping sessions with portfolio leads and delivery teams to ensure features and epics are broken down into small, independent stories using INVEST criteria.
• Help identify both functional and technical stories.
• Collaborate with the team to identify dependencies and work together to sequence features and stories.
• Elicit, capture, and document requirements through refinement sessions with SO/BPU to prepare and maintain documentation utilizing user stories, and other analysis assets, such as, use cases, diagrams, process flows, and mock-ups, as needed.
• Captures Acceptance criteria to confirm agreement on system expectations with the entire team.

Requirements Life Cycle Management

• Coordinate requirements planning & monitoring and dependencies for project delivery, working closely with portfolio managers and other delivery leaders.
• Facilitate Definition of Ready (DoR) sessions to ensure a mutual understanding among Solution owner teams, delivery teams, BPU, and stakeholders by reviewing acceptance criteria and functional specification, and obtaining estimates using Planning Poker technique.
• Encourage strong collaboration amongst delivery teams to capture collaborative notes for story development and delivery.
• Confirm expectations for self and team members; proactively provide due dates for assignments, review artifacts produced by team members and provide constructive feedback.
• Communicate status of assignments, identify gaps/issues which will impact targeted timeframes for deliverables, and communicate potential solutions for successful delivery.
• Supports delivery team on requirements by participating in daily stand ups, defect triage, three amigos and other events/ceremonies.
• Produce quality artifacts with a minimal level of re-work to ensure the accuracy of deliverables while adhering to requirement standards.
• Provide feedback and coaching for continued growth and enhance others' skills and performance.
• Assist in the investigation and resolution of incidents as needed.

Leadership and Core Competencies

• Lead by example in actions, attitude, and work ethic; influences through credibility rather than position.
• Motivate and influence others to act in ways that enable them to work together to achieve shared goals and objectives.
• Build consensus and encourage support and collaboration.
• Enable others to grow and succeed through support and opportunities.
• Provide necessary feedback and coaching for continued growth.
• Coach others on improving their active listening and emotional intelligence skills.
• Supporting organizational changes effectively through extensive communication.
• Make informed and effective decisions based on analysis and judgment.
• Understand the key aspects of the business and industry to better engage with stakeholders and improve elicitation processes.
• Promote and support Functional Analysis and SA&E department best practices and standards.
• Support process improvement initiatives for the individual, functional group/team, department or organization and drive implementation to increase effectiveness and efficiency.
• Through self-study remain informed of industry wide trends and departmental/company strategic initiatives.
• Evaluate information critically to identify solutions.
• Knowledge of techniques and tools that promote effective analysis; ability to determine the root cause of organizational problems and create alternative solutions that resolve these problems.
• Adapts to changing business needs, conditions, and work responsibilities and working with a variety of situations, individuals, groups, and varying customer needs.
• Able to adapt to shifting priorities, demands and timelines.
• Demonstrate a strong work-ethic through their ownership and accountability, taking pride in their deliverables, managing their priorities effectively, and supporting their teams’ interests more than their own.
• Maintain and improve business analysis, functional, technical, and professional skills and knowledge through continuous learning based on industry standards.
• Proactively contribute to design of solutions, by providing support.
• Evaluate effectiveness and completeness of proposed solutions.
• Able to grasp and apply new concepts, knowledge, and skills to perform job duties, effectively conveying information and ideas clearly and concisely both verbally and written.
• Embraces feedback and seeks to always improve self.

Required Education, Knowledge, Skills, And Abilities

• Good knowledge and experience of different requirements gathering tools and techniques (use cases, diagramming, process modeling, interviews, workshops, etc.).
• Good knowledge and experience working in Agile delivery methodology (SAFE etc.).
• Hands-on experience with insurance policy administration platforms and integration with telephony systems, including IVR, CTI, call routing, and contact center solutions (e.g., Genesys, NICE, or Avaya).
• Preferred experience in Personal Lines and/or Commercial Insurance, supporting telephony-enabled business processes such as customer service, claims intake, and agent call workflows.
• Experience designing speech user interfaces, including dialog structures, prompts, grammar and supporting logic aligned with business requirements.
• Proficiency with Ring Central, NICE CXone, JIRA and Confluence for documenting user stories.
• Ability to learn quickly in a fast-paced environment and adapt to change.
• Ability to work both independently and in a team-oriented, collaborative environment is essential.
• Ability to adapt to shifting priorities, demands and timelines.
• Strong verbal, written, and interpersonal communication skills.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities.

Required Length And Type Of Experience

• 6+ years of experience as a Business Analyst
• 6+ years of experience in software delivery
• Bachelor’s degree in related field
• Preferred certifications or licenses: Agile project delivery (SAFE – SAFE Agilist or SAFe PO/PM), Business Analysis (CBAP), Property & Casualty Insurance (CPCU, CIC, AINS)