Senior Business Analyst

Job Overview

The Senior Business Analyst role based in Abu Dhabi entails detailed analysis, documentation, validation, and management of business requirements. This position acts as a crucial bridge linking business stakeholders with project and technical teams, ensuring that solutions support the organization's goals, enhance operational processes, and generate tangible business benefits. The role also includes responsibilities around product ownership such as backlog management and facilitating Agile delivery to drive successful digital transformation projects.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

• Engage with stakeholders through workshops and interviews to gather, analyze, and validate both functional and non-functional business requirements.
• Develop comprehensive functional specifications, user stories, use cases, process flows, and perform process mapping and gap analysis to highlight improvement areas.
• Ensure requirements are accurate, complete, traceable, and aligned with company objectives, while supporting UAT by preparing test cases and managing resolution of defects.
• Maintain and prioritize a product backlog that reflects business strategy and the product roadmap, crafting detailed user stories with explicit acceptance criteria.
• Communicate effectively between business and technical teams, manage stakeholder expectations, and provide continuous project updates on risks and changes.
• Participate in Agile ceremonies such as sprint planning, stand-ups, sprint reviews, grooming, and retrospectives, providing clarifications to development teams and collaborating with UI/UX designers.
• Support project scope management, change requests, and monitor delivery for compliance with business requirements.
• Identify and recommend ongoing improvements to business processes and workflows backed by analysis of data and performance metrics.
• Maintain all business analysis documentation according to organizational standards and governance.

Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Information Systems, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field; a Master's degree is advantageous.
• Between 5 to 8 years of relevant experience in Business Analysis, Product Ownership, or digital transformation roles, with experience in both Agile and Waterfall environments.
• Demonstrated ability in delivering enterprise applications, digital solutions, and business transformation initiatives.
• Proven experience working closely with cross-functional stakeholders and software development teams.

Technical Proficiency

• Strong grasp of business analysis frameworks including business process mapping, gap analysis, SWOT analysis, use cases, user stories, and process modeling.
• Familiarity with tools such as JIRA, Confluence, Azure DevOps, and data analysis with MS Excel.
• Working knowledge of SQL and data visualization/reporting tools like Tableau or Power BI.
• Sound understanding of the software development lifecycle and Agile (Scrum/Kanban) as well as Waterfall methodologies.
• Experience with modeling tools like UML or BPMN is a plus.

Key Competencies

• Strong analytical, critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making capabilities.
• Excellent communication, presentation, stakeholder management, and relationship-building skills.
• Attention to detail, quality assurance, and effective planning with the ability to juggle multiple projects simultaneously.
• Skilled in facilitation, negotiation, team collaboration, and leadership.

Preferred Certifications

• Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP)
• Certification of Capability in Business Analysis (CCBA)
• PMI Professional in Business Analysis (PMI-PBA)
• Agile Scrum Certifications such as CSM or PSM are advantageous.

Performance Indicators

• High percentage of requirements delivered without rework.
• Positive stakeholder feedback on solution delivery.
• Completion of business analysis deliverables within agreed timelines.
• Effective backlog prioritization and readiness.
• Success rate of User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
• Project delivered on time, within scope and quality standards.
• Number and effectiveness of process improvements.
• Quality and comprehensiveness of business documentation.