Lead Business Analyst

Job Description

Job Title: Lead Business Analyst Contract Type: Fixed term for 12 months Salary: £62,424.36 (£68,995.23 is achieved after 12 successful performance in the role) Working Hours: 35 hours per week, full time Working Pattern: Monday to Friday, Hybrid Location: Liverpool, Speke 
 If you share our values and are excited about making a significant impact at Riverside, please ensure you attach a current CV and covering letter. At Riverside we recruit to potential not just on skills and experience, so we encourage you to apply even if you don't meet all the essential criteria on the job description. 
Please note that whilst we will accept applications on the basis of any form of valid legal permission to work in the UK, we will be surrendering the Riverside Sponsorship licence, so for the avoidance of doubt, we are unable to apply for any further sponsorships whether on behalf of existing colleagues or candidates. The difference you will make as a Lead Business Analyst 
As a Lead Business Analyst, you will be responsible for leading on the analysis of complex business problems to develop high level designs of new solutions within Riverside whilst working closely with and reporting to the Business Architect.About you 
We are looking for someone with 
•  Experience of providing leadership and successfully leading and motivating teams
•  Experience of working alongside Business Architecture 
•  Experience of influencing and persuading at both strategic and operational levels in a challenging and complex stakeholder environmentWhy Riverside? 
At Riverside, we’re a housing association with a difference – enhancing the everyday for all our customers. For 90 years, we’ve been revitalising neighbourhoods and supporting communities by providing the homes they need to live full, fulfilling and rewarding lives.  
We have a portfolio of over 75,000 affordable residential and retirement homes across the UK. Our work ranges from homelessness services to social care, employment support to retirement living, and we need the best people on board to help us. 
Working with us, you’ll enjoy: 
•  Competitive pay & generous pension  
•  28 days holidays plus bank holidays 
•  Flexible working options available 
•  Investment in your learning, personal development and technology 
•  A wide range of benefits Diversity and Inclusion at Riverside:  
We are inclusive. At Riverside, we value diversity in all its forms. We foster a workplace where all individuals are respected, empowered, and heard. Our commitment to inclusivity drives our success and enriches the lives of our customers and colleagues.  
Riverside is a Disability Confident Employer and operates a Guaranteed Interview Scheme for any applicant who declares they have a disability. If the applicant meets the minimum requirements for the role (as set out in the role profile and/or person specification) they will be guaranteed an interview. 
This role also falls under our Ethnic Diversity guaranteed interview scheme. If you are Ethnically Diverse and demonstrate you meet the minimum criteria for the role you will be guaranteed an interview.Applications may close before the deadline, so please apply early to be considered.  Role Profile  
•  Closely collaborate with the Business Architect to understand business goals, strategic drivers and product roadmaps to develop business solutions that enhance the organisations operating model and delivers against expected outcomes and benefits of the business 
•  Identify and analyse large scale complex problems to generate feasible and creative solutions considering the impacts on customers, products/services, organisation, people, process, technology, and other key factors.
•  Lead and motivate a team of Business Analysts whilst supporting them and their projects to ensure delivery of business analysis, requirements and designs to produce quality business outcomes
•  Own the business analysis methodology and associated standards whilst being “hands-on” in ensuring business requirements are met.  
•  Responsible for shaping and implementing a standardised Business Analysis framework
•  Provide analytical oversight on larger projects and look across the change portfolio and recognising project design dependencies across the domain
•  A trusted and knowledgeable expert who will have oversight across multiple projects or programmes simultaneously within the domain, guiding the teams on their analysis and requirement gathering whilst challenging appropriately to ensure high quality outputs are provided
•  Responsible for planning and resource allocation of Business Analysts within the domain according to priorities set by the business to ensure successful delivery of projects
•  Accountable for leading on domain level design decisions based upon a deep understanding of user, customer and business objectives for that domain
•  Manage your own workload with a key focus on working alongside the Business Architect to address business challenges, remove ambiguity and provide shape and understanding at the early stages of a project 
•  On occasions, personally be assigned to projects as the business analyst to work with business stakeholders to define their requirements, translate these into requirements / user stories, and define acceptance criteria and support the project through it’s lifecycle.
•  Anticipate and manage senior stakeholder expectations, fostering open and honest communication; resolves stakeholder conflict and represents the interests of other stakeholders
•  Facilitate collaborative workshops with senior business stakeholders and customers to define the current state and future high level business requirements in the early stages of the lifecycle enabling the subsequent creation of detailed design, selection and build of business solutions that drive business and customer value. 
•  Collaborate closely with other Lead Domain Analysts to define best practice, continuously review and improve ways of working, encourage learning and managing communities of practice across the Business Design Team

Person specification 
Content heavy role –must demonstrate strong business knowledge and sound business sense, and stay abreast of the industry, business-wise and technology-wise.
Stakeholder complexity –will often need to gather requirements and agree designs across stakeholders, dealing with different interests and resolving disagreements and conflicts, and sometimes needing to challenge poor requirements and design decisions. They will often attend and lead these meetings or workshops with no supervision.
Multi-disciplinary –able to shape business requirements and solution designs that encompass all aspects of the delivery (customer, people, process, policy, technology - system, data, infrastructure, etc.). Often Business Analysts will work across multiple projects at the same time.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience Essential 
•    Experience of providing leadership and successfully leading and motivating teams
•    Experience of working alongside Business Architecture 
•    Experience of influencing and persuading at both strategic and operational levels in a challenging and complex stakeholder environment
•    Experience in supporting the development of business cases and conducting deep-dives into operational areas of a business domain
•    Strong problem-solving skills with the resilience and persistence to make change happen. 
•    Strong industry knowledge across the sector
•    Excellent communication, inter-personal and negotiating skills
•    Experience of identifying, defining and managing benefits for projects 
•    Experience of capturing business requirements within a complex, multi-site organisation. 
•    Strong knowledge of industry standard tools and design thinking. 
•    Experience of business analysis in either SCRUM, Kanban, Lean or other Agile methodologies. 
•    Experience of working in Waterfall methodologies and capturing requirements up-front. 
•    Experience of lean process design
•    Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary team. 
•    Champion business analysis techniques and agile design methodologies to build understanding and capability across teams. 
•    An ability and willingness to learn new skills through a life-long learning approach. 
•    A willingness to take a pragmatic approach to meet business objectives. 
•    Stay relevant through horizon scanning and understanding new technologies to continually challenge the status-quo. 
•    Experience of leading and facilitating creative design workshops with a variety of key stakeholders 
•    Experience of working in a change and project environment 
•    Strong organisational skills in planning, designing and coordinating of tasks

Desirable
•    Certified Business Analysis Professional
•    Proven experience directly managing and developing a team of Business Analysts across multiple projects and a large change portfolio
•    Experience of creating and managing the implementation of a standardised Business Analysis framework and best practice in a change transformation environment. 
•    Specific functional expertise & knowledge relevant to the business area