Senior Business Analyst and Business Analyst

Senior Business Analyst (06-DC-JT-03)
Information Technology Department
Washington, DC

The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago is seeking a Senior Business Analyst (Sr. BA) with three plus year’s experience, to manage requirements, coordinate user interface efforts, lead quality assurance efforts, and contribute to proposal development efforts. This position requires on-site work at NORC's offices in Washington D.C. area, NORC client sites in the DC Metro area (e.g. Rockville, MD) and some travel to other NORC locations.

Responsibilities include: The Senior Business Analyst leads the requirements elicitation process, provides leadership in process improvement and documentation standards, provides leadership in developing software quality assurance plans, test planning and reporting, and coordinates the usability testing process. The Sr. BA will work with internal and external clients to develop and formally document system requirements; create functional and systems test plans; coordinate and execute test cycles; lead the research and resolution of post-launch issues, bugs, and enhancements; work with improving the skills of other analysts; lead usability testing efforts and provide coordination between all parties; and work towards improving these processes across multiple efforts/projects.

The Sr. BA will assist the IT Project Manager in tracking progress on these tasks, notifying the Project Manager (PM) of issues that could impact the schedule, budget, resources or quality. It is expected that the Sr. BA will be heavily involved in tasks that involve hands-on data analysis and web-based application development. The Sr. BA will also assist department management in developing standard templates and implementing process improvements. Finally, the Sr. BA will contribute to proposal development efforts.

Requirements include: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field with three plus years of related exposure to business information systems and process analysis, with some experience in data analysis and knowledge of XML and relational database design and data process modeling.

Candidate should have demonstrated experience in: 1) Structured requirements and specifications development (including Advanced Use Case Modeling) for custom software builds and software builds within existing application frameworks; 2) Creating and executing test plans and cycles, including unit, functional, and systems/integration; 3) Task management skills; 4) The ability to write and communicate complex systems descriptions and specifications for both technical and non-technical audiences; 5) Working with structured methodologies, frameworks, and standards such as the Rational Unified Process, Unified Modeling Language, or the V-model (or variations thereof).

Prior hands-on background in software programming and data management, preferably in a data intensive environment, is a plus. Experience with an enterprise portal package (e.g. Plumtree, IBM Websphere Portal) is a plus. Experience with business-to-business, business-to-consumer or government-to-citizen web applications is a plus. Experience with complex data management (e.g. ERP or data warehousing) is a plus. The candidate should have strong communications skills and be able to work effectively in an on-site consulting environment. The candidate should also have strong writing skills for proposal development efforts.

For immediate consideration, please send a brief letter of interest indicating the job number of the position, salary expectations and a résumé to: [Click here for email].

Or mail them to:
NORC Human Resources
1155 E. 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
www.norc.org
REQUIREMENTS
Business Analyst (06-DC-JT-02)
Information Technology Department
Washington, DC

The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago is seeking a Business Analyst (BA) with one to three years experience, to gather requirements, coordinate user interface efforts, lead the testing efforts, and contribute to proposal development efforts. This position requires on-site work at NORC's offices in Washington D.C. area, NORC client sites in the DC Metro area (e.g. Rockville, MD), DC and some travel to other NORC locations.

Responsibilities include: The Business Analyst details the specification of a system's functionality, to coordinate, and under the direction of a Sr. BA or the PM, drive the system testing effort, and coordinates the user interface design process. This BA will work with internal and external clients to develop and formally document system requirements; create functional and systems test plans; coordinate and execute test cycles; and lead the research and resolution of post-launch issues, bugs, and enhancements.

The BA will be coordinating (by working closely with a user-interface designer) the prototyping and design of the user interface, by:

•Capturing requirements on the user interface, including usability requirements;
•Involving other stakeholders of the user interface, such as end-users, in usability reviews and use testing sessions;
•Reviewing and providing the appropriate feedback on the final implementation of the user interface (as created by other developers, i.e. designers and implementers).

The BA will assist the IT Project Manager in tracking progress on these tasks, notifying the Project Manager (PM) of issues that could impact the schedule, budget, resources or quality. It is expected that the BA will be heavily involved in tasks that involve hands-on data analysis and web-based application development. The BA will also assist department management in developing standard templates and implementing process improvements. Finally, the BA will contribute to proposal development efforts.

Requirements include: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field with one year of related experience in business information systems and process analysis, with some experience in data analysis and knowledge of XML and relational database design and data process modeling.

The candidate should have demonstrated experience in: 1) Structured requirements and specifications development (including Use Cases) for custom software builds and software builds within existing application frameworks; 2) Creating and executing test plans and cycles, including unit, functional, and systems/integration; 3) Task management skills; 4) Ability to write and communicate complex systems descriptions and specifications for both technical and non-technical audiences; 5) Working with structured methodologies, frameworks, and standards such as the Rational Unified Process, Unified Modeling Language, or the V-model (or variations thereof).

Prior hands-on background in software programming and data management, preferably in a data intensive environment, is a plus. Experience with an enterprise portal package (e.g. Plumtree, IBM Websphere Portal) is a plus. Experience with business-to-business, business-to-consumer or government-to-citizen web applications is a plus. Experience with complex data management (e.g. ERP or data warehousing) is a plus.



The candidate should have strong communications skills and be able to work effectively in an on-site consulting environment. The candidate should also have strong writing skills for proposal development efforts.

For immediate consideration, please send a brief letter of interest indicating the job number of the position, salary expectations and a résumé to: [Click here for email].

Or mail them to:
NORC Human Resources
1155 E. 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
www.norc.org


NORC is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer
that values and actively seeks diversity in the workforce.