The Business Analyst is responsible for the creation of user stories, and associated user acceptance critieria, tied to features that have been vetted and approved by the Budget/Process Owners. This role is responsible for the analysis of business problems and opportunities, seeking clarification and consensus on user stories and acceptance criteria through collaboration with program, product, business, and technical staff. This role serves as the customer proxy and applies subject matter expertise throughout the delivery process, to perform business case development, strategic planning, requirements elicitation quality testing, user acceptance testing, technical support, and change management.Primary Duties and ResponsibilitiesBusiness Solutions ManagementSupport activities to develop and maintain strategic roadmaps aligned with PHEAA's strategies and objectives within resource and budget constraints.Support the process of demand management, developing business cases and eliciting business requirements to identify and develop solutions that deliver on PHEAA's strategic roadmap.May perform product support and administration as necessary.Responsible for maintaining the team backlog of user stories, enabler stories, and defects.Provide input during Program Increment Planning activities to assit with development team's story estimates and sequencing activities.Responsible for ensuring proper user story to acceptance criteria traceability.Participate in activities to derive accurate cost/business value for epics, features and user stories.Responsible for obtaining consensus from business and technical staff for all user stories, acceptance criteria, and applicable test steps.May be responsible for accepting user stories as done, assuring quality and fitness for use by intended customers.Collaborates with technical staff to identify the scope of enabler work to assist with decision making and sequencing of critical technical infrastructure tasks.Responsible for creation of team demo/showcase for business, product, and program stakeholders.Responsible for cross team collaboration to manage shared feature/story development.Actively participate in team retrospective activities.Project Execution & TestingParticipate in Program Increment Planning Activities to assist with development team's story estimates and sequencing activities.Leads decomposition of user stories and acceptance criteria into executable and traceable test steps.Responsible for creation of test plan and timeline for assigned projects.Leads testing execution for assigned sprints.Responsible for tracking test execution details.Responsible for identification of test data requirements, necessary to execute test steps.Responsible for identification of test environment requirements, necessary for execution of test steps and applicable user demos.Log defects uncovered during Functional Testing and participate in defect triage.Contribute to SCRUM providing updates on testing and defect status.Assist Automation Leads and Automation Analysts in identifying manual test cases that can be automated.Collaborate with Automation Analysts to execute automated test scripts.Other Duties and ResponsibilitiesRemain current on industry specific business developments, technologies and emerging trends.Remain in compliance with applicable governance methodology.Document business and system knowledge, continually sharing knowledge to develop additional Subject Matter Experts.Comply with the Agency's enterprise security and privacy policies and departmental procedures.May collaborate with business operational areas for development of documentation and/or training curriculum.Other duties as assigned.Essential Duties and ResponsibilitiesPhysical Requirements and Work EnvironmentFlexible for occasional off-site travel required.Required SkillsBachelor's degree and two to four plus years of experience in information technology or business analysis, or any relevant combination of training, skills, and/or experience.Understanding of quality management and current testing trends and methodologies.Understanding of PHEAA data flows and underlying application architecture for assigned testing projects.Experience with IT execution tools, including Confluence and JIRA.Understanding of AQT including the ability to write and perform query execution.Experience with capturing testing execution metrics and related test case documentation.Familiarity of processes and procedures relating to application design and development.Demonstrated analytical, problem solving, critical thinking, organizational, and project management skills with the ability to focus attention on details.Demonstrated ability to foster team collaboration and empowerment.Ability to assess and identify dependencies and actions needed to successfully perform work through various teams.Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively and with little supervision to resolve problems professionally and promptly.Ability to think strategically and understand the key business problems PHEAA is trying to solve.Know, understand, and articulate the business value and business cost of IT services.Familiarity with SAFe and/or other Agile Software Development methodologies and tools.Ability to shape business demand to deliver optimal value from available technical capabilities and resources.Understand the Agency business model, business strategy, business processes and operations.Proven track record in developing business solutions.Ability to manage ambiguity and undertake forward planning.Demonstrated ability to be a self-starter.Demonstrated ability to work through complex business problems.Strong communication skills; both written and verbal.Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to interact professionally with all levels within the organization.PHEAA's environment welcomes and supports our employees, customers, and stakeholders; we seek out and value differing perspectives and contributions. Our organizational culture promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion at all levels of the organization.Required ExperienceBachelor's degree
