The growing need of a Business Analyst can be gauged from the fact that companies, whether established or growing, hire Business Analysts. It is important to understand that business analyst tools used to understand the needs of clients make it imperative for the companies to update their workforce regularly.
If you have the basic clarity and understanding of your profile, it won’t be difficult to reach the interview stage. But the business analyst interview questions can get tricky as you need to come across as someone who knows what they are dealing with.
Here are some of important Business Analyst interview questions that may help you in your next Business Analyst interview.
1. What is the role of a Business Analyst in a firm?
Like an architect, a Business Analyst tries to understand the business requirements of the client to design and build a system according to their needs. To get a computer system developed that would cater to the needs of the client is the role assigned to a business analyst of the company. A Business Analyst also acts as a link between the client and the IT team of the company. S/he is required to make use of various business analysis tools and techniques.
2. Which business analysis techniques are used by analysts?
Three popular business analysis techniques used by business analysts are:
a. Strategic Analysis: This is a pre-project work that is used to identify the problems in a business. With this, assessment is done about whether a business needs a revamp or the extent to which things need to be modified. The business case is developed after the identification of issues and brainstorming is done to come up with possible solutions. After this, the project is initiated (subject to approval).
b. Tactical Analysis: The stage following the strategic analysis is the tactical analysis stage. Here the communication network is to be maintained between the business client and the IT company. It is a linkage stage where any lag can give rise to chaos. Therefore, effective communication done by the business analyst is the key.
c. Operational Analysis: To make sure that the changes made, and the software developed is working or not, the operational analysis is done. To develop a software system that caters to the needs of business clients needs to be functional.
3. What is benchmarking in Business Analysis?
The comparison of the processes of an organisation is known as process benchmarking. It is done to assess the gaps between current processes of one’s business with that of the best practices in the industry. Benchmarking could be strategic or competitive. The former is done to fulfil the objectives of the business while the latter is done to study industry practices aimed at achieving a competitive edge over others. Problem areas are identified, processes to be benchmarked are prioritised, research is conducted and planning is done in the benchmarking process.
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4. What is the importance of an Activity Diagram?
As an Activity Diagram enables the presentation of easy to follow and an organised visual of the workflow, it is important to use it to illustrate the activities that are to be followed in business analysis. It can be used to describe an entire system or just a use case or an activity within the use case.
There are various elements used in an activity diagram.
• Initial nodes
• Control Flows
• Activities
• Decisions
• Guard Conditions
• A fork and join
• End nodes
5. What do you understand by SQL and of what use is it to a Business Analyst?
Structured Query Language is a computer language which has a Relational Database Management System (RDMS) at the backend. It allows better understanding and interpretation of documents which contain results from databases. Business Analysts use SQL to extract data from the database. As data is of utmost importance to do any type of analysis, it’s important for a business analyst to extract and manipulate data. Five domains in which that data is used are
• Assessment
• Planning
• Analysis
• Traceability and monitoring
• Evaluation
6. What is the difference between risk and issue?
Risk, as the name states, is an unrealised threat to the business or the organisation. It is uncertain and its magnitude may change due to changing variables. Risk arises when there is a change or a break in the existing system- whether within or outside the system. Some of the business risks are
• Strategic Risks- When the organisation’s strategic plans like inefficient sales management system or having a conservative approach towards a new concept, are at risk.
• System Risks- If the computer system of an organisation is not shielded against cyber risks and is vulnerable to cyber-attacks through bugs and viruses, it poses system risk.
• Process Risks- If the day-to-day business of the organisation gets disrupted, it is termed as process risk.
• Compliance Risks- If rules and regulations of the government are flouted, it causes compliance risk.
• Security Risks- Unsecure network and data assets pose a security risk.
• Financial Risks- Loss of money by the organisation results in financial risk.
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