Description
"This is a position is contract that will renew in July for another year and yearly thereafter
Job Description
Our client is seeking a Business Analyst/Project Manager
Overview:
The Business Analyst/Project Manager will be responsible for the overall success of a project, requirements definition, and quality assurance activities, or a portion thereof as assigned (if working under the direction of another project lead).
As a Business Analyst, they serve as a liaison between functional users and technical staff in the development or modification of typically complex information systems. He or she leads in definition of user business requirements, assures requirements are appropriately addressed in application implementation, and redefines business processes to maximize application usage as required. Responsibilities include creating and executing test plans, performing hands-on functional testing, and leading user acceptance testing. This position will also provide ongoing user support, including troubleshooting and resolution of more complex system issues.
Project Management responsibilities include time and resource management, financial planning, scope management, issue and risk management, project execution. This person plans, directs, and monitors the work produced by the team(s). He or she is responsible for managing stakeholder relationships, including general, ongoing communications, negotiation of scope and schedule changes, key risks, issue resolution, and ongoing progress reporting.
The Business Analyst/Project Manager shapes client expectations, and manages contracts and scope related to the project. This person must have a broad knowledge of industry best practices and be able to proactively identify potential project risks in order to advise and consult with clients on risk identification, analysis, and mitigation strategies.
Job Requirements:
- 4-5 years job-related experience
- Excellent skills in data organization and analysis, problem solving, requirements elicitation and documentation
- Strong skills in business process analysis and workflow diagramming; experience using these skills on projects to develop workflow-based enterprise software
- Working knowledge of Software Development Lifecycle Process, including incremental/iterative/Agile and Waterfall methods
- Knowledge of SQL, database, and relational data models
- Effective analytical and presentation skills
- Strong verbal, written and interpersonal skills; ability to tailor communication to different audiences, such as management, stakeholders, users, SMEs, developers, and others
- Ability to lead others to articulate additional possibly hidden needs
- Ability to communicate and work effectively with both functional area experts and technical team members
- Excellent organizational and time management skills
- Self-motivated and able to work independently
Preferred experience:
- Experience leading a project or part of a project
- Experience being both a PM and BA on the same project
- Experience working with Project Management software and tools
- Experience or strong knowledge in one or more technical solutions/architectures such as web services, portals, business process modeling, UI technologies like AJAX, relational databases, Business Intelligence preferred (coding experience not required)
- Ability to manage work on multiple projects with competing priorities
- Experience overseeing user acceptance testing and providing test cases/test scenarios for UAT
- Experience working with web application development teams who use technologies such as Java and Drupal
- Experience working in research/educational institutions or small IT companies preferred
Sample Projects:
- Projects supporting researchers and staff internally at our client as well as for the entire campus, including proposal management, compliance tools, researcher dashboards, talent management software, and financial applications
- Project types include in-house Java development, web development, Cognos reports, implementation and support of third party software, enterprise systems integration, as well as database and systems infrastructure projects.
Education:
A Bachelor's degree is required: Preferred degree in Business, Accounting, or IT-related field