If you are looking to apply for the post of Business Analyst, it would be wise to understand the basics of Business Analysis and be well-prepared about the interview in advance. And it’s a plus having a Business Analyst training certification to add it to your assets for the job. Since you are here, you are definitely looking for the right set of interview questions which you must be acquainted with before you appear for the interview.
Business Analyst Interview Questions and Answers:
- Who is a Business Analyst and what does he/she do?
Answer: A Business Analyst is the one who acts as a medium between stakeholders in an organization. He has to connect with different stakeholders of the organization so that they could illuminate and finalize the requirements. He/ She also have to aid the project team the process of project planning, designing and validating all the developed constituents. He/ She is also required to possess sufficient domain knowledge so that they are able to categorize the business needs amongst the stakeholders who fit in different domains.
- What is requirement as far as Business Analysis is considered?
Answer: A requirement is a targeted solution which has to achieve specific business goals or the objectives. This is a basis of any project which must be authorized by all the stakeholders and also the business users before it is implemented. Also, each and every requirement is required to be appropriately documented for future reference commitments.
- Name few of the documents which are required by the business analysts to handle?
Answer: Following are the documents:
- User stories
- Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM)
- Business Requirement Document
- Project vision document
- Use cases
- Requirement Management Plan
- System Requirement Specification (SRS)
- Test case
- Functional Requirement Specification (FRS)
- What is SRS and what are its key elements?
Answer: SRS i.e. System Requirements Specification (SRS) is said to be a set of documents that describes all the prominent features of a system. It principally includes a variety of elements which defines the intended functionality required by the stakeholders and customers to satisfy the end users.
The key elements are as follows:
- Scope of work,
- Functional Requirements,
- Non-functional requirements,
- Dependencies and so on.
- What do you understand by the term ‘Use case’?
Answer: A use case can be defined as an illustrative demonstration of a system which defines how a user would use a system in order to achieve a goal.
- What do you mean by gap analysis?
Answer: Gap analysis is one of those techniques with the help of which one can analyze the gap between the existing system and the targeted system.
- What do you mean by Requirement Prioritization? List down the different techniques used for it.
Answer: Requirement prioritization is basically a procedure to assign requirements which is based on the business urgency to different phases, cost, schedule, etc.
The different techniques are listed as follows:
- Kano Analysis & More
- MoSCoW Technique
- Requirements Ranking Method
- 100-dollar method
- Five ways
- What do you think about Requirement elicitation technique?
Answer: It can be defined as the method of requirement congregation from different kind of users, customers, stakeholders and this can be achieved by organizing meetings, interviews, questionnaires, brainstorming prototyping, sessions etc.
- What is the central difference between the need in a business analysis perspective and a requirement?
Answer: ‘Needs in a business analysis perspective’ can be well-defined as the future goals of a business. While, requirements is said to be the representation of the thorough description of the needs of business.
- A business analyst is required to possess what kind of skills?
Answer: The skills that a Business analyst must have are as follows:
- Fundamental Skills
- Business Analysis Skills
- Technical Skills
Each of the above categories can be further classified as:
- Fundamental skills: Managing skills, Communication, Problem Solving, and Research.
- Business Analysis Skills: Creativity, Analytical skills, Decision making, Documentation, Requirement Elicitation.
- Technical Skills: SDLC Knowledge, Domain knowledge, MS Office, Operating systems, Programming languages and Knowledge of database.
- In the “Use case diagram”, what exactly would you think is an alternate flow?
Answer: Use diagram is an alternative solution in a use case that should be tracked in case of any failure that could be faced by the system.
- Define the term Personas.
Answer: Personas can be embodied as the User-centered design methodologies. If you are required to allow an application which can perform on a demographic basis, fictional characters are theorized by the business analysts. The specific behavior scenarios are also created during design based on their probable demographics.
- What does INVEST stands for?
Answer: Investing is the act of allocating funds to an asset or committing capital to an endeavour (a business, project, real estate, etc.), with the expectation of generating an income or profit.
Full form of INVEST: It is basically derived from the words: Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Sized Appropriately and Testable. Together they make it as INVEST.
- What exactly is Kano Analysis?
Answer: Kano Analysis is basically used to analyze a system regarding its necessities to recognize its effect on customer satisfaction.
- What exactly is the variance between alternate flow and exception flow of a use case?
Answer: Alternative flow can be said to be the alternative actions that can be performed other than the main flow and it can also be called as an ‘optional flow’.
Alternate flow are the alternative actions that can be performed apart for the basic flow and might be considered as an optional flow whereas Exception flow is the path traversed in case of the error or an exception being thrown.
For e.g. on a Login page the ‘Forgot password’ is the alternate flow and system showing ‘404 error’ when correct username and password are entered is exception flow.
- Do you think a Business Analyst could be of any help in the process of testing?
Answer: Yes, this is because a business analyst has a thorough understanding of the overall system requirements and also the challenges that come along with it. And for this reason, he/she can be instrumental during the testing phase in order to run it properly and be able to resolve any kind of system related query with absolute ease.
- What do you mean by BPMN and what are the basic elements associated with it?
Answer: BPMN is the abbreviated form of Business Process Model and Notation. You can call it as a graphical representation of the business processes.
There are 5 basic elements of BPMN:
- Swimlanes
- Artifacts
- Flow objects
- Data
- Connecting objects
- What is benchmarking?
Answer: Benchmarking is all about calculating the performance of an association so that they could contest/participate in the industries. A company could measure its policies, rules, performance and other related measures in this process.
- How would you be able to perform requirement gathering?
Answer: The requirement gathering process can be divided into various steps which are skeptical to the SDLC cycle. Each of these steps would involve:
- Specific tasks to perform
- Documents to produce
- Principles to follow
- List down the complications that a Business Analyst may face?
Answer: A business analyst might have to face any of the below listed problems:
- It could be employee related issues
- It could be access related
- It could be business policies related issues
- It could be business model errors
- Or, it could be technology related problems
- What do you mean by BMA i.e. Business Model Analysis?
Answer: Business model analysis is one of those techniques with the help of which we can analyze whether a business is workable and valuable regarding economic, social and other related perspectives. Business Model Analysis can be reflected as the basis of any kind of required business model change and innovation of any type of organization.
- What do you mean by process design?
Answer: Process design can be defined as a method that provides a support system to a business to analyze the challenges that they face and then provide appropriate solutions in order to solve those problems. Certain workflows are created with the help of process design to achieve the best possible result within a given set of time.
- Define Agile Manifesto.
Answer: Agile Manifesto is fundamentally a software guide which will highlight certain information about the agile development principles which would ensure iterative answers.
- In what kind of conditions should you use a Waterfall model instead of Scrum?
Answer: Whenever the requirement is supposed to be a simple and specific one, you should definitely go for Waterfall model instead of opting for Scrum.
- List down the 4 prominent key phases of Business Development.
Answer: Following are the key phases of the Business Development:
- Forming
- Storming
- Performing
- Norming
- Elucidate the term ‘increment’.
Answer: Increment basically refers to the summation of all the product backlog items which have been completed in a sprint. Also, the new increment value comprises of the raise/increment of the prior sprints.
- What is Kanban? Explain briefly.
Answer: Kanban is known as a tool which helps the agile team to visually guide and manage work as it progresses. In addition to that, it would work as a scheduling system in agile just-in-time production. The Kanban board is also used to express the current development status and it does it efficiently.
- What are the tools that are helpful for Business analysis?
Answer: Following are the tools that are helpful for Business Analysis:
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Word
- Power point
- MS Project
- ERP Systems
- What is a misuse case?
Answer: A misuse case can be defined as an activity performed by a user which in turn causes system failures. It is a malevolent activity and must be avoided in all cases.
- What are the different kinds of skills to solve any problem related to business analysis effectively?
Answer: Following are the skills that you must possess if you are a skilled and efficient business analyst:
- Excellent communication skills
- Sufficient technical knowledge
- Problem Analysis skills
- Domain knowledge
- Leadership skills
- What is the role of a Business Analyst in an organization?
Answer: The main role of a business analyst in an organization is finding out what the organization really needs, even forecasting future issues to a certain extent and also suggesting and implementing ideas and solutions for the betterment and growth of the organization.
- How can you say that a requirement is good or perfect?
Answer: The features and standards of a good requirement can be pointed out using a rule known as the SMART rule which is as follows:
- Specific – The goal should target a specific area of improvement or answer a specific need.
- Measurable – The goal must be quantifiable, or at least allow for measurable progress.
- Attainable – The goal should be realistic, based on available resources and existing constraints.
- Relevant – The goal should align with other business objectives to be considered worthwhile.
- Timely – The goal must have a deadline or defined end.
- Differentiate a Risk and an issue?
Answer: Risk is an event that has not happened yet, it is a possibility as well. On the other hand an Issue is something like an event or condition that’s has already happened and can be currently active as well.
- When do you know that you have gathered all the requirements?
Answer: Once the requirements are gathered, they are validated by the business users/clients and only after the approval of the business users, the requirements are then considered to complete. There are some criteria’s to validate the requirements which are as follows:
- First of all the requirements should coordinate with the project’s business case.
- When the requirements could be accomplished via the available resources.
- When the stakeholders of the project case are in mutual agreement with the elicited requirements.
All the requirements which pass these criteria’s are considered to be final. Then they can be documented and used in the project scope.
- What all steps are included in developing a product from a basic idea?
Answer: The steps involving the development of a product from a basic idea are as follows:
- Idea generation: At this stage, a product development team will take the concept narrowed down in the fuzzy front end and work on brainstorming this concept into concrete ideas for products.
- Idea screening: At this stage all the ideas which are useless and non-beneficial towards the organization and the product are discarded.
- Concept development: At this stage, the legal and practical aspects of developing and launching the new product are studied.
- Product development: once the above three criteria are fulfilled, then the product development starts i.e. the actual real life development of a product with the help of technology and other important tools used for it.
- Commercialization: It is the process of bringing new products or services to market. Basically monetizing your product.
- What are the skills that a business analyst must possess?
Answer: There is not a fixed skill-set one needs to have for the job of business analyst. Though elicitation skills, problem solving skills, communication, and management skills are the fundamental skillset of a Business Analyst.
- List out the documents that are used by a BA in a Project?
As a Business Analyst one has to deal with various documents such as Functional Specific Document, Technical Specification Document, and Business Requirement Document, Use case diagram, Requirement Traceability Matrix etc.
- Define Pareto Analysis?
Answer: Pareto Analysis is a statistical technique in decision-making used for the selection of a limited number of tasks that produce significant overall effect. It uses the Pareto Principle (also known as the 80/20 rule) the idea that by doing 20% of the work you can generate 80% of the benefit of doing the entire job.
- What is UML modelling?
Answer: UML stands for Unified Modelling language. A level of standard used by the company for the purpose of Documenting, constructing, and also visualising various components of a system is known as Unified Modelling Language.
- Why is it necessary for a business analyst to get involved during the implementation of requirements?
Answer: Gaining domain knowledge and providing an analytical solution are one of the most important skills that a Business analyst should possess. So when there is an actual implementation of a requirement or a project going on for a client a business analyst can use this knowledge to resolve many business strategies that may arise during the implementation stage.
- What are the best practices you follow while writing a use case?
Answer: There are a lot of practices one can follow to write a clear and well-Documented use case according to ones preference although the more commonly used practices are:
- Capture both Functional and Non-Functional requirements in the use case.
- Include use diagrams along with the use case.
- Include the UI details/notes in the use case.
- Define scope creep.
Answer: When there is an uncontrolled change/deviation in the project’s scope without an increase in the other resources (scheduled budget) of the project then it can be called as a Scope creep.
- Which documents are used to capture non-Functional requirements?
Answer: There are two documents that are used to capture non-functional requirements, and they are:
- SDD (System design document)
- FRD (Functional Requirement Document)
- What does INVEST stand for?
Answer: INVEST stands for:
- Independent
- Negotiable
- Valuable
- Estimable
- Sized appropriately
- Testable
- What are the problems that a business analyst may face?
Answer: From the starting point to the end point of the project a business analyst may face the following problems:
- Employees related issue.
- Technology related problems.
- Access related.
- Business policies related issues.
- Business model errors.
- What is the difference between Business analysis and business analytics?
Answer: Business analysis: it recognizes the business issues and provides a solution for that problems.
Business analytics: it manages and handles the data to get insights into the business and later on generates a report.
- What is Requirement prioritization?
Answer: Requirements prioritization is the process to allocate requirements based on the business urgency to different phases, schedule, cost, etc.
- What do you do when two stakeholders have conflicting requirements?
Answer: One needs to be patient enough to sit down with them and negotiate. You dig deep into both of the requirements to understand the roots. Try to find a way to come to a resolution that works for everyone or at least reach an agreement on which requirement has more value to the business overall..
- Why are flowcharts important?
Answer: Flowcharts play an important role in explaining concepts and processes to both technical and non-technical members.
- What do you know about SDD?
Answer: The System Design Document describes the system requirements, system and subsystem architecture operating environment, files and database design, input-output formats, detailed design, processing logic, and external interfaces.
Every organization who is hiring a business analyst expects him/her to each its job applicant to know at least this much so that you stand fit for the job. So, you must prepare these business analyst questions and answers and learn the basics. We are sure that you will ace the interview if your work dedicatedly for it.
All the best for your future endeavors. Kudos!
1 Comment
Pingback: Business Analyst Roles and Responsibilities | BA Job Description