Chapter 15:Business Analysis Interview Questions and Answers(Part-1)
1. What is planning? What is the difference between strategic Planning and Tactical Planning?
Planning is preparing a sequence of action steps to achieve some specified goal within specified time limit.
| Strategic Planning | Tactical Planning |
|---|---|
| Strategic planning focuses on long term | Tactical planning focuses on short term |
| Strategic planning focuses more on analyzing the future | Tactical planning focuses on everyday functioning of the organization |
| Strategic plans are less detailed | Tactical plans are more detailed |
| Strategic planning is mostly done by upper management | Tactical planning is mostly done by lower management |
2. What are user stories?
A user story is an approach used in agile software development to capture a description of a software feature from an end-user perspective. The user story describes the type of user, what they want and why. A user story helps to create a simplified description of a requirement.
3. What are your day to day activities?
- Collecting the requirements
- Analyzing the requirements
- Documenting the requirements
- Liaising with the stakeholders
- Liaising with development and testing teams
- Involving in user acceptance testing
4. What are the projects you worked on? Explain.
Answer to these questions depends on project that you have worked so far in your career. You can include the following things in the project explanation. Purpose of the project, Architecture, SDLC method used, Technologies used (such as Front end, Back end and database), any tools used (if any) and its purpose.
5. How do you collect the requirements?
There are various techniques for collecting requirements. Following are the main requirement gathering techniques used by business analysts.
Brainstorming: In this technique business analyst will have discussion with the subject matter experts to generate the ideas and all possible solution to the problem. After all the solutions/ideas are gathered, best solution to the problem is selected.
Document Analysis: This technique involves analyzing the existing documents of the current process to gather the requirements.
Facilitated Sessions: Bring together the group of people who have common purpose to have discussion the requirements.
Following the people around: This technique is helpful to understand and gather the information about the current process.
Group Interviews: Interviewing two or more people to get the information you want to collect.
Joint Application Development (JAD): All participants involved in JAD discussion need to stay until complete requirements are documented and agreed to.
One-on-One Interview: In this technique business analyst need to sit with the client and ask what they want.
Prototyping: In this technique initial version of the solution is developed and shown to client, client then gives additional requirements.
Questionnaires: In this technique group of questions to be answered by the users is prepared by the business analyst. This technique is useful to collect requirements from remote users and when there is need to collect requirements from more users.
Request for Proposal (RFP): External service providers/vendors will receive requirements thorough RFP.
Survey: This technique is useful to collect information from large number of users in relatively small amount of time. Survey questions link will be sent to users to answer.
Use Cases: This technique is used to describe the solution from the end user perspective.
6. How do you decide when you have done with the requirements?
Once BRS document is agreed and approved/signed off by all stake holders, we can consider we have completed the gathering of requirements.
7. What is business process?
Business process is a set of activities performed to deliver specified service or product to the customer. It can also be defined as set of activates performed to accomplish the organization’s goal.
8. What is metadata?
It is data about data. It is a set of data that describes and gives information about other data.
9. What the phases of SDLC model?
- Planning
- Requirement Specification
- Design
- Implementation
- Testing
- Deployment
- Maintenance
10. Explain your involvement during testing and user training.
As a business analyst I supported the testing in test process by clarifying the business requirements to testing team. As a business analyst I also created user training manual for the new product.
11. Tell about the documents that you have created.
As a business analyst I mainly created Business Requirement Document (BRD). I have also involved in the creation of:
- Functional Requirement Document (FRD)
- System Requirement Document (SRD)
12. Explain UML.
UML – Unified Modeling Language.
It is a general purpose modeling language in the field of software engineering that is used to provide a standard way to visualize the design of a system.
13. Explain BPNM.
BPNM- Business Process Model and Notation
It is used for graphical representation of business process in a business process model.
14. Explain agile methodology.
Agile is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative and incremental development.
Agile Methodologies Include: Scrum, Extreme programming (XP)and Rapid Application Development (RAD).
Scrum
Scrum is an iterative and incremental agile software development framework for managing product development. Scrum is an Agile framework for completing complex projects.
3 Core Roles Involved in Scrum Framework
- Product Owner
- Development Team
- Scrum Master
Sprint: (or iteration) is the basic unit of development in Scrum. The sprint is a time bound effort; i.e, it is restricted to a specific duration. The duration is fixed in advance for each sprint and is normally between one week and one month. After completion of each sprint specific functionality is delivered to customers.
Extreme programming
Extreme programming (XP) is a software development methodology which is intended to improve software quality and responsiveness to changing customer requirements.
Rapid Application Development (RAD)
The RAD (Rapid Application Development) model is based on prototyping and iterative development with no specific planning involved.
Below are the four Values of Agile Manifesto:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
What is Gap Analysis? How you do it?
Gap analysis involves the comparison of actual performance with desired performance. Gap refers to the space between "where we are" (the present state) and "where we want to be" (the target state). A gap analysis may also be referred to as a needs analysis, needs assessment or need-gap analysis.
Steps for performing Gap Analysis
- Identify the current state & analyze the current sate- using documentation, brain storming sessions, conducting interview, observing project activities
- Identify the future state
- Identify and describe the gap
- Steps and proposals for bridging the gap
Download Gap Analysis Document Format
What is System Application/Integration? What are its advantages? How you do it?
Application integration is a process of linking together the different computing systems/ software applications/subsystems physically or functionally so that the system is able to deliver the overarching(comprehensive) functionality.
Applications can be linked either at the back-end via APIs or the front-end (GUI)
Advantages/Uses of System Integration:
- No need to store similar data on different systems (saves storage space).
- Helps to simplify and automate business processes.
Application/System/Subsystem Integration Steps/Process:
1.Selection of the application service end points that you want to connect(Applications to be connected)
Where in your app will the user select the service endpoint(s) they want to connect with your application? Are end-users or administrators going to be setting up the integration? Is it a one time setup or is on-going interaction required? These and many other factors will drive the optimal interface to present your users in selecting the services they want to connect with your app.
2.Authentication Mechanism
Determine the type of authentication mechanism end point will use (e.g. OAuth, SAML) and the workflow required by the endpoint.
3.Identify the data that need to be mapped
Any services provide a method to discover the objects and data fields at the endpoint to provide the data structure, field names and formats that need to be mapped into your application. You’ll need to determine which objects and data fields that are relevant to your application. Often this is a subset of the available data at an end-point.
4.Provide specification for data mapping
Generally data mapping entails a two-step process. The first – provide a default mapping from an endpoint’s standard data structure into your application’s data structure. The default mapping saves your users time by pre-mapping obvious data fields such as name, address , postal code, etc. The second step is to provide your application’s users with the ability (generally through a UI) to map custom data objects and fields into your application. Through this UI you may also consider providing the ability to override your default mappings. Your application will require the ability to persist these data mappings for each instance of an end point that is connected with your app.
5.Provide specification for data transformation
Your application may use different formats for data values such as Date, Time or other forms of data. Transformation services may be required to translate the data between your app and the endpoint’s data structure to ensure integrity of the data. As with data mapping your application will need to persist the transformations for each instance of an endpoint that your app is connecting with.
6.Provide specification for CURD(S) Operations
Determine which methods your application needs to execute against each data object (Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete, Search). Consider which app will be mastering the data vs. consuming the data to avoid conflicts and having to manage more complex data synchronization scenarios. Often you can start with a read-only integration and then introduce update and delete methods as you mature your integration.
7.Specify Synchronization/Communication method
Determine if you need to synchronize data between your application and the endpoint. Many endpoints support webhooks that can be used to simply automate the workflow keeping your application up-to-date with changes (events) at the endpoint such as new data being added, deleted or modified.
8.Log Management
How will you support and manage the integration? You will need to capture usage and log data to support the integration to keep your operation team in the know. Determine how to handle alerts and notifications from the endpoint regarding service outages, API changes, etc. Lastly, although this is not a step in the integration process, you will need to consider how to maintain the integration. APIs change frequently, so develop a strategy now for staying on top of changes introduced by the services you are connecting. This includes managing version control, to ensure your integration doesn’t break as changes are introduced.
What is Middleware? Explain.
Middleware is software which lies between an operating system and the applications running on it.
Essentially functioning as hidden translation layer, middleware enables communication and data management for distributed applications. It is sometimes called plumbing, as it connects two applications together so data and databases can be easily passed between the “pipe.” Using middleware allows users to perform such requests as submitting forms on a web browser or allowing the web server to return dynamic web pages based on a user’s profile
Common middleware examples include database middleware, application server middleware, message-oriented middleware, web middleware and transaction-processing monitors. Each programme typically provides messaging services so that different applications can communicate using messaging frameworks like simple object access protocol (SOAP), XML web services, representational state transfer (REST) and JavaScript object notation (JSON). While all middleware performs communication functions, the type a company chooses to use will depend on what service is being used and what type of information needs to be communicated. This can include security authentication, transaction management, message queues, applications servers, web servers and directories. Middleware can also be used for distributed processing with actions occurring in real time rather than sending data back and forth.
What is BPM? Explain.
Business process modeling (BPM) is the activity of representing processes of an enterprise, so that the current process may be analyzed or improved.
Business process modeling aims to understand the inner workings of the organization – from end to end. For this reason, various artifacts are used such as organization charts, positioning diagrams, process flows, among others. They provide the overview of the activities performed by employees on a daily basis, creating a basis for studies, process improvement, cost estimates and correct understanding of businesses processes.
The business objective is often to increase process speed or reduce cycle time; to increase quality; or to reduce costs, such as labour, materials, scrap, or capital costs. In practice, a management decision to invest in business process modeling is often motivated by the need to document requirements for an information technology project.
Most recent BPNM(Business Process Modeling and Notation) version is 2.0
BPNM tool example: edraw software
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