Way2know: Business Analysis-Chapter 16: Business Analysis Interview Questions and Answers

Chapter 16: Business Analysis Interview Questions and Answers(Part-2)

What is process/Performance improvement ? Explain 3 process/performance improvement methodologies.

Process improvement is the proactive task of identifying, analyzing and improving upon existing business processes within an organization for optimization and to meet standards of quality. Variety methodologies are available for process improvement, following are the main.

LEAN
Six Sigma
5S

LEAN

The core idea is to maximize customer value while minimizing waste. Simply, lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources.

A lean organization understands customer value and focuses its key processes to continuously increase it. The ultimate goal is to provide perfect value to the customer through a perfect value creation process that has zero waste. To accomplish this, lean thinking changes the focus of management from optimizing separate technologies, assets, and vertical departments to optimizing the flow of products and services through entire value streams that flow horizontally across technologies, assets, and departments to customers.

Eliminating waste along entire value streams, instead of at isolated points, creates processes that need less human effort, less space, less capital, and less time to make products and services at far less costs and with much fewer defects, compared with traditional business systems. Companies are able to respond to changing customer desires with high variety, high quality, low cost, and with very fast throughput times. Also, information management becomes much simpler and more accurate.

Main Focus : Eliminate the waste and reduce process lead time.

Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a process that uses information and statistical analysis to measure and improve an organization’s performance. It is a measurement-based approach that focuses on process improvement and variation reduction through the application of Six Sigma improvement projects. Unnecessary variation in how a process is implemented can result in significant delays and poor quality of decisions and outputs. The Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) method is a system for improving existing processes that fall below specifications. Like Lean, Six Sigma focuses on identifying and applying steps that produce continual, incremental improvement. Six Sigma can also be used to develop new processes, services, or products at Six Sigma-quality levels (often referred to as "Design for Six Sigma").

Main Focus: Process improvement & Reduce process variation.

5S is a simple methodology for creating a clean, safe, orderly high performance work environment. The concept is that an orderly environment promotes efficiency. It’s a time saver to help increase performance efficiency and productivity. 5S includes the following steps:

Sort — Clearly distinguish needed items from unneeded and eliminate the latter. E.g.( excess supplies, outdated data or information. Books, catalogues and files).
Set In Order/Straighten — Organize and identify a specific place for everything. Keep needed items in the correct place to allow for easy and immediate retrieval. Immediately recognize items out of place, and an excessive or insufficient amount of items. Eliminate time wasted locating items; Improve customer service.
Shine — Keep the workplace neat and clean. A clean and organized environment can boost employee morale and create a sense of ownership and belonging.
Standardize — This is the method by which sort, straighten and shine are made habitual. Standardization enhances organizational performance and eliminates the need to re-do the first 3S’s. It encourages consistency.
Sustain — The final S involves the effective, ongoing application of 5S in order to improve organizational performance. Here, you’re simply maintaining established procedures.

What is Primary key in database ? Explain with example.

Primary key is a key in relational database table that uniquely identifies each record in a database table.

Example: In the below Customer table Customer ID is primary key.

Customer ID	Name	Address	Phone
1001	Ram	111, Steeet1, City1, state1, country1	+91 1234567890
1002	Raj	22, Steeet2, City2, state2, country2	+1 1234567890

What is Foreign key in database ? Explain with example.

A Foreign key is a field (or collection of fields) in one table that refers to the Primary key in another table. A Foreign key is a key used to link two tables together. It acts as a cross-reference between tables because it references the primary key of another table, thereby establishing a link between them.

For example: Consider two tables below customer table and order table. Customer ID is primary key in customer table. Customer ID is foreign key in order table. Customer ID filed can be used to link these two tables.

Customer Table

Customer ID	Name	Address	Phone
1001	Ram	111, Steeet1, City1, state1, country1	+91 1234567890
1002	Raj	22, Steeet2, City2, state2, country2	+1 1234567890

Order Table

order ID	Item Name	Price	Quanitity	Customer ID
ORD111	Rice	50	2	1001
ORD112	Dal	80	2	1001

What is Retrofit?

Adding a component (accessory) to something that did not have it when created/manufactured.

How to list tables in all databases ?

SELECT TABLE_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES

How to list tables in a particular database?

SELECT TABLE_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES AND TABLE_CATALOG='dbName'

What is ITIL? List ITIL V3 stages/ Processes.

ITIL, formally an acronym for Information Technology Infrastructure Library, is a set of detailed practices for IT service management (ITSM) that focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of business. ITIL is a global framework of best practice for IT service management.

ITIL V3 stages/processes: