Business Analyst Interview Questions and Answers
If you are looking for a job in the Business Analyst profile and concerned a bit about what questions might be asked to you? Don't worry, you are at the right place, here in this article we will be discussing all the core business analyst interview questions.
Before discussing the questions, you may want to read a bit about the business analyst profile and its role.
Business Analyst is responsible for analyzing the business or organization. The core responsibility of the business analyst is to play the role of a bridge between the business and the technology solutions. He is responsible for documenting all the business needs and processes that an organization should follow. This is the role that varies organization to organization, a project to project, or even domain to domain.
This is the profile which requires the people who have good analytical thinking and should be a good decision-maker. This person represents one's business to the client or other businesses; thus, this person should have problem-solving and negotiation skills.
In this article, we have brought some of the best ba interview questions that you will find helpful when preparing for the business analyst interview.
Most Frequently Asked Business Analyst Interview Questions
- Building an exhaustive business analysis, which outlines the problems, opportunities, and solutions for business.
- Allocation and anticipation
- Planning and monitoring
- Deviation reasoning
- Estimation
- Broadcasting
- Characterizing business requirements and broadcasting them back to clients.
| Agile | Waterfall |
|---|---|
| Uses the iterative approach which allows in changing the scope of the project | Uses the sequential approach where the project is divided into different phases |
| It is okay when the scope of the project is not defined | It is okay when the scope of the project is not defined Scope of the project should be defined beforehand |
| Availability of the customer is required through the entire project | The availability of the customer is needed only when we reach the defined milestone. |
A Business Requirement Document centers around the business point of view as it holds the minutiae of the business explanation for a project.
| BRD | SRS |
|---|---|
| Stands for Business Requirements Document | Stands for Software Requirements Specifications |
| It includes the documentation of all the requirements provided by the client | It includes the documentation describing the functional and non-functional requirements of the software |
| It represents the functional specification of the software | It represents the functional as well as technical specifications of the software |
| It is created by Business Analysts | It is created by System Architect |
Yes, flowcharts are essential. One of the significant benefits of a flowchart is it gives the visual clarity on the process or progress.
With proper flow charts, it is easier to demonstrate the workflows to stakeholders. They can also play the mode of instant communication.
A business model is an integrated framework to understand, design, and test your business assumptions in the marketplace. This model can be used in establishing new business opportunities or can help in the growth of an existing business in the marketplace.
- General reports
- Aggregate reports
- Dashboard reports
| Business Analysis | Business Analytics |
|---|---|
| The primary focus is on processes, techniques, and functions. | The primary focus is on data and statistical scrutiny. |
| Responsible for solving or managing complex business problems. | Responsible for predicting future states. |
| Skills: Analysis, Documentation, Stakeholder management | Skills: Statistics, data analysis, software programming |
Note: This question is something that has been asked almost in all the business analyst interview questions.
There are multiple approaches that one should consider while gathering business requirements.
- Brainstorming
- Analysis of the document
- Requirement workshops
- Prototyping
- Observation
Risk management is the process of examining, recognizing, and afterward reacting to any risk that emerges over the life cycle of a project.
Building a risk management convention into your organization's way of life by making a consistent arrangement of standard devices and layout, with proper training, can reduce overhead after some time.
- They are classifying the significant stakeholders.
- Objective and requirements are clearly defined.
- They are classifying all the regulations, construction and design standards, closure on technology, budget, etc.
- They are classifying the external interfaces which lie in between our system and, therefore, the outside world.
A software requirements specification (SRS) is a comprehensive summary of software that needs to be developed. It contains all the requirements, whether they are functional or non-functional.
Essential Elements (in general SRS):-
- Functional requirements
- System requirements
- Technical requirements
- Constraint
- Assumptions
- Criteria of acceptance
A gap analysis process allows all the organizations to decide how to best accomplish their business objectives. With this analysis, one can compare the current state with an ideal state or goals, which features inadequacies and opens the door for improvement.
Note: The answer to this question varies domain to domain; technical skills might be needed if your field or profile relates to it. However, for general ba interview questions, the above mentioned is the perfect answer.
Key strengths of a business analyst
- Communication skills
- Problem-solving skills
- Analytical skills
- Good listener
- Relationship building skills
Business analysts should have a clear picture of the client's business and the current state. Also, have a good idea about the problems they are facing for the same.
If BA gets the clarity on these things, then whatever the client quotes, BA will be able to analyze and provide the solution accurately.
Business analysts face many problems, such as:
- The delusion of Business analysts' scope of work.
- Change in client requirements or business needs.
- Conflict with clients
- Specifications created in the beginning are not satisfying the needs of developers.
- Client requirements or needs.
- Business analysts should make a systematic plan which defines the people, process, technology, etc.
- What business rule should apply here?
- Future process map
Unified Modeling Language (UML) is used as a general-purpose designing language, especially in the field of software engineering.
Nowadays, people have found multiple ways to represent it in the form of workflows or processes with the use of several tools out there.
Requirement prioritization is a way by which one can determine the candidate's requirements of a software product that should be included in a particular release.
Techniques used:
- Ranking
- Grouping
- MoSCoW technique
- Bubble Sort technique
- Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
These are the business analyst interview questions and answers which will help you while interviewing for a business analyst position. Looking forward to knowing your experience, make sure to share it in the comments or any other knowledge you gained during the interview process.