York U: Redefine the Possible
 

Complete Position Details

Posting Number: YUSA-10452
Position Title: Senior Business Analyst
Department: Systems, Office of the Registrar
Category: Technical/IT
Reports To: Manager, Student Systems
Affiliation/Union: YUSA
Band: 15
Salary: Annual salary of $71,741
Hours of Work: 8:30 am - 4:30 pm
Position Start Date: May 23, 2017   Position End Date: May 22, 2018
Full-Time / Part-Time: Full-Time
Duration: Temporary
 
Purpose:
In advancing the Division of Students’ vision as ‘Partners in Student Success’, the Systems team within the Office of the University Registrar (OUR) collaborates tightly with University Information Technology (UIT) in the development, maintenance and user support of all student-facing and administrative student information systems to effectively enhance the student experience from student recruitment through to convocation. The Systems team supports and enables OUR functional partners (Recruitment and Admissions, Student Finance, Core Registrarial Services and Student Client Relations), Faculties and other university units to achieve their student service objectives through operational support and systems enhancements. Reporting to the Manager, Student Systems, the Senior Business Analyst actively leads systems development projects to ensure on-time and quality delivery of systems solutions for the entire student lifecycle including recruitment, admissions, enrolment, scholarships and awards, student accounts, financial aid, registrarial services, academic scheduling, student records and convocation. The Senior Business Analyst is knowledgeable in Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and is subject matter expert with strong communication and facilitation skills required to facilitate discussions on business processes, project scope, detail requirements and requirement prioritization. The Senior Business Analyst elicits systems and data requirements, leads requirements analysis, evaluates proposed solution designs, maintains project scope, strategizes test plans and proposes risk mitigation strategies. Through strong partnerships with UIT and other stakeholder groups, the Senior Business Analyst focuses on delivering the most appropriate systems solutions to meet business needs. Another significant responsibility of the Senior Business Analyst is the development and execution of transition plans to ensure successful operationalization of newly developed systems solutions. The Senior Business Analyst is also responsible for the identification, initiation and execution of improved project intake, planning and implementation methodologies within OUR Systems and UIT in order to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our project delivery in support of student success.
 
Responsibilities:
SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS:
Facilitate discussions with OUR partners and other cross functional stakeholders to elicit systems and data requirements. Lead discussions on requirement prioritization and resolve requirement conflicts. Facilitate workshops to review business processes and identify improvement opportunities. Lead the work of business requirements analysis. Partner with UIT to identify and analyze solution options and to determine the most appropriate design to meet business needs. Collaborate with project team to define project activities and dependencies, commit to milestones, project measurements, and timelines, create work breakdown structure (WBS). Facilitate/coordinate project scope and communicate business requirement change requests. Review proposed functional and design specifications. Engage UIT and business users to strategize and create a test plan document Actively engage throughout the systems design, development, testing, implementation planning and rollout phases of the project Provide ongoing status updates to stakeholders on project progress, issues, and potential risks. Identify, communicate and propose mitigation strategies to the project team and where necessary, escalate critical issues to business sponsors. Perform reviews and walkthroughs of project deliverables to ensure quality and completeness of functionalities. Define project success measures. Accountable for quality project artifacts to support each phase of the systems development life cycle; these include but not limited to business requirements, use cases, functional and non-functional requirements, work breakdown structure, action and decision logs, test cases, change requests, issue logs and transition plan. Lead post implementation review discussions with project team to identify project improvement opportunities. Propose and implement strategies for project methodology improvements. Oversee and coach the junior analysts on managing project activities and delivering milestones. Percentage of time: 60%

SYSTEMS MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS:
Collaborate with the Operations team to transition from projects to post implementation maintenance and support. Provide training and support as required to the Operations team on new systems. Collaborate with the Operations team to review their project recommendations and prioritizations. Recommend systems enhancements to improve the Operations team's cyclical operations. Percentage of time: 20%

INTERNAL OUR PROCESS IMPROVEMENTS:
Recommend and lead discussions on internal OUR process and service improvement initiatives as they relate to Systems Projects. Collaborate with the Operations team to document and share tools, tips and knowledge within the OUR Systems team. Collaborate with the Operations team to lead discussions on the development and tracking of OUR Systems team success measures. Interpret OUR Systems team performance metrics and develop initiatives for improvements. Define, implement and support a protocol between Operations and Project teams for a seamless transition from project inception to implementation to post implementation operational support. Perform analysis and provide input to support OUR Systems resources planning. Percentage of time: 15%

OTHER DUTIES AS ASSIGNED. Percentage of time: 5%
 
Contacts:
Type: Students, staff and management across York University; OUR Systems colleagues, other OUR partners: Recruitment & Admissions, Student Financial Services, Core Registrarial Services and Student Client Relations; UIT Student Information Systems (SIS), UIT Client Services, UIT Project Management Office, other UIT partners; Faculty partners; Division of Students (VPS) Communications, other VPS partners such as Counselling & Disability Services (CDS), Student Success Centre (SSC), Career Centre (CC), etc; Office of Institutional Planning & Analysis (OIPA), central Finance, central HR, internal audit, other York University administrative units; external entities such as banks, OUAC, government agencies and software vendors; other post-secondary institutions.
Purpose: Share, collaborate, and clarify information, facilitate discussions with stakeholders on project related matters; elicit business requirements; requirements analysis, prioritize requirements, project planning, communicate on project related updates, solutions design review, user testing, systems rollout, risk mitigation.

Type: Students, staff and management across York University; OUR Systems colleagues, other OUR partners; UIT Student Information Systems (SIS), other UIT partners; Faculty partners; other Division of Students partners, Office of Institutional Planning & Analysis (OIPA), central Finance, central HR, internal audit, other York University administrative units.
Purpose: Share, collaborate, and clarify information, operationalize newly developed systems, discuss new project opportunities, incident investigation, user support.

Type: Students, staff and management across York University; OUR Systems colleagues, other OUR partners; UIT Student Information Systems (SIS), other UIT partners; Faculty partners; other Division of Students partners, other York University administrative units.
Purpose: Share, collaborate, and clarify information, solicit feedback on customer experience, communication on team performance and process changes.
 
Communications:
English
  • Basic reading skills (eg. Scanning text, reading forms, etc)
  • Basic writing skills (eg. Writing brief notes, completing forms, etc.)
  • Comprehends written material (eg. Asking & answering simple or repetitive questions, etc.)
  • Write non-complex documents (eg. Extracting information/details, reading reports/correspondence, etc.)
  • Sustains conversation on specific topics (eg. Explains standard policies/procedures/services, etc.)
  • Comprehends complex texts (eg. Reading & interpreting policy papers/research papers/technical reports, etc.)
  • Composes documents (eg. Drafting reports/recommendations/research papers/summaries, etc.)
  • Sustains in-depth conversation (eg. Interpreting & expressing complicated ideas, making presentations, etc.)
 
Supervisory Responsibilities:
Affiliation   Number of Individuals   Direct/Indirect   Type
YUSA   2   Indirect   Administrative/Secretarial/Clerical

The following supervisory responsibilities are required for the individuals listed in the corresponding affiliation:
Affiliation   Responsibilities
YUSA  
  • Training and Development
  • Provides direction or instructions
 
Physical & Sensory Demands/Environmental Conditions:
VDT use: 60%
Prolonged visual attention: 50%
Prolonged audio attention: 60%
Hand/finger dexterity: 40%
Prolonged sitting: 50%
 
Education:
University Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts degree with subjects in computer science, information technology, project management or business analysis. Or equivalent related College diploma with subjects in computer science, information technology, project management or business analysis. Or equivalent combination of 7 years progressive training and business analysis experience in system development projects supporting multiple business areas, including 2 years at a senior analyst capacity.
 
Experience:
With university degree - 4 years of experience in technical projects, systems enhancements or systems maintenance to support multiple business areas, including 1 year at a senior analyst capacity. With college diploma - 5 years of experience in technical projects, systems development or systems maintenance to support multiple business areas, including 2 years at a senior analyst capacity. Demonstrated experience in delivering presentations, technical writing, and facilitating discussions with cross functional teams, working with and supporting complex, high profile projects that impact interconnected business functions. Formal training in the requirements management lifecycle, business analysis, or project management. Knowledge and experience in various systems development methodologies including Waterfall, Iterative and Agile. Demonstrated experience in applying various techniques to elicit, analyze and communicate requirements. Demonstrated experience in business analysis planning to identify tasks and deliverables and to estimate level of effort. Demonstrated experience in delivering quality presentations on work flows, business requirements, system design, test plans, risk management and project status. Demonstrated strong technical writing skills to develop thorough, coherent and informative requirements and other project documents. Advanced skills in Excel, Access and PowerPoint. Experience in using project and resource management tools such as MS Project, Jira, Basecamp and Confluence. Experience in creating process flow, data flow and entity relationship diagrams using an Unified Modelling Language (UML) tool such as Visio.
 
Skills:
Possess strong facilitation skills to resolve requirements and solution design conflicts to deliver the best possible solution to meet business needs. Strong analytical and interpretative thinking skills. Strong relationship building and self-management skills. Customer-focused, and demonstrated ability to manage competing priorities. Knowledge in SQL. Share and live our divisional values: Respect, Excellence. Innovation, Collaboration, Accountability, Care and Inclusion.
 
 
Additional Notes:
This position requires the candidate to produce a verification of degree(s), credentials(s), or equivalencies from accredited institutions and/or international equivalents at the time of interview.
 
Job Specifications:
Summer Hours: Friday hours reduced by 1 hour first weekend in June to Labour Day Weekend.
Overtime Availability in this Position: Rare. Occasional overtime will be available.
Vacation Restriction Definition: Vacation may be restricted depending on operational requirements. Reasonable advanced notice will be provided to staff of pending operational and project related restricted periods.
 
Dates:
Internal Posting Date: April 28, 2017
Internal Application Deadline: May 5, 2017
 
Extended Posting Date: May 29, 2017
Extended Application Deadline: June 12, 2017
 
External Posting Date: May 29, 2017
External Application Deadline: June 12, 2017

Please Note: All applications must be received by 4:30 p.m. on the posted deadline date.

Thank you for your interest in a career with York University.

Are you interested in applying to YUSA-10452? To apply to this position click the following link to access our online application portal: https://hr2.apps01.yorku.ca/machform/view.php?id=13474

During the application process, please ensure that:

  • You have submitted a complete application package using our online application portal*. A complete application package consists of the completed application form, a cover letter and resume by 4:30 p.m. on the posted deadline date. When emailing your application package, ensure that you have attached the resume, cover letter, and application form to your email.
  • A complete application package has been submitted for each job posting you are applying for.
  • You have quoted the appropriate posting number on your application form and in the subject line of your email. Please keep the posting number and position description for future reference or inquiries.

The University welcomes applications from all qualified individuals, including individuals within the University's employment equity categories of women, persons with disabilities, members of visible minorities and aboriginal persons, individuals of diverse gender and sexual orientation and all groups protected by the Human Rights Code. York University is committed to employment equity and diversity and a positive and supportive environment.

York University offers accommodation for applicants with disabilities in its recruitment processes. If you are contacted by York University regarding a job opportunity or testing, please advise if you require accommodation.

We are committed to enhancing our environmentally and socially responsible practices for the benefit of all members of the York community. Our long term perspective recognizes our responsibility to be innovators and to continually work as a community to reduce our ecological impact.

Please note, due to the high volume of applications received only those selected for an interview will be contacted.