Our publishing client has an immediate need for a Senior Business Analyst coming out of the publishing or management consulting industry to serve as a liaison between I.T. and internal clients. The Senior Business Analyst works with the appropriate I.T. development team(s) to take a lead role in coordinating and managing I.T. projects through completion.  In support of a client, the individual is responsible for communicating client requirements to I.T. and ensuring that these requirements are met. As an advocate for I.T., the Analyst is responsible for managing customer expectations, communicating schedule/resource constraints, and minimizing scope creep. In addition, we are looking for the analyst to help manage external vendors in conjunction with the business who own that relationship

The specific areas of focus will be transactional systems and reporting needs.  The primary responsibilities of this job include understanding the needs and priorities of the business; articulating the business benefits of an initiative, assisting with defining the scope of a project; proactively developing and documenting business requirements; and assisting the development teams with building systems or applications that deliver business value.

The successful candidate must be comfortable working within multiple project methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, and Scrum).  The analyst works closely with end users, business leads, and other IT resources throughout all stages of a project life cycle, including product/application definition, ROI/payback analysis, design, and testing to ensure business requirements are successfully implemented. This is a hands-on position requiring strong analytical skills, project management experience, and technical and business expertise.

• Responsible for working with the business to: analyze initiatives, assist with product definition & development, build business cases, provide cost/benefit analysis, establish key performance measurement objectives, and identify business staffing requirements for IT projects.
• Facilitates Business Priority Management with the Business through the use of Product Roadmapping and User Story Backlog Grooming.
• Responsible for partnering with business/user group representatives to understand business processes and underlying informational and process automation needs, then translating those needs into formal, documented business requirements.
• Translates documented business requirements into an actionable, accurate work package (functional specification document, user stories, etc…) that can be approved by the business/user group.
• Supports overall coordination between all involved parties, using project management skills and techniques.  Helps I.T. development teams to define project scope and ensures timely closure on the requirements of projects through iterative review of business requirements via story elaboration exercises.
• Coordinates and assists with QA, User Acceptance Testing, and business signoff.
• Demonstrates knowledge of the Industry and ability to engage and contribute in Business discussions with meaningful ideas.
• Ability to represent the organization in client conversations; articulating Synapse's capabilities from a Business and Technical perspective and supporting the Business in achieving the objective of the client relationship.
• Ability to develop business solutions and effectively demonstrate understanding within the broader organizational goals.
• Assists with business user training, as needed.

MUST HAVES:

• 7+ years of IT/Business experience
• Experience in the publishing industry and/or I.T./Management consulting
• Experience creating executive presentations
• Relationship management experience in support of Business units
• Strategic Planning and Analysis
• Experience in writing detailed business plans and business cases with detailed scopes of work and cost/benefit analysis (ROI)
• Current with business best practice methods, IT technology trends and can correlate potential impacts that technology may have on the business
• Proficient in, or can quickly grasp applicable business processes and functions
• Proficient in, or can quickly grasp Agile Methodology tools and techniques
• Experience with business process reengineering
• Proficiency with Microsoft Suite (Word, Excel, Power Point, Project, and Visio)
• Education:
• B.S. in Management Information Systems, e-Commerce, Internet Development, Business or a related discipline