In today’s business analyst sector, the job-seeking competition is at an extreme level. That is to say, many candidates are keeping their focus on getting that one position that you are applying for. So, only individuals having certifications to prove their advanced skills and knowledge can get that position. Talking about the certification, earning an ECBA (entry certificate for Business Analysis) can help you take your career to a higher level. Moreover, it will help in proving that you have the required knowledge of best practices for business analysis to the potential employers.
No success comes without practicing. In other words, whether applying for a beginner role or for an experienced role in business analyst, both require you to work and practice your interview skills. However, after earning the certification the next major step is to crack an interview to get a good position in the top organization. And, this is a difficult way in which you have to be on top amongst hundreds of candidates to earn that position. Related to this, in this blog we will talk about the top business analyst interview questions that will help you a lot during the interview process.
ECBA Top Interview Questions
ECBA (Entry-level Certificate for Business Analysis) helps you to show your skills and knowledge to the employer during the hiring process. Moreover, having a valid certification not only increases your CV/Resume value but it will also increase the chances of your hiring. The first thing to get the job you want is to practice your answering skills. This will help you collect your thoughts to give the best answer possible to those questions. However, below you will get the top business analyst interview questions that could be asked during the interview and help you a lot to crack and get well placed.
What do you understand by the term Business Analyst?
- The business analyst connects different people in a company. Their job is to make sure everyone understands what’s needed for a project. This helps the project team plan, design, and check the work they’ve done. Business analysts know a lot about the company’s area of work, and they can help people from different parts of the company understand what’s important.
Can you explain the difference between a requirement and need in a business analysis?
- Needs are the advanced level definitions for the future goals of a business. And, requirements are the representation of the detailed description of that business needs.
Define flowchart. Explain its importance?
- A flowchart uses symbols and pictures to explain how a system works. It’s important because it helps both developers and people who may not know much about technology understand the system better.
Explain CATWOE in business analysis?
- CATWOE is a tool that stands for Customers, Actors, Transformation Process, Worldview, Owners, and Environmental Constraints. It’s a useful tool for collecting information from data to help us make smart decisions.
What do you mean by CaaS?
- CaaS stands for Communication as a Service which is outsourced schema interaction that can be leased from a single Vend over the internet.
What is the major difference between risk and issue?
- A risk is a future event that negatively impacts business objectives. Whereas, the issue is a result of events currently happening.
Define Agile Manifesto?
- Agile Manifesto refers to a guide for software developers that explains about Agile development principles to ensure iterative solutions.
What is the Kanban tool in terms of Business analysis process?
- This tool helps agile teams by showing them how their work is progressing and helping them plan when to make things. It also tells them what stage their work is at right now.
Explain the term increment in business analysis?
- Increment term refers to the sum of all product backlog items, which is completed in the previous spring.
Define an activity diagram with its important elements?
- Think of the activity diagram as a picture that tells you how work moves around in a business. It shows all the different jobs happening in different parts of the company, like HR, Sales, and Accounts. In this picture, you can see where the work begins, the different tasks, how they are linked, choices that are made, tasks that happen simultaneously, conditions for decisions, where tasks come together, and where it all ends.
Explain the abilities of a Business Analyst.
- Firstly, they have analytical thinking and decision-making skills.
- Secondly, they have knowledge in business and industry.
- They have advanced skills in business process management.
- Lastly, they have technical & soft skills as well as problem solving and negotiation skills.
Can you name files that a business analysts handles?
Some of the common documents that a business analyst use to handle include:
- Project vision document
- Use cases
- Requirement Management Plan
- Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM)
- Business Requirement Document
- System Requirement Specification (SRS)/ System Requirement Document (SRD)
- Test case
Explain Exception in Business Analytics?
Exception is defined as the unpredictable changes in an applications or during the final process.
Define System requirement specification?
System Requirements Specification (SRS) explain the features of a system and it includes a variety of elements that defines the functionality required by the stakeholders and customer to satisfy the end-users. SRS is a advanced level technical specifaction document of the software.
What do you understand by term requirement?
- The requirement is basically to achieve specific business goals or objectives. Moreover, it works as an input to various stages of SDLC. This refers to the basis of a project that must be validated by the stakeholders and business users before implementation.
Define business modeling.
- Business modeling means identifying the value proposition for a business and then building a step-by-step approach for operating the business. However, it includes vision, mission, and strategies to achieve the goals.
Explain Use case?
- A use case is like a story that tells you what happens in a process. It helps you understand what features are needed and how to fix any problems users might face.
What system use to perform required functions?
To perform the necessary functions knowledge management is used.
Define Gap Analysis?
- Gap Analysis is a way to figure out the difference between what we have now and what we want to have in a system. The “gap” is like the number of things we need to do to get the result we want. It also helps us compare how well the system works now to how well we want it to work in the future.
Define requirement elicitation technique.
- Requirement elicitation means collecting information from people like stakeholders, users, and customers. This is done by talking to them, asking questions, having meetings, and using different methods to gather what’s needed.
Define non-functional requirements and what is its capturing process?
- Non-functional requirements define the performance level characteristics to show how fast it can respond and how smooth is a user interface, etc. of the application under development (AUD). The non-functional requirements are captured in the SRS document in its appointed section.
What are the skills a business analyst must have?
The skills of a business analyst are categorized in three types:
- Firstly, Fundamental skills. This includes problem-solving, communication, and management skills.
- Then, Technical skills. This includes IT skills like MS Office, operating systems, Programming languages, Knowledge of database, SDLC knowledge, etc.
- Lastly, Business Analysis skills. In this, there is requirement elicitation, documentation, and decision making.
Explain how you will define quality requirement as a business analyst?
This quality requirement can be measured using the SMART rule. SMART rule means specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely.
- Firstly, specific. This means that the requirement should be specific and is documented properly.
- Secondly, measurable. In this, different parameters can measure the success criteria of the requirement.
- Then, attainable. This explains that the requirement should be feasible within the scope of the given resources.
- After that, relevant. In this, the requirement must be in line with the project’s business case.
- Lastly, timely. For this, the requirement should communicate early in the project lifecycle.
Describe the documents used for capturing non-functional requirements?
- There are two documents used for capturing non-functional requirements that are System Design Document (SDD) and Functional Requirement Document (FRD).
Define alternate flow in the use case diagrams?
- This is another plan or action in a use case that should be followed if something goes wrong with the system.
What are your views on involvement of a business analyst in testing?
- Yes, because a business analyst has a good understanding of the system’s requirements and the challenges it may face. So, they can play a key role in ensuring the testing phase runs smoothly and addressing any system-related issues that may arise.
Explain the best practices to follow during writing a use case?
Some of the best practices to write a use case are:
- Firstly, the use case must provide some value back to the actor or stakeholder.
- Secondly, the functional and nonfunctional requirements must be captured appropriately in the use case.
- Thirdly, the use case must have one or more alternate flow with the main flow.
- Lastly, the use case should only describe what the system does and not how it is done which means it will not describe the design. However, it will act as a black box from the viewpoint of an actor.
Define INVEST?
- The term INVEST stands for independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, sized appropriately and testable. Invest can assist project managers and technical teams to deliver quality products/services.
Explain the term Pareto Analysis?
- Pareto Analysis is a 80/20 rule that is a decision-making technique used for defect resolution and quality control. Here, 80/20 means, 20 % causes 80 % effects in a system.
Do you know about Personas?
- Personas represent the User-Centered Design methodologies that check if an application is capable of performing on a demographic basis. Moreover, it has fictional characters that are taken by the business analysts on the basis of their possible demographic-specific behavior.
Define UML modelling?
- Unified Modelling Language (UML) is an industry-standard for documenting, constructing and visualizing various components of a system. However, this modeling standard is used for software development and for describing job roles, organizational functions, and business processes.
Explain the difference between exception flow and alternate flow?
- Exception flow is the way things go when something goes wrong or there’s an error. On the other hand, alternate flow is what happens differently from the main flow and is like an optional path.
Define BPMN?
BPMN stands for the Business Process Model and Notation. It refers to the graphical representation of business processes.
What is the use of Kano analysis?
- Kano Analysis is used for analyzing systems regarding its requirements to identify its impact on customers’ satisfaction.
Explain the different types of actors in use case diagrams?
There are two types of actors in a Use case-
- Firstly, Primary actors that start the process
- Then, Secondary actors that assists the primary actor
Name the different types of gap that a business analyst can encounter during gap analysis?
There are mainly four types of gap –
- Firstly, the performance gap. This defines the difference between expected performance and the actual performance.
- Secondly, the product gap. This explains the gap between budgeted sales and actual sales.
- Then, the profit gap. This is the variance between a targeted and actual profit of the company.
- Lastly, the manpower gap. This defines the gap between the required number and quality of the workforce in the organization.
Define Benchmarking?
- Benchmarking means measuring the performance of an organization to compete in the industry. However, in this process, a company may measure its policies, performance, rules and other measures.
What do you mean by requirement prioritization? Explain the different techniques used for it?
Requirements prioritization refers to the process for allocating the requirements based on the business urgency to different phases, schedule, cost, etc. The techniques used for requirements prioritization are:
- MoSCoW Technique
- Requirements Ranking Method
- 100-dollar method
- Kano Analysis & More
- Five Whys
Define process design?
- Process design is like a tool to solve business problems. It helps create efficient workflows to get the best results quickly.
Define the essential problem solving skills of a business analyst?
This includes:
- Leadership skill
- Excellent communication skill
- Problem analysis skill
- Technical knowledge
- Domain knowledge
Can you explain the difference between Business analysis and Business Analytics?
- The major difference between Business analysis and Business analytics is that the first one is the functions and process-related. Whereas the second one is data related. Business analysis is for recognizing business needs and determining the solutions to those problems. The Tools and techniques for business analysis include SWOT, CATWOE, MOST, FIVE WHY, etc. On the other hand, Business analytics is for handling the data and then analyzing it to get insights into a business. However, there are four types of business analytics that are, descriptive analytics, decisive analytics, prescriptive analytics, and predictive analytics.
Is it necessary for a business analyst to involve during the implementation of requirements?
- When a business analyst puts a requirement or use case into action, they can tackle different business problems that might arise. Dealing with these problems helps them gain valuable experience and find solutions for similar situations, making them more knowledgeable in their field.
Can you list down the problems faced by a business analyst?
Some of the problems face by a business analyst are:
- Employees related issues
- Technology-related problems
- Access related
- Business policies related issues
- Business model errors
How will you decide if a business analyst has collected all the requirements?
This can be decided when:
- Firstly, if it is validated and approved by the business users.
- Secondly, the requirements are aligned with the project’s business requirements.
- If the requirements are implemented with the available resources.
- Lastly, all the key business stakeholders are aligned with the elicited requirements.
What is the process of performing requirement gathering?
The requirement gathering process is divided into multiple steps based on SDLC cycle. The step involves:
- Firstly, specific tasks to perform
- Secondly, principles to follow
- Lastly, documents to produce
What are the components of the Requirements Work Plan?
The components are:
- Project description
- Key issues
- Deliverables
- Goals and objectives
- Strategy
- Resources
- Budget and time
Explains the steps involved in product development?
The steps include:
- Firstly, Market analysis
- Then, SWOT analysis
- Thirdly, Personas
- After that, Competitor analysis
- Lastly, Identifying the strategic vision
According to you which one is better, the Waterfall Model or Spiral Model?
Firstly, it all depends on the type and scope of the project. However, a life cycle model selection is based on the organizational culture and various other scenarios to develop the system.
What are the essential phases of an IT project?
The phases of any IT project are:
- Initiation
- Planning
- Execution
- Monitoring and control
Define RUP Methodology?
Rational Unified Process (RUP) refers to a product application improvement method. This is an object-oriented approach that is for ensuring successful project management and top-notch software production.
What do you mean by Project deliverables?
The project deliverables refer to the set of measurable goods and services that are delivered as an output to the end customer at the completion of the project.
Explain the term FMEA?
FMEA is a failure mode and effects analysis. It is used mainly in product development, system engineering, and operations management. Moreover, this analysis is for figuring out various failure modes and their severity in any system.
Experts Corner
The role of a business analyst can take your career to a different level. However, certifications like ECBA ( Entry Certificate in business analysis) have become a pathway for earning the role of business analysts. Most importantly, these certifications will not only enhance your abilities but also help you in getting advanced. Along with this, you have to work on your answering skills for a business analyst interview that will help during the hiring process. In the blog, the questions provided are well researched. So, understand them and crack the interview. Stay confident. Stay safe.
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