The Senior Workday Business Analyst (SWBA) will work with administrators across the institution to assess their business needs and challenges and develop business process solutions that follow industry best practices. With a primary focus on the Workday platform, the SWBA works closely with the Workday platform owner and with project managers and other business analysts on strategic institution-wide projects and operational initiatives to ensure that business needs are understood, solutions identified and/or designed, and business processes are designed, documented, and tested. The SWBA translates business requirements into business solutions utilizing ERP, CRM and other enterprise application system functionality.
Reporting to the Senior Director for Project Management and Business Analysis - Enterprise Technology Services, the SWBA will collaborate with business and technology teams as we seek to transform the enterprise systems used by the Institution to support music and performing arts education in an expanding portfolio of programs offered online and on our campuses in the United States and Europe.
Job Purpose:
The Senior Business Analyst (SWBA) functions as lead BA or key project team member on Workday projects and operational initiatives and will interact with various multi-functional teams and define and document business processes and requirements. They will be very detailed, self-motivated, results oriented, and excellent communicators. This role requires analysis of sophisticated business problems to be solved with configuration solutions. Our roles are fast-paced and focus on analyzing challenging problems and coming up with solutions to a variety of operational critical issues, all while running various projects and initiatives.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
1. Facilitates requirements gathering and design activities
2. Performs quality assurance, systems testing, and user acceptance activities.
3. Develops and executes end user verification test plans and test scenarios. Facilitates end user testing sessions.
4. Defines, documents, and maintains business processes requirements, and policies. Looks for ways to constantly improve processes & procedures.
5. Manages and supports operations related initiatives identified by the Workday platform owner
6. Identifies opportunities for business process improvements and makes recommendations as appropriate.
7. Works with Workday operations team to understand and prioritize requests
8. Supports identified action items, and delivery plans
9. Assists with the intake requests to prioritize enhancement on the overall roadmap
10. Performs system testing of new functionality or bug fixes.
11. Assists with feasibility of enhancement requests
12. Participates in technical design sessions, ensuring that the business requirements and objectives are articulated and addressed by the designed solutions.
13. Collaborates with Training & Support team to create documentation and training for end users on new or changed business processes
14. Diagnoses problems related to daily transactional processes or operational processes; determines possible resolutions and implements effective solutions in a timely fashion
15. Adheres to and promotes ’s Vision and Guiding Principles
16. Contributes to the refinement of internal best practices to ensure the delivery of high-quality services that meet the needs of the community
17. Other duties as assigned.
Required Experience:
1. Bachelor’s degree and relevant business process analysis and/or business analyst training and experience required.
2. Advanced degree and/or CBAP (Certified Business Analysis Professional) certification preferred
3. 10+ years’ experience in a business analyst role or performing business analysis functions.
4. 2+ years of functional Workday platform experience required; Workday implementation experience strongly preferred (Workday Student a plus)
5. Experience with other administrative business applications (i.e. ERP, CRM: Colleague, PowerCampus, Salesforce, etc) and/or third-party administrative systems supporting the student experience preferred.
6. Work experience in a higher education environment strongly preferred
7. Background in or exposure to higher education student administrative operations desirable (e.g. registrar operations, admissions/recruiting, academic program/curriculum administration, academic advising, student accounts, financial aid, etc)
8. Knowledge and applied use of a range of elicitation techniques to elicit business and system requirements
9. Knowledge and applied use of a range of workflow/documentation techniques (e.g. Swim lane diagrams), and the flexibility to apply the best method to the needs of each assignment/project
10. Knowledge of and experience with both waterfall and agile methodologies
11. Experience with Google Workspace/G Suite productivity apps (e.g. Drive, Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, etc) and Smartsheet preferred
12. Strong understanding of data integration between systems and/or experience working with IT.
Required Skills:
1. Strong interpersonal skills to understand the broad range of needs and various support requirements for delivering exemplary customer service to clients in a wide range of roles, across the institution
2. Ability to clearly articulate messages to a variety of audiences.
3. Flexibility and adaptability; ability to work in ambiguous situations.
4. Ability to understand complex business processes, and to effectively articulate the information to others through visuals/diagrams or other requirements documentation
5. Ability to communicate clearly and effectively in both verbal and written formats as well as to create and maintain positive, productive working relationships with both technical and non-technical personnel.
6. Ability to operate independently and set priorities amongst multiple task assignments.
7. Excellent analytical skills
8. Intellectually curious; loves a good challenge
9. Ability to manage multiple tasks, assignments, and projects. Self motivated and highly engaged.
10. Attention to detail
11. Proven ability to work effectively in a highly diverse campus community
12. Demonstrated capacity to develop & maintain effective working relationships with individuals & organizations reflecting a broad range of identities, perspectives & experiences.