BA Interview Questions and Answers 1698202392
BA Interview Questions and Answers 1698202392
Interview Questions
and Answers
A comprehensive guide to help you succeed
at Business Analyst interviews.
A Publication of
Preface
To help you have the upper hand in the Business Analyst Interview,
we have come up with a multitude of questions that could be asked
throughout the process. The questions are divided into two chapters,
one for technical questions and the other one for agile.
Robin G.
Founder.
https://thebusinessanalystjobdescription.com/
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Contents
Technical Question and Answers . . . . . . . 4
Agile Question and Answers . . . . . . . . . . . 22
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01
CHAPTER ONE
Business Analyst
Interview:
Technical Question
and Answers
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1. How do you define a requirement?
One can take advantage of direct collaboration with the client and have
facilitated workshops, interviews, and observe the end users. In conjunction, one
can also use techniques that provide more precise information, like prototype
and scenario building.
4. What are the best practices you follow while writing a use case?
The following are the best practices to write a clear and well-documented use
case:
1. Create the use case from the ‘user’s’ point of view and not the system’s
2. Capture both functional and non-functional requirements in a use case.
3. Include use case diagrams along with the use case.
4. Include the UI details/notes in the use case.
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5. What do you know about scope creep?
Scope creep is a risk to the project and is usually caused by poor project
management, improper documentation of the project's requirements, and poor
communication between the project's stakeholders.
Scope creep is a hindrance to the project's success and could be avoided by:
Clearly documenting the scope of the project.
Following proper change management process.
Informing the effects of the change to the affected parties before making a
change.
Entering the new requirements in the project log.
Refraining from adding additional features to the existing functionalities
(also called Gold Plating)
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Make them realize how their interests will be realized when they are more
open and collaborative.
Engage them and make them know that their contribution is valued.
All the requirements that pass the above four criteria are considered formal and
final. These requirements are then documented, signed off, and become a part of
the baselined project scope.
Traceability must go backward and forward (i.e., from user tests and design
documents back through to high-level requirements and vice versa) for
maximum benefit.
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11.What is the importance of a flow chart?
Simply, a flow chart explains the flow of a process through symbols and text. It is
essential because it:
Displays information graphically, which is more straightforward and easy
to grasp.
Helps with process-related documentation.
Assists programmers in writing the process's logic.
Aids testing and troubleshooting.
14.What are some of the standard tools that a business Analyst uses?
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You can learn more about these tools here.
We document when the change was requested, its description, and its
severity.
We assess whether the change aligns with the project's business objective.
We then analyze the effects of change on the project constraints.
We communicate the tentative schedule, cost, and resource expenditure to
all the stakeholders.
We implement the change only when all the stakeholders agree on the
revised project constraints.
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Usability
Reliability
Scalability
Security
18.What do you think is better, the Waterfall Model or the Spiral Model?
Each project has different and unique needs, and thus the SDLC phases should
be chosen based on the project's specific needs. In brief:
The waterfall model follows a structured approach, with each phase having
specific deliverables. But, it has little flexibility, and adjusting the scope later is
quite challenging.
In the spiral model, estimates of project constraints become more realistic as the
work progresses, and it involves the developers early in the project. But, it takes
more time and a high cost to reach the final product.
A misuse case is the inverse of a use case and documents the scenarios that
should not happen within the system. Any person or entity can perform the
actions depicted in a misuse case in order to harm the system.
Misuse cases are usually used in the field of IT security and data protection.
The configuration management process consists of tools and policies you need
to manage a ‘consistency’ to your project’s attributes. These attributes could
include software, hardware, tests, documentation, release management, and
more. Having a configuration management process within a project ensures
governance of the project’s attributes while maintaining compliance and data
integrity.
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21.Describe your understanding regarding high-level and low-level
requirements.
When the project is initiated, the broad business requirements are defined as
high-level requirements and are captured in documents like business case,
project charter and Business Requirement Document (BRD).
As a project moves from its early stages and into the development phases, high-
level requirement documentation is used to develop more low-level functional
specifications and low-level business requirements like Functional Requirement
Specification (FRS), System Requirement Specification (SRS), use cases or user
stories. The level of detail increases as one moves from the Business Strategy to
the High-Level Business Requirements to the Functional Requirements and
finally to the Functional Specifications.
SDD stands for the term System Design Document, a technical document
prepared by the technical lead or the technical architect of a project.
SDD consists of the project’s system requirements (functional and non-
functional), the technical architecture, and the database architecture to support
the requirements.
SDD acts as the mediator between business users and the system developers so
that the system developers may understand the business requirements of the
system they are developing.
SDD assists the development team in knowing where to put emphasis and end
up with a quality and objective-based system.
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23. Do you follow any verification activities before you extend your
requirements documents for a review?
Certainly.
I have created a verification checklist which I go through before routing my
requirement documents for any internal/external reviews. Here are some of the
key components of my checklist:
Pareto analysis is a technique that is used to identify the issue that is causing the
most number of defects.
The problems and their respective defects are plotted in a bar graph, and the
issue which is causing the highest amount of defects is addressed first.
Pareto analysis is considered a creative way of looking at causes of problems as it
organizes data into logical segments for better research, comprehension, and
communication.
BPMN stands for Business Process Model and Notation. It's a global standard
for graphically representing a business process in the form of a diagram.
BPMN contains graphic elements business users, and developers use to create
activity flows and processes. BPMN's four basic element categories are:
1. Flow objects: Events, activities, gateways
2. Connecting objects: Sequence flow, message flow, association
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3. Artifacts: Data object, group, annotation
4. Pool and lanes
27. Are you aware of the term gap analysis and have you ever used the same?
Gap Analysis refers to comparing the present state of any product, process,
application, business, or organization to the future desired state and identifying
what needs to be done to bridge that gap between the present and future state.
Gap analysis concentrates on ‘what needs to be changed’ rather than ‘how’ and
results in giving quantifiable data against it.
Here are some of the tools/techniques I have employed to conduct gap analysis:
SWOT Analysis
Spreadsheets
5 Hows / Questionnaire
Fishbone Analysis
McKinsey 7S
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Applications developed through the JAD development approach have higher
customer satisfaction and fewer errors as the end user are directly involved in
the development process.
Force-field analysis aids in making decisions by identifying the factors for and
against a proposed change to the system.
The 'for' and 'against' factors are tabulated and are then analyzed, discussed, and
evaluated for their impact on the change.
A test case is a document listing all possible scenarios that could happen based
on an individual use case. Thus, every test case is developed with a use case as a
base.
A test case contains the main flow, positive scenarios, negative scenarios, and
scenarios covering non-functional requirements also.
The team’s tester writes Test Cases in a testing tool like Test Director, but they
can also be written in MS Word. A single use case could contain many test cases
that are clubbed to make a test scenario.
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Functional Testing: A BA is expected to conduct functional testing to
validate that the system achieves the functionality specified in the use
case/functional requirement specification document (FRS).
Acceptance Testing: A BA and the client do the acceptance testing to
validate that the system performs as per the business requirements and the
product's acceptance criteria.
Regression Testing: Regression testing is done after a modification has
been made to the existing system. It aims to ensure that all the system
functionalities are working as expected.
Beta Testing: A BA and the testing team do the beta testing, and it is done
on a pre-production version of the product. This testing ensures that the
system's functional and non-functional requirements are met.
The golden rule to measure the quality of a good requirement is the 'SMART'
rule.
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According to this rule, a requirement should be:
Specific: The requirement should be unambiguous and consistent so that it
could be properly understood
Measurable: Once developed, the completion of the requirement could be
measured/verified by specific criteria(s).
Attainable: The requirement should be possible to attain with the given
resources (schedule, cost, and workforce)
Relevant: The requirement should be in line with the project's business
case
Traceable: The requirement can be traced throughout its life-cycle i.e.,
conception, specification, design, implementation, and testing.
35.What are the different diagrams that a Business Analyst should know
about?
There are several diagrams about which a business analyst should have
substantial knowledge:
Entity relationship diagram
Data flow diagram
Use case diagram
Class diagram
Activity diagram
Sequence diagram
Collaboration diagram
Component diagram
Deployment diagram
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Conduct unit/functional/system/integration testing and verify the
development is as per the requirements.
Gain acceptance/approval of the deliverables from the client.
Document and prioritize change requests from the client.
Create final product documentation, achieve records, and document
project lessons learned.
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Implement
Manage
Control
Improve
Also, 8 Omega addresses four key perspectives of business i.e. Strategy, People,
Process, and Technology.
FMEA stands for 'Failure Mode and Effects Analysis' and is used for failure
analysis, risk analysis, and quality engineering.
Use cases can be used at various stages of a project; its audiences are technology
and business.
Alternate flows are the alternative actions that can be performed apart from the
basic flow and might be considered optional.
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In contrast, Exception flow is the path traversed in case of an error or an
exception being thrown. For e.g., on an application’s Login page:
The user entering their ‘username’, ‘password’ and then clicking the Login
button is the main flow.
The user clicking the 'Forgot password' link is the alternate flow.
The system showing a ‘404 error' in spite of the user entering the correct
username and password is an exception flow.
A trigger is an event that will invoke the initiation of a use case. The respective
use case will remain inactive if the triggers do not happen.
For e.g., a user opening the application’s login page is an event for triggering the
‘Login Use Case’.
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45.Please explain the term Use Case Points
Use Case Points are a normalized unit of measurement used to size and estimate
the amount of work (effort) that is to be done on a system.
In the context of use case modelling, sometimes, two or more use cases share a
common structure and behaviors. When this happens, we create a new use case
that describes the shared parts of its parent use cases.
Unit testing is the type of testing done at the developer's desk, and if a Business
Analyst conducts unit testing, they can find a defect before it gets integrated with
other features. Unit testing identifies a bug early in the cycle when the fix is easy
and the impact is low.
The main aim of conducting SWOT analysis is meticulously listing down the
below attributes around your project/goal/situation:
Strengths (qualities)
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Weaknesses (negatives)
Opportunities (elements in your favor)
Threats (risks)
Thereafter, each of the above factors is analyzed to see their impact on your
project or activity.
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02
CHAPTER TWO
Business Analyst
Interview:
Agile Question
and Answers
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1. Can you elucidate something about agile?
Scrum is the most widely used process framework for agile development.
Concepts of Scrum include:
Sprint: It's the basic unit of Scrum development and is restricted to a
specific duration (generally 2 or 3 weeks).
Product backlog: A detailed listing of all the product's requirements.
Daily scrum meeting: Each day during the sprint, the project team
assembles and discusses what was achieved yesterday, what is due today, and
the roadblocks faced. This meeting is strictly timed for 15 minutes.
Sprint Review Meeting: A meeting that reviews what was achieved in the
course of the sprint and the quality of the features developed.
Sprint Retrospective: Team members reflect on the recently concluded
sprint to learn from the mistakes made and document the ‘lessons learned’ to
continuously improve the sprint process and deliverables.
The spring planning meeting is held at the start of every sprint and comprises
the project team, product owner, and scrum master.
The aim of this meeting is to:
Ascertain the capacity of the team for the current sprint.
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Prioritize the items from the product backlog to be completed in the
current sprint.
Select the items from the product backlog to be done in the current sprint
based on the team's capacity.
Plan the work and assign responsibilities for the complete sprint duration.
The entire duration of the spring planning meeting is anywhere between two to
eight hours.
4. What are the advantages of agile methodology over the other software
development methodologies?
Due to its innate nature, Agile development is both iterative and incremental.
A sprint backlog is created based on the development team's capacity and the
priority of the requirements. Conversely, a product backlog is a prioritized list of
high-level requirements of the product.
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This chart is updated daily over the course of a sprint and acts as a guide for the
agile team to determine if their progress is as per the initially projected pace of
completion.
It is worth noting that all roles are considered equal within a scrum team and
there is no hierarchy or rank within the team.
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10.What is the Velocity of a sprint?
The velocity of a sprint is the total amount of work the development team can do
over the sprint duration.
Velocity for a sprint is agreed upon based on the historical data available about
the previous sprints of the current project. In case the agile project is new,
velocity is calculated based on historical data for similar project types or industry
standards.
Tracer bullets allow the technical team members to assess the kind of impact the
introduction of a new feature/tool will have on the existing system. Accordingly,
future sprints could be planned basis of the results from the tracer bullets.
Impediment denotes the 'cause' that hinders the team member from working to
its fullest capability.
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Some broad categories of impediments are:
Limited technical knowledge
Insufficient skills
Unavailability of the required tool/software
Lack of clarity with the requirements
Cultural and organizational impediments
People and personality issues
Environmental impediments
While managing a large project, many requirements are spread across multiple
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domains of the project, and it becomes difficult to manage such large
requirements.
Thus, these requirements are documented in the form of user stories, and the
user stories belonging to the same section of the project are clubbed to form an
'Epic'.
An epic is considered complete only when all the user stories (and their
respective tasks) belonging to it are complete.
Then, a user story is discussed, and the team members are called to disclose the
duration that an activity is expected to take by displaying a Planning Poker card.
If all estimators selected the same value, that becomes the estimate. If not, the
estimators discuss their estimates, and the same process is repeated until the
complete team reaches a consensus.
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“ Thank You!
Robin G.
https://thebusinessanalystjobdescription.com/
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