Basic Business Analyst Interview Questions

1. What is the role of a business analyst in an organization?

Business analyst is a liaison or a link between different stakeholders belonging to different domains
in an organization & development team.

2. How do you see yourself fit for the role of business analyst in our company?

With this type of business analyst interview questions, the interviewer wants to assess your
understanding regarding the job role and whether you match the company's expectation of the
desired candidate.

You can answer this question in two parts:

 Firstly, focus on your education by stating relevant coursework related to the job.

 Secondly, illustrate your experience, attitude, and skills that make you a good fit for the
company.

You can give examples of the previous works that show the interviewer what benefits you will bring
to the company. Make sure your answer has a problem and the solution you implemented.

3. What, according to you, are the core competencies of a Business Analyst?

It is one of the most common business analyst interview questions. Although every company is
different, the core requirements of a business analyst profile are quite similar. Make sure to go over
an organization's job description in detail to understand the required core competencies and include
them in your answer.

You can answer this by stating that a business analyst must have exceptional communication and
negotiation skills. Analytical thinking, problem-solving, and decision making are also vital attributes.
A business analyst should have industry knowledge, business process management skills along with
technical proficiency.

Pro Tip: Make sure to highlight the attributes that you possess and can bring to the job.
4. List some of the skills and tools used by Business Analysts.

Answer this question by combining both the technical and non-technical tools/skills used by business
analysts.

 Technical skills/tool – MS Office Suite, Google Docs, database knowledge, ERP systems,
SQL, and more.

 Non-Technical/business Analysis skills – Documentation, requirement elicitation,

business process management, and more.

5. Do you have any technical skills? Can you list your database skills or business
intelligence skills?

Your technical skills are directly proportional to your value in the organization.

It is not compulsory to have advanced technical skills like relational databases and SQL, but the
more technically proficient you are as a business analyst, the better. These skills are most desirable
and widely used, so if you have some experience in using these technologies, make sure you explain
them to your interviewer.

You can describe the specific Business Intelligence tools you have used. If you have experience in
handling the system the organization uses, highlight that to your interviewer.

6. What is INVEST?

INVEST is an abbreviation of Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Sized

appropriately, and Testable. This term is used by business analysts and project managers to deliver
quality services and products.

7. Are you aware of the different techniques like MoSCoW and SWOT?

A business analyst should be aware of the processes used to create and implement strategies for
identifying an organization's needs and delivering the best results.
With this question, the recruiter wants to know whether you understand these terms and can
incorporate them into your working policies.

MoSCoW stands for Must or Should, Could or Would. A business analyst should implement this
process by comparing every demand with other needs to prioritize the framework requirements. For
example, is this requirement a must-have or should have?

SWOT or Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats Analysis is the most widely used
technique in organizations for proper resource allocation. A business analyst should be able to
identify the strengths and weaknesses of any corporate framework and translate them into
opportunities and threats.

8. What do you mean by project deliverables?

These are the set of measurable services and products delivered to the end customer after
project completion. It is the outcome of the project.

9. How do you keep yourself updated about the latest business trends and knowledge?

With this business analyst interview question, the recruiter wants to evaluate if you are motivated
enough to keep pace with emerging latest business developments and trends.

The interviewer wants to know what actions you take to keep your knowledge and skills updated.
You can answer this question by including references to news and industry publications. You can
also list the events and conferences you attend to connect with the business community.

10. What are the various stages of a business project?

The main stages of any business or IT project are Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring,
and Closure.

Technical/Problem Solving Business Analyst Interview Questions

11. Explain UML and its uses?

UML or Unified Modeling Language is a general-purpose, developmental modelling language that
provides a standard way to envision the system. It is used to rationalize the system behaviour for the
detection and elimination of errors/bottlenecks.

12. Can you explain SRS and its key elements?

SRS stands for System or Software Requirements Specification. It is a set of documents describing
the features of a software application or system.

It includes various elements required by the stakeholders and customers to convince the end-users.

The critical aspects of an SRS are:

 Scope of Work

 Non- functional and functional requirements

 Data Model

 Dependencies

 Assumptions and Constraints

 Acceptance Criteria

13. What is BRD? How is it different from SRS?

BRD is an abbreviation for Business Requirement Document. It is a formal contract between the
organization and the client for the development of the specific product.

 BRD is a functional specification of the software whereas SRS is both BA creates it after
their direct interaction with the clients

 BRD is created by a business analyst after their direct interaction with the clients, whereas
SRS is designed based on technical expertise and needs.

 SRS is derived from BRD

14. What do you understand by requirement? Can you differentiate between requirements
and needs?

A requirement is a targeted solution and representation to achieve specific business objectives.

Stakeholders evaluate the project based on set conditions/requirements before its implementation. All
the elements are correctly documented for reference purposes. Needs are the high-level
representation of the terms and the result.

For example, you need to get a business analyst job, and the requirements to apply for this job are
resume, educational background, and interview practice.

15. How can you say that a requirement is good or perfect?

A requirement is said to be perfect if it is Specific, Measurable Attainable Relevant, and Timely or in

short SMART. The description of a condition should be specific, and all the parameters required for
success should be measurable. All the needed resources should be attainable and relevant to the
project. All the conditions/elements should be revealed timely.

16. What is the purpose of the Requirement Traceability Matrix?

It records all the requirements given by a client and ensures that all the necessities are met.

17. What is business modelling?

Business modelling is a step- by -step approach for identifying the value proposition for operating
the business.

The key attributes of business modelling to develop a strategic plan for an organization are:

 Vision

 Mission

 Objectives

 Strategies
  Action plan

18. What is the project life cycle? Which models will you employ, and why?

A project life cycle is a framework implemented by a business analyst to split a project into
manageable phases and signify the decision points throughout the project lifespan. The different
models are the Waterfall model, Spiral model, Iterative model, Agile model, and V-shaped model.

You can answer by stating that selecting a life cycle model is exclusively based on the type, scope,
and limitations of the project. You can give an example of any model which you used in a project.

19. What do you understand by Gap Analysis, and what are the types of gaps that can
occur during an analysis?

Gap Analysis means the analysis of the differences between the functionalities of an existing and the
targeted system. The gap means changes that are required to accomplish the proposed result.

 Profit Gap is the change between the actual and estimated profit of a company.

 Manpower Gap is the change between the actual and required workforce strength in a
company.

 Performance Gap is the difference between the expected and actual performances.

 Market Gap is the variation between estimated actual sales.

20. What strategies will you follow to design a use case?

A use case should be concise, well-defined, and correctly documented.

The strategies or approaches in designing use cases are:

 The first phase is the users' identification to create a role-profile for every user category
and recognition of goals associated with every role.

 The second phase deals with the structure and creation of use cases by capturing both
functional and non-functional requirements. Include use case diagrams and user interface
details.
  The final phase is reviewing and validating the use cases.

Scenario-based/Role-specific Business Analyst Interview

Questions

Hiring managers may ask these during a business analyst interview to evaluate your role-related or
scenario-based knowledge in different situations:

21. Explain your typical work tactic for a project?

It is one of the most crucial business analyst interview questions asked by a recruiting manager to
assess your work strategy, teamwork, and project management skills.

To answer this question, you can explain the general steps you follow with standard deliverables. For
example, if you have managed the planning phase of a project, you could mention deliverables like a
requirements management plan, work breakdown structure, or a communication plan.

Each business faces different situations and has distinct needs, but these fundamental steps are
essential to achieve a task successfully:

 Firstly, you must clarify your role and determine the stakeholder's perspective in the
project. You should define primary objectives along with reconciling the expectations
conflict among stakeholders.

 Create a work plan listing steps, timelines, and deliverables.

 Define actionable and concise requirements.

 Ensure technical implementation, as many solutions require the support of IT teams.

 Create documentation and train end-users to implement the solution.

 Finally, assess the value of the project. Did it work, or any follow-ups are needed?

You should focus on your experience to describe your skills and explain the customized tactics you
use.
22. What documents are needed by a business analyst? Which documents have you
prepared in your previous works?

A project lifecycle uses many documents, and it depends on the utilization process of a business
analyst.

 Initiation document

 System Requirements Specifications document

 Business requirement document

 Functional requirement document

 Requirements Traceability Matrix

 Use case Specifications document

 Change Request Document

 Gap Analysis Document

With this question, the hiring manager wants to understand if you have used several types of
documents and assess your capability of delivering both business and technical specifications.

Pro Tip: Make sure to use only those documents you are familiar with and explain in detail.

23. What is the requirement elicitation? Have you ever participated in these elicitation
meetings?

It is a technique to gather information from stakeholders and users. It involves approaches or

strategies to collaborate with clients or users directly.

Some requirement elicitation techniques are-

 Document analysis

 Interviews

 Prototyping
  Brainstorming

 Workshops and observations

 Surveys/Questionnaire

You can answer the second part of the question by explaining how you have used these techniques
and how they impacted your project.

24. What are the various kinds of diagrams you use as a business analyst? How do they
impact the work?

Your hiring manager may ask this role specific question to ensure that you understand standard
business analysis documents and how to apply them to a client's case. You must list your past
experiences and examples to validate your credibility and value.

The most used diagram models by business analysts are:

 Flowcharts – These are the diagrammatic depiction of the complete flow of the system.
They make it easy for all the stakeholders, whether technical or technical, to understand
the operation.

 Activity Diagram – These diagrams illustrate the diverse activities and their flow across
various departments.

 Use case Diagrams – These diagrams model the functionality of a system using a set of
actions, functions, and services that the system/project needs to perform.

These diagrams are beneficial in visualizing the functional requirements of a system and finalizing
development priorities. They also identify any external/internal factors that should be considered as
they can influence the project.

 Sequence Diagrams - These diagrams illustrate the interaction between different objects
and the time sequence of the message flow between them.

 Collaboration Diagrams - These are also called interaction or communication diagrams.

They are the illustration of the relationships and interactions among software objects in the
Unified Modeling Language.
Many diagrams can be used in business analysis, and you can say that you follow a more coherent
approach of merging different models to produce results.

25. What is the exception and alternate flow in a use-case diagram? How are they
different from basic flow?

 The basic flow is the representation of the operation of activities as required by the
company.

 Alternate flow is the representation of actions or activities other than basic flow. It leads to
achieving the goals of use-cases using different steps.

 Exception flow represents the actions executed in case of errors. It leads to NOT achieving
the goal of a use case.

26. What are personas, and how they are useful in user-centred design methodology?

Personas are created in place of real users to understand their behavioral patterns in different
scenarios. In user-centered design methodology, a system is developed, keeping the viewpoint of
end-users in mind. Personas help create such systems.

27. Define analytical reporting.

A business analyst needs to comprehend the significance and drawbacks of analytical reporting, and
you must be ready with an answer during your business analyst interview.

You can start your answer by a brief definition of analytical reporting. It is a type of business
reporting that offers data analysis, information, and recommendations. The recommendations are the
critical attributes that make it different from informational reporting.

After that, you can describe the impact your analytical reporting made in previous roles. Focus on
showing how you can create recommendations from data sources and demonstrate your analytical
skills.

28. If there are multiple stakeholders in a project, how do you influence them? Also,
explain how you would work with a difficult stakeholder?
With this type of business analyst interview questions, the recruiter is trying to understand how you
implement your various competencies, especially communication, negotiation, problem-solving,
decision making, influencing, and collaboration skills.

As a business analyst, you will deal with various people at different positions with distinct
personalities. This question is crucial as it conveys whether you can successfully navigate
interactions with different stakeholders or not.

Dealing with difficult stakeholders is a significant responsibility for any business analyst. Use the
STAR method to explain the situation you were dealing with, what your task or role was in the case.
Outline the action you took to resolve the problem. Finally, describe the result & learnings of your
actions.

29. How can you manage the post-implementation and pre-implementation problems of a
project?

You can answer this by briefly explaining both the problems. The problems that declare their
presence before the project implementation are called pre-implementation problems. The difficulties
arising after the project implementation are called post-implementation problems, and most of the
concerns fall in this category.

After that, you can explain that a business analyst cannot overcome all these problems but can limit
them up to the maximum extent within a minimum time frame.

30. During the development of a system, how do you manage frequently changing
customers' requirements?

It is one of the most frequently asked business analytic interview questions. The first task of a
business analyst is to draft a document stating the number of changes that are allowed, and after a
certain point, no amendments will be accepted. It is vital to get this document signed by the user.

In case the change required is accepted, make sure to note down all the changes and find out their
overall impact on the project. Calculate the timeline, cost, and resources needed for this change.
Top Business Analyst Interview Questions and Answers
Top business analyst interview questions fall under the generic category and could be asked as a part of
business analyst interview questions for any career levels.

1. Who is Business Analyst?

Answer: A business analyst works as a bridge between different stakeholders in an organization. He
connects with the different stakeholders of an organization to clarify and finalize the requirements, helps
the project team in project planning, designing and finally validating the developed components. He is
the person who possesses adequate domain knowledge and can sort the business needs amongst the
stakeholders who belong to different domains.

2. Name some of the documents that a business analyst use to handle?

Answer: Following are some of the common documents that a business analyst use to handle:

 Project vision document

 Use cases
 Requirement Management Plan
 User stories
 Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM)
 Business Requirement Document
 System Requirement Specification (SRS)/ System Requirement Document (SRD)
 Test case
 Functional Requirement Specification (FRS)/ Functional Specification Document (FSD)

3. What is SRS and what are its key elements?

Answer: A System Requirements Specification (SRS) or a Software Requirements Specification is a
document or set of documents that describe the features of a system or software application. It includes a
variety of elements which define the intended functionality required by the stakeholders and customer to
satisfy the end users.

In addition to that, an SRS provides a high-level idea of the system and its behavior, the main supported
business processes, the assumptions and the key performance parameters for the system. The key
elements of an SRS are:

 Scope of Work
  Functional Requirements
 Non-Functional Requirements
 Dependencies
 Data Model
 Assumptions
 Constraints
 Acceptance Criteria

4. What is a requirement?
Answer: A requirement is a targeted solution to achieve specific business goals or objectives. It is an
input to various stages of SDLC. This is a basis of a project which must be validated by the stakeholders
and business users before implementation. Besides that, every requirement needs to be properly
documented for future reference purpose.

5. What is Use case?

Answer: A use case is a diagrammatic representation of a system which describes how a user uses a
system to accomplish a goal. It is an integral part of software engineering and software modelling
technique which defines the targeted features and the resolution of any possible errors which a user may
encounter.

Must Read: List of 10 Best Business Analysis Tools

6. What are the steps that you need to follow to design a use case?
Answer: The steps in designing use cases are:

 Identify the users of the system

 Creating a user profile for each category of users. This includes all roles that the users may
play and relevant to the system.
 Identify essential goals associated with each role. Also, identifying the significant roles.
 Creating use cases for every goal associated for a use case template. This also includes
maintaining the same abstraction level for the entire use case. Higher level use case steps are
considered as goals for the lower level.
 Structuring the use cases
  Reviewing and validating the users

7. What is Scope creep and how can you avoid scope creep?
Answer: Scope creep, or requirement creep is a term that relates to the uncontrolled changes or deviation
in the project’s scope within the same resource range for example within same schedule and budget of the
project. It’s an indication of poor project management and a viable risk to a project. Some of the possible
causes of scope creep are:

 Poor communication between the project’s stakeholders

 Improper documentation of the project’s requirements
Scope creep could be avoided by:

 Clear documentation about the project scope

 Following proper change management
 Prior intimation about the effects of the changes to the associated parties
 Proper documentation of the new requirements in the project log
 Refrain from Gold Plating which means adding extra features to the existing functionalities

8. What is BRD? How is it different from SRS?

Answer: A Business Requirements Document (BRD) is a formal contract between the customer and the
organization for a product.

The difference between BRD and SRS are as follows:

BRD SRS
It is a high-level functional specification of the It is a high level functional and technical specification
software. of the software
It is a formal document to describe the
It describes the functional and non-functional
requirement provided by the client (written,
requirements of the software to be developed
verbal)
The Business Analyst creates it after their direct The System Architect creates it as it needs technical
interaction with the clients expertise. Though sometimes Bas too can create it.
It is derived based on the requirements and client
It is derived from the BRS
interaction
9. What is Gap Analysis?
Answer: Gap Analysis is a technique to analyze the gap between the existing system and functionalities,
and the targeted system. Here gap means the amount of task or change that may be required to get the
intended result. It’s a performance level comparison between the present and the proposed functionalities.

10. What is requirement prioritization? What are the different techniques used
for it?
Answer: Requirements prioritization is the process to allocate requirements based on the business
urgency to different phases, schedule, cost, etc.

There are various techniques which are used for requirements prioritization:

 MoSCoW Technique
 Requirements Ranking Method
 100-dollar method
 Kano Analysis & More
 Five Whys
Also Read: 10 Most Popular Business Analysis Techniques

Best entry level business analyst interview questions

11. What is the requirement elicitation technique?

Answer: Requirement elicitation is the process of requirement gathering from stakeholders, users, and
customers by conducting meetings, questionnaires, interviews, brainstorming prototyping, sessions, etc.

12. What is the fundamental difference between a requirement and need in a

business analysis perspective?
Answer: Needs are high-level definitions of the future goals of a business. Whereas, Requirements are
the representation of the detailed description of that business needs.
13. What are non-functional requirements and how do you capture them?
Answer: Non-functional requirements represent the performance level characteristics like how fast it can
respond, how smooth is a user interface, security, etc. of the application under development (AUD).
No functional requirements are captured in the SRS document in its designated section.

14. What are the skills that a business analyst must possess?
Answer: We can broadly categorize the skills of a business analyst in three types:

 Fundamental skills
 Technical skills
 Business Analysis skills
For each of the above categories a business analyst should possess some skills as mentioned below:

Skill
Skills
category
 Problem Solving
 Communication
Fundamental skills
 Management skills
 Research
 IT skills like MS Office, Operating systems, Programming
Technical skills languages, Knowledge of database, SDLC knowledge, Domain
knowledge
 Requirement Elicitation
 Documentation
Business Analysis
skills  Decision making
 Creativity
 Analytical skills

15. How will you define a good quality requirement as a business analyst?
Answer: We can measure the quality of a requirement using SMART rule. As per this rule, a good
quality requirement should be:
Specific: The requirement should be specific and could be documented properly
Measurable: Different parameters can measure the success criteria of the requirement
Attainable: The requirement should be feasible within the scope of the given resources
Relevant: The requirement must be in line with the project’s business case
Timely: The requirement should be communicated early in the project lifecycle

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16. Which documents are used to capture non-functional requirements?

Answer: There are two documents that are used to capture non-functional requirements, and they are:

 SDD (System Design Document)

 FRD (Functional Requirement Document)

17. What is alternate flow in use case diagram?

Answer: It is an alternative solution or activity in a use case that should be followed in case of any
failure in the system.

18. Define Personas?

Answer: Personas represents User-Centered Design methodologies. To enable an application capable of
performing on a demographic basis, fictional characters are conceptualized by the business analysts and
based on their possible demographic specific behavior scenarios are created during design.

19. What is an activity diagram and what are the important elements of it?
Answer: An activity diagram is a visual representation of the workflow of a business use case. This
diagram shows various activities that take place in an organization in different departments like HR,
Sales, Accounts, etc. The activity diagram highlights the differences in the departments.
The important elements in Activity diagram are initial nodes, activities, control flows, decisions, a fork,
guard conditions, join and end nodes.

20. What is UML modelling?

Answer: UML stands for Unified Modelling Language. It is a standard that the industry uses for
documenting, constructing and visualizing various components of a system. This modelling standard is
primarily used for software development. However, it is also used for describing job roles, organizational
functions, and business processes. Some of the important diagrams that BAs use as part of UML are the
class diagram, state diagrams and use cases.

Must Read: Why is the Certification Required to Grow in the Field of Business Analysis?

Most popular Junior business analyst interview questions

21. What are the best practices to follow while writing a use case?
Answer: Some of the best practices to write a use case are as follows:

 To become a valid use case, the use case must provide some value back to the actor or
stakeholder.
 The functional and non-functional requirements must be captured appropriately in the use
case.
 The use case must have one or more alternate flow along with the main flow.
 The use case should only describe what the system does and not how it is done which means it
will not describe the design. It will act as a black box from the viewpoint of an actor.
 The use case should not have any, i.e. it should be stand alone.
22. What is the difference between exception flow and alternate flow?
Answer: Alternate flow are the alternative actions that can be performed apart for the main flow and can
be considered as an optional flow.
Exception flow is the path traversed in case of any exception or error.

23. Do you think a business analyst should be involved in testing?

Answer: Yes. Because a business analyst understands the overall system requirements and challenges
associated with it very well. Hence, he can be instrumental during the testing phase to run it appropriately
and resolve any system related query.

24. What does INVEST stand for?

Answer: INVEST stands for –

 Independent
 Negotiable
 Valuable
 Estimable
 Sized Appropriately
 Testable
It can assist project managers and technical team to deliver quality products/services.

25. What is Pareto Analysis?

Answer: Pareto Analysis which is also known as 80/20 rule is a decision-making technique. It is a useful
technique for defect resolution and quality control. As per this analysis rule, 20 % causes create 80 %
effects in a system, which is why it is named as 80/20 rule.

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26. What is BPMN and what are its basic elements?

Answer: BPMN is the Business Process Model and Notation. It is a graphical representation of business
processes.
There are five basic elements of BPMN, and they are –

 Flow Objects
 Data
 Connecting Objects
 Swimlanes
 Artifacts

27. What is Kano analysis?

Answer: Kano Analysis is used to analyze a system regarding its requirements to identify its impact on
customers’ satisfaction.

28. What are the different types of actors you know in use case diagram?
Answer: There are mainly two types of actors can be depicted in a Use case-

 Primary actors – It starts the process

 Secondary actors – It assists the primary actor
Moreover, we can categorized actors into four types :

 Human
 System
 Hardware
 Timer

29. What are the different types of the gap that a business analyst can encounter
during gap analysis?
Answer: There are mainly four types of gap –

 Performance Gap – The difference between expected performance and the actual
performance
 Product/Market Gap – The gap between budgeted sales and actual sales is termed as
product/market gap
 Profit Gap – The variance between a targeted and actual profit of the company.
 Manpower Gap – The gap between the required number and quality of workforce and actual
strength in the organization
30. What is Benchmarking?
Answer: Benchmarking is about measuring the performance of an organization to compete in the
industry. In this process, a company may measure its policies, performance, rules and other measures.

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Most popular Senior business analyst interview questions

31. How do you decide that as a business analyst you have gathered all the
requirements?
Answer: We can conclude that all the requirements are gathered only when –

 It is validated and approved by the business users.

 The requirements are appropriately aligned with the project’s business requirements.
 The requirements can be implemented with the available resources.
 All the key business stakeholders are aligned with the elicited requirements.

32. How do you perform requirement gathering?

Answer: The requirement gathering process is generally divided into multiple steps which are agnostic to
the SDLC cycle. Each step involves:

 specific tasks to perform

 principles to follow
 documents to produce
The steps are as follows:

Step 1: Gather Background Information – This may include collecting background information about the
project, analyzing any potential risk associated with the project. Techniques like PESTLE analysis,
Porter’s Five forces framework could be used for this purpose.

Step 2: Identify Stakeholders – They are the decision makers of a project and approver for requirements
and priorities. Stakeholders may range from project owners to senior managers, end users, and even
competitors.
Step 3: Discover Business Objectives – This is to understand the business needs of the project before
going deep into the project. SWOT analysis, Benchmarking, analyzing business objectives SMART and
listing business objectives are some of the techniques used for this purpose.

Step 4: Evaluate Options – This is to identify the options to achieve business objectives. Impact analysis,
Risk analysis, Cost-benefit analysis are some of the methods which are used for this purpose.

Step 5: Scope Definition – A scope is a project development goal which is set based on the business
objectives. A scope definition document is used to detail the goals for each phase of a project.

Step 6: Business Analyst Delivery Plan – Based on the project scope, stakeholders availability and
project methodology a document called business analyst is created at this step. The document provides
information on deliverables with their timeline.

Step 7: Define Project Requirements – In this step, two types of documents are used – Functional
requirement document and Non-functional requirement document. Based on the development
methodology to be used in the project the business analyst needs to clarify the requirements with the
stakeholders by interviewing them on the requirements and get the sign off on the same.

Step 8: Support Implementation through SDLC – This is the technical implementation step of the
requirements where a business analyst gets involved with different teams. This includes coordinating
with the development team and testing team to ensure requirements are implemented as expected and
appropriately tested against all the possible business scenarios. They also need to handle the change
request which may arise from the stakeholders at the later point of time.

Step 9: Evaluate Value Added By Project – This is the continuous evaluation of the project to evaluate
whether the business objectives implementation correctly meets the business needs outcome and timeline.

33. Why it is necessary for a business analyst to get involved during the
implementation of requirements?
Answer: Gaining domain knowledge and providing an analytical solution are the two major criteria of a
business analyst. Hence, during actual implementation of a requirement or use case a business analyst can
help to resolve many business strategies related problems that may arise during the implementation stage.
On the contrary, they can learn from the problems which may help them to provide the solution in similar
scenarios and also help to gain their domain knowledge.
34. What are the problems that a business analyst may face?
Answer: From the initiation to post implementation of a project a business analyst may face the
following problems –

 Employees related issues

 Technology related problems
 Access related
 Business policies related issues
 Business model errors

35. Explain requirement elicitation strategy?

Answer: Requirement elicitation is the process to collect all the requirements related to a system from
the end users, customers, and stakeholders. As per the BABOK guide, there are nine methods which can
be used as part of requirement elicitation process, and these are:

 Brainstorming
 Interviews
 Observation
 Document Analysis
Focus Groups
 Requirements Workshops
 Interface Analysis
 Survey or Questionnaire
 Prototyping
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36. What is Business Model Analysis?

Answer: Business Model Analysis is a technique to analyze whether a business is viable and valuable
regarding social, economic and other perspectives. The business model analysis provides the foundation
for any required business model change and innovation for an organization.

37. Do you think the role of a Business Analyst is a need for a project?
Answer: Yes, because the role of a Business analyst is extremely beneficial from the kick-off to the
implementation of a project. Here are the top 5 reasons:
  During the project kick-off session, there are high possibilities that some technical queries
come up from stakeholder and clients. As we don’t involve the technical project team during
this phase and immediate answering is essential, a business analyst may play a pivotal role to
answer those queries.
 The next phase after the kick-off session essentially involves some gap analysis, business
process analysis, documentation, SOW review, project scheduling and of course preparing
requirement specification documents.
 During the development and testing phase, a business analyst can play a significant role to
resolve any requirement related queries from the project teams. Besides that, he can validate
whether the requirements are correctly implemented and tested considering different
functional and non-functional scenarios.
 In a waterfall model, new requirement or modification of requirements can be asked from
stakeholder considering changing business needs. In this case business analyst is the person
who can handle this change request with proper validation and analysis.

38. What is the difference between Business analysis and Business Analytics?
Answer: The key difference between Business analysis and Business analytics is the first one is more
functions and process related whereas the second one is data related.

Business analysis – recognizes business needs and determine the solutions to that problems. Tools and
techniques like SWOT, PESTEL, CATWOE, MOST, FIVE WHY, etc. are used for business analysis.

Business analytics – handles data and analyze data to get insights into a business. Finally, it generates
reports. Mainly four types of business analytics are used, and they are – descriptive analytics, decisive
analytics, prescriptive analytics, and predictive analytics Tools and technologies like Big data, BI is used
for this purpose.

39. What is process design?

Answer: Process design is a way that helps a business to analyze the challenges in business and to find
an effective solution for those. Through Process design workflows are created to get the best possible
outcome in the shortest time.

40. What are the effective skills to solve any problem as a business analyst?
Answer:

 Leadership skill
  Excellent communication skill
 Problem analysis skill
 Technical knowledge
 Domain knowledge
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Latest Agile business analyst interview questions

41. What is the Agile Manifesto?

Answer: Agile Manifesto is a software guide about the Agile development principles which ensure
iterative solutions.

42. What are the essential qualities of an Agile BA?

Answer: An Agile BA must be able to:

 The BA is expected work collaborate with product owner and developers to elicit
requirements. The BA also must work to develop realistic functional requirements.
 The BA must do requirement elicitation in an iterative way
 The BA must make requirement specifications, data models and business rules as much
lightweight as possible.
 The BA must be technically sound so that he can understand how the components of the
system interact with each other. Besides that, he must understand the agile terminologies as he
acts as the middleman between the customer and the project team.
 The BA must concentrate on the just-enough requirement and test criteria to meet the just in
time delivery goal of an agile project.

43. When should you use Waterfall model instead of Scrum?

Answer: If the requirement is simple and specific, we should go for Waterfall model instead of Scrum.

44. What are the four key phases of business development?

Answer: The four key phases of business development:

 Forming
 Storming
  Norming
 Performing

45. What do you know about Kanban?

Answer: Kanban is a tool which helps the agile team to visually guide and manage the work as it
progresses through the process. Besides, it works as a scheduling system in Agile just-in-time production.
The Kanban board is used to describe the current development status.

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46. Mention about some of the most important agile metrics

Answer: The following are some important agile Matrices

 Velocity – This is used to track the progress of a project

 The sprint burndown matric – This helps to track the work done with the sprint.
 The priority of the work
 Work category allocation – This metric helps to get an idea about the priority of the work and
work category allocation.
 The cumulative flow diagram – the uniform flow of work can be checked thought this
diagram of cumulative flow. Here the x-axis represents time and the y-axis stands for the
number of effort.
 Defect removal awareness – This helps to produce quality products.
 Business value delivered – This is used to estimate the work efficiency of the team. It
associates 100 points for measurement.
 Time coverage – It estimates the amount of time invested in coding during testing. It is the
ratio of the number of lines of code called by the test suite to the number of relative lines of
codes.
 Defect resolution time – This is the turnaround time for detecting and fixing bugs. There
processes involved in for this purpose are:
o bug fixing
o eliminating the bug
o Scheduling a fix
o Defect fixation
o Handover of the resolution report
47. Explain the term ‘increment’?
Answer: Increment refers to the sum of all the product backlog items completed in a sprint. The new
increment value also includes the increment of the previous sprints.

48. What are the different types of Agile methodologies?

Answer: Some of the well-known agile methodologies are:

 Scrum
 Lean software development and Extreme Programming (XP)
 Feature-driven development (FDD)
 Crystal Methodology
 DSDM (Dynamic Software Development Method)

49. Is there any difference between incremental and iterative development?

Answer: Yes.
In an iterative development software development happens without any interruption. Here the software
development cycles which typically consists of sprint and release are repeated till the final product is
obtained. Whereas, in an incremental model, software development follows the product design,
implementation, and testing incrementally until the product is finished. Hence, it involves development
and maintenance.

To refer more business analyst interview questions on agile scrum please follow our
previous blog Top 40 Agile Scrum Interview Questions (Updated)

50. Difference between extreme programming and scrum?

Answer: Scrum and extreme programming both follow iterations which are known as sprints. However,
the sprints in a Scrum process last up to two weeks to one month long whereas in extreme programming
(XP) team the iteration lasts for one or two weeks. Extreme programming is more flexible than Scrum as
Scrum does not allow any change in during iterations.

Though we have categorized the above business analyst interview questions based on the experience
levels, however, it could be a mixed and match for any career level depending on the organization and
their requirement.