Business Analyst

Salary: $78,000 – $93,000
Actual compensation within the range will be based on experience
We also offer quarterly variable compensation package (bonus) + benefits

About Specsavers

Specsavers is an optometrist-owned and -led business that provides Canadians access to comprehensive eye exams at more than 100 independently-owned optometric practices located within Specsavers locations in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. Manitoba locations are set to open in summer 2024. The comprehensive eye exams include an OCT 3D eye scan enabling early detection of sight-threatening eye diseases. Specsavers has a range of high-quality eyewear, including over 1,000 frames, lenses and contact lenses starting from $69 for a complete pair of single vision glasses.

Founded in the UK 40 years ago by optometrist husband and wife team, Doug and Mary Perkins, there are now more than 2,600 Specsavers healthcare businesses across 11 countries serving over 42 million patients and customers. Specsavers is driven by its purpose of “changing lives through better sight” and aims to transform the way Canadians experience eyecare by offering exceptional service, advanced clinical equipment and affordable and quality eyewear.

Main Purpose of the Role

The Business Analyst will be actively involved in working within the various business units in Specsavers, predominantly within Canada, and will be responsible for eliciting requirements to determine solutions to business problems. The Business Analyst will utilise industry-standard best practice BA techniques to:

• Elicit, analyse, validate, and document business, organisational and/or operational requirements, with a view to bridging the needs of the business with the use of IT.
• Be part of a product team and work within a hybrid SDLC/Agile framework, to implement new or upgraded systems into the Canadian business.
• Communicate confidently and effectively, demonstrating the ability to rapidly build rapport and gain credibility, and building professional relationships with all stakeholders.

The Business Analyst will maintain the following key relationships.

• The Specsavers Canada IT Department including the IT Director
• Specsavers Store Staff and Support Office staff within Canada
• All Canada business departments in alignment with Product Teams
• Software Developers, Architects, Project Managers and Test analysts, both onshore and offshore
• Third party software suppliers

Key Responsibilities

Elicitation: working with stakeholders to identify and understand business issues and requirements through understanding the underlying business needs or problems. Key activities within this competency area include:

• Ensuring that key stakeholders are engaged and involved during elicitation.
• Use of various elicitation techniques to obtain requirements and other information.
• Accurately and clearly capture and document information during elicitation sessions.
• Ensuring that requirements captured during elicitation can be traced back to a genuine business need or problem and are globally aligned wherever possible.
• Validating the requirements captured during elicitation with key stakeholders.
• The ability to negotiate and influence requirements gathered for a project.

Requirements Analysis: the prioritization and elaboration of requirements to ensure that the product team implement a solution that will meet the needs of the business. Key activities within this competency area include:

• Working with key stakeholders to achieve consensus on priority of requirements, ensuring that the most critical requirements are focused on.
• Understanding the impact that the prioritization has on the overall solution, project, time constraints, costs, and business benefit.
• The ability to focus on business value, ensuring that requirements meet the business needs.
• The ability to organize large volumes of requirements.
• The ability to clearly model requirements using a combination of formats, diagrams, and models.

Planning and Monitoring: the ability to select an appropriate business analysis technique, identify and work with stakeholders, and plan business analysis activities. Key activities within this competency area include:

• Determining the most appropriate BA approach to use for each piece of work.
• Gaining stakeholder and team buy-in to the approach selected.
• Accurately identifying project stakeholders and assessing their levels of influence and authority.
• The ability to manage stakeholders through excellent relationship building skills.
• Identifying risks and issues to the product team as and when they occur.
• Providing estimates on all Business Analysis activities within a project.

Requirements management and communication: the ability to manage conflicts, issues, and changes, and to ensure communication is maintained with all project stakeholders and product team members. Key activities within this competency area include:

• Ensuring business approval to progress into Design, Development and Test phases as per hybrid methodology.
• Effectively managing impacts of changes to scope and requirements.
• The ability to manage conflict and work collaboratively with the product team.
• Ensuring that requirements are traceable, reusable and communicated effectively.
• Ensuring requirements are detailed enough to support each stage of the project life cycle.

Solution assessment and validation: the ability to assess proposed solutions to determine which solution best fits the business need(s). Key activities within this competency area include:

• The ability to validate that the solution meets the business needs.
• Assess the effects and impacts of defects or issues and prioritize defects.
• To develop and generate acceptance criteria for agreed business requirements (for example DOR – Definition of Ready, DOD – Definition of Done).
• To aid in test planning and review of test scenarios.
• To provide input, and review, related training documentation.

Continuous Improvement

• Maintaining a focus on BA industry standards, with a view to improving best practice within Specsavers.
• Strive for continued personal development in relation to Business Analysis skills.
• To provide subject matter expertise, guidance, and support to other team members on all matters relating to business analysis.

Key Skills, Ability or Experience

• 3-5 years’ experience in a similar role.
• A tertiary-level academic qualification, preferably with an IT and/or business focus.
• Exposure to an Enterprise Process Model to drive change management and process improvement.
• Utilizing industry-standard best practice BA techniques including requirements elicitation, verification and validation, gap analysis, UAT facilitation, and test scenario development.
• Experience of working within agile, waterfall and hybrid delivery methodologies.
• Sound analytical thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to liaise confidently with stakeholders at all levels – you will need to be dynamic, assertive, and diplomatic in this role, and possess solid influencing, negotiation, and presentation skills.
• Able to deliver well thought-out messages and concepts effectively to ensure maximum understanding and engagement.
• Pro-active and self-motivated: ability to work autonomously and as part of a team