Overview
This blog article lists the top 30 Business Analyst interview questions and answers for experienced Business Analysts. These are the often-asked questions in the interviews.
Business Analyst interviews include a wide variety of questions. These areas could be:
- Business Analysis core skills
- Technical Skills
- Behavioural questions
- Case study-based questions
Let us understand what these interview question categories mean.
What are the business analyst interview question types?
As mentioned above, Business analyst interview questions can be of four types. Let’s have a quick look at these before we present the questions with answers.
- Business Analysis core skills –These types of interview questions include questions from Elicitation techniques, process analysis, requirements specifications documentation like SRS, BRD, FRS etc.
- Technical/Problem-solving Skills –These questions will be based on Business Analysis tools, UML/Use cases, Activity diagrams, etc. Knowledge of Jira, a diagramming tool for Processes and prototypes can prove to be handy.
- Behavioural Questions –These questions are designed to check your approach to situations and scenarios. How did you handle a situation, which was not favourable? How will you handle a tough situation in the future? Here are some top scenario based interview questions and answers for Business Analysts.
- Handling real-world business challenges – These business analyst interview questions are related to problem solving. Businesses face problems every day and Business Analysts are expected to help customers solve the problems. We have created Business Analyst case studies mini courses to help prepare for the interviews.
Business Analyst Interview questions and answers
We have included 30 questions in this article. Additional resources and links are provided at the end for further reading..
1. As a business analyst, how does your typical day look like?
You can prepare your answer with your past relevant experience. You can refer below for your answer:
Right now, I am working on a maintenance project, and here is how I spend my day. On a typical day, I will be working on a change request sent by the customer or following up on other ongoing change requests. This involves the following:
** Taking to the customer to understand the requirement or follow up on previous changes.
** Follow up with the team for the progress of ongoing changes.
** Creating specifications for the requirements will comprise process diagrams, prototypes, and identifying business rules.
** I also do the functional testing of a change request going for UAT.
2. Describe how you approach a project
Understanding a candidate’s approach to work can help employers gauge their teamwork, project management, and organizational skills. To answer, explain general phases you work through with standard deliverables you typically produce instead of listing specific processes or tasks the interviewer may not be familiar with. Focus on your actual experience to describe your skills and how you use them.
For example, if you worked on the planning stages of a project, you could mention deliverables such as a communication plan, a work breakdown structure (WBS), a requirements management plan, and a business analysis approach, including whether it is plan-driven or change-driven.
Speak about how you have customized specific approaches to the needs of a given project. You can follow up by asking about the organization’s projects and processes to give yourself a better sense of how you would fit in and to show the interviewer that you are invested in the way they work.
Example: “I first listen to what a client needs, paying attention to what they articulate as their goals for the project. I then take a deeper look into our data to figure out how to guide them toward success or how to change the way they are looking at their goals to move forward in a more productive way. Of course, every project and every client requires something new, so I always make sure to consider the specific situation instead of automatically imposing a one-size-fits-all solution.“
You can use a few business analysis terminologies like techniques, modeling, etc. applied from your experience. This will showcase your knowledge in the relevant domain.
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3. As a Business Analyst, which documents have you prepared?
A Business Analyst (BA) is responsible for preparing various documents as part of their role. Some commonly prepared documents include:
- System Requirement Specification or SRS document, which is also known as FRS or FRD document
- Use case Specifications Document
- Business Requirements Document(BRD)
- Change Request Log and Change Request Documentation
- RACI Matrix
- Gap Analysis Document
- Requirements Traceability Matrix
- Impact Analysis Document
This list is not exhaustive, but these documents are commonly prepared by Business Analysts.
4. Elucidate the difference between assumptions and constraints
An assumption is an influencing factor on the solution, you think to be true, but it may or may not be accurate. E.g. for an application with an online payment facility, it is assumed that the network is available throughout. Or any required third-party interface details will be provided by the customers.
A constraint is an influencing factor that imposes limitations on the solution. There are three parameters creating the constraints in software development: Schedule, Resource, and Quality. The organization defines the most and least valued parameters for its software development (or project management). Generally, two parameters are picked up, and the third acts accordingly.
E.g. In an agile iteration, timelines of a deliverable is a constraint to do full regression testing after the changes are implemented or limited resource is a constraint when assigning an increased number of activities to the team.
In the SRS document, assumptions are added for risk management analysis. The schedule of deliverables is created based on identified assumptions and constraints. In case any assumption turns out to be invalid, it can create an adverse impact on the project. Hence it becomes crucial to include assumptions and constraints in the SRS document.
5. What are Functional Requirements?
Functional requirements represent what the system does. It represents the functionality of a system, for example registering to become a member of a website is an example of a functional requirement. Placing an order for food items on a mobile food app is also an example of a functional requirement.
6. What are Non-functional Requirements?
Non-functional requirements or quality of service requirements do not relate directly to the behavior or the functionality of software but rather describe the conditions under which a solution must remain effective or it describes the quality that a solution must have. Typically non-functional requirements relate to security, availability, performance, and reliability.
For example, if a system is expected to be available 24×7, this is an example of a non-functional requirement.
7. What are the different techniques to capture requirements early on?
So, there are two techniques that are used. There could be more but these are two of the most important and popular techniques, that are use cases and user stories.
Use case is a type of UML diagram and it’s a visual way of capturing requirements. Use cases comprise a factor and a use case actor is an external entity, who can be a user of a software system or even an organization but it must be external to the system. The use case is for a system to be put together in a use case model. There could be multiple actors, there could be multiple use cases.
For example, a user can search and compare products, place an order, and even view the order history.
User stories are a format or a structure to represent a feature of a software system from the end user’s perspective. It’s not a visual format but rather it’s a textual format. There’s no standard format for user stories.
8. What are the differences between use cases and user stories?
Both of these techniques are used to capture requirements at a high level and early on in the project. Both of these capture the system requirements from user perspectives, but there are some differences.
To start with,
- Use cases are visual diagrams whereas user stories are textual format.
- User stories capture the purpose of doing a task in a project or in a software. It allows us to understand the actual reason why a user is doing something in the software.
9. What are the acceptance criteria?
Acceptance criteria are the set of conditions or requirements that must be met for a solution to be accepted by the stakeholders. The acceptance criteria are defined during the requirements-gathering phase and should be agreed upon by the stakeholders. The acceptance criteria can be written for the entire system or one requirement as well.
An example of an acceptance criteria for the entire system could be that all the unit test cases should be run successfully by the development team, this can be easily checked and approved.
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10. What are the four Agile Values and why are these important?
As per the Agile Manifesto, there are four key aspects of this approach:
- Number one is individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Here the focus is on the team and Team Dynamics. It makes the team more important than just the processes and tools.
- The second one is working software over comprehensive documentation. Here the focus is on delivering software which is useful for the customer. It could be one module or one feature or the entire software
- The third one is about customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Here the focus is on frequent collaboration with the stakeholders to minimize errors and to also capture changing and evolving requirements.
- The last one is responding to change over following a plan that is responding to change in an efficient manner or effective manner. The frequent and the rapid delivery cycles and collaboration with the customer help in responding to change effectively
So these are the four key aspects of the agile approach and I believe that in the changing environment of today’s world, a lot of projects can be executed better by using the agile approach. However, it is not something which can be used in hundred percent of the cases, some of the projects can still use a hybrid or to an extent waterfall approach
11. Do you think agile is the best approach to executing software projects?
Not in absolute terms or not in a hundred percent of the cases. Agile methodologies are more suited for modern-day projects as they allow you to cater to changing requirements and the changing dynamics of the business. It has been designed with the ability to handle such frequent changes. However, it is not something which is easy to come by, it’s not an easy approach to implement. There are certain cases where a hybrid approach suits much better for a project, which is a combination of waterfall in agile. It is suitable for projects where requirements are pretty much standard.
For example, financial accounting software where a lot of outputs are statutory requirements, so they are fixed. Examples include profit and loss statements, balance sheets, etc.
12. What is the difference between Incremental and Iterative development approaches?
The software development methodologies have evolved over the years. We started with sequential methodology (Waterfall) and adopted Incremental and Iterative methodologies, as methodologies evolved.
We use Incremental and Iterative methodologies interchangeably though they are different in their approaches.
Incremental Vs Iterative Methodologies – In this post, we have discussed the differences between Incremental and Iterative Methodologies.
These are approaches rather than specific methodologies. We can group SDLC methodologies under these approaches, just like we have Waterfall as a sequential methodology.
13. Have you heard of Sprint Zero? What is it?
Sprint Zero is typically held before the official commencement and at the beginning of the team’s existence. The purpose of the Sprint is for the development team to come together and build a minimum amount of User Stories, a project skeleton, story mapping, and a usable product in a short period. This Sprint should be kept as light as possible while maintaining a high level of competition. What matters is the beginning of project exploration and understanding the direction you want to take while keeping velocity as low as possible.
14. What are Spikes in Agile?
A spike is a user story for which the team must also estimate how much work will be required. As a result, conducting time-limited inquiry and exploration to learn more about the problem or alternative solutions is preferable. The team will break down the features into stories and estimate them as a result of the surge.
15. What is Review Efficiency?
Measuring the success of reviews is an important metric for a team. How do we measure the efficiency of reviews?
Reviews are conducted throughout the lifecycle of the project. Project teams conduct reviews on documents as well as code. By measuring and tracking this metric, the team can reduce the cost as well as effort in re-work.
The efficiency of reviews is measured relative to the number of defects found in the project. Efficient reviews reduce the number of defects in the project (which needs re-work).
Review efficiency for Requirements Specification document
It can be calculated by the following formula:
Requirements Review Efficiency (RRE) = Total number of review defects in requirements document / (Total number of review defects in requirements document + Total number of testing defects having source as requirements phase) x 100
Let’s take an example:
A business analyst finds ten review defects while reviewing the requirements document. During unit/integration/system testing, the team found 200 defects. Thirty of these defects were identified as being created during the requirements elicitation phase. So in this case,
RRE = (10/(10+30) * 100 = 25%
This means that 25% of the defects were reduced and no re-work was required to fix them.
The formula for calculating review efficiency for the entire project is:
Review Efficiency (RE) = Total number of review defects / (Total number of review defects + Total number of testing defects) x 100
RRE is one of the quantitative performance measures for Business Analysts. I will be discussing more business analysis topics in the coming posts.
16. How do you calculate the project completion %age performance measure?
Consider the scenario below to answer the question:
A software project is estimated to take 24 person-months of effort and 110 calendar days to finish. At a checkpoint, the project has consumed 16 person-months and 70 calendar days. What %age of the project is completed?
Note: This question can be easily customized to include a business analysis context. So don’t consider it to be a project management question.
This question needs some consideration to be answered correctly. Let’s consider the facts provided.
Total estimated effort = 24 PM (person-months)
Note: A person month means the amount of effort a person will spend in a month. Considering 22 working days, on average, it will be 22 days of work.
Effort spent at checkpoint = 16 PM
So, the completion status = 16/24 = 66.67%
But, this calculation has one major assumption. In this case, we are assuming that the effort spent is equal to the work completed. The effort spent at this checkpoint is indeed, 66.67%.
But, can we say that the team has also completed an equivalent amount of work? It’s not easy to estimate.
So, how do we estimate the correct status? This is done by estimating the effort required to complete the remaining work. Let’s consider two scenarios to understand it.
Scenario I
Total estimated effort = 24 PM (person-months)
Effort spent at checkpoint = 16 PM
The remaining effort to complete = 10 PM (This could happen because of various reasons like resources leaving, challenging tasks, etc.)
So, the completion status = 16 / (16+10) = 61.5%
Why did I consider (16+10) as total effort? That’s because, at this checkpoint, 16 person months are already spent. The remaining work will take 10 person months, so the total effort = 16 +10 = 26 PM.
Scenario II
Total estimated effort = 24 PM (person-months)
Effort spent at checkpoint = 16 PM
The remaining effort to complete = 6 PM (Not so frequent case but can happen)
So, the completion status = 16 / (16+6) = 71.7%
In this case, the total effort has been reduced.
17. What is an INVEST framework for writing good User stories?
A good User Story should necessarily have the “INVEST” qualities:
Independent: Self-contained to the extent that it is possible to release it without depending on other stories.
Negotiable: Capture the basic user need, but leave room for discussion. Don’t write it like a strict contract.
Valuable: The end-user gets some real value out of it.
Estimable: The stories must be estimable to be prioritized and fit into sprints.
Small: Be a small quantum of work that can be finished in 3-4 days.
Testable: User stories should have pre-written acceptance criteria for testing purposes.
18. How will you prioritize Product Backlog using MoSCoW Method?
The MoSCoW method is one of the prioritization techniques to come into common agreement with stakeholders on priority they place on when each requirement needs to be delivered.
- Must (Mo) – The requirements that are critical and must be applied to a product as a matter of priority. Even if one of them is not taken into account, the release is considered to be unfulfilled.
- Should (S) – Requirements important but not critical for the release. Such requirements are not very sensitive to time.
- Could (Co) – Nice to have but not necessary requirements for your release. These are normally low-cost enhancements for the product.
- Would (W) – These are regarded as the least crucial or may absolutely not fit the strategy of the product. They can be ignored and revised for later releases.
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19. What are the 3 Important Questions in Daily Scrum?
During a Daily Scrum, team members answer the following three questions:
- What have I completed recently? – Each individual describes what they have done in their work, so that everyone knows what has been completed and whether there are any blockages they have hit.
- What’s on my to-do list today?- Discuss about the items which they are working on, and also align everybody’s priorities in accordance with the team’s goals.
- Are there any roadblocks I’m facing? – Team members call out any impediments that are in their way so the Scrum Master and other teammates can help and find solutions to keep them moving.
20. How will you facilitate the Requirement Workshop (different steps)?
As a Business Analyst, Workshop plays a pivotal role in Requirement Elicitation. To facilitate Requirement Workshop, we need to follow these guidelines
- Define the workshop objectives
- Identify and invite participants
- Create an agenda
- Prepare supporting materials and resources
- Kick off the workshop and set ground rules
- Facilitate discussions and activities
- Document and prioritize requirements
- Summarize key decisions and wrap up
- Follow up with stakeholders
21. You are working on a project related to creating a mobile app for an Edtech company. “Download Course Materials” is one of the primary use cases for the app. How will you document this use case using the standard use case document template? In your response, please include at least five key sections of the template!
Here’s an outline of a typical use case document template:
- Use Case Name: Provide a unique and descriptive name for the use case.
- ID: Assign a unique identifier for easy reference.
- Actors: List the actors involved in the use case, including their roles and interests.
- Description: Provide a brief description of the use case’s purpose and goal.
- Preconditions: Describe any conditions that must be true before the use case can start.
- Postcondition: Describe the state of the system after the use case execution.
- Normal Flow: Happy path – series of actions/interactions between System and actor.
- Alternative Flows: Alternative scenarios/ Exceptions/ Error conditions.
- Exceptions: List any exceptional situations that may arise and how the system should handle them.
22. Can you walk me through your approach to creating a business case?
A structured way of presenting the business case:
- Define the problem statement/opportunity: Clearly state the issue or potential benefit that will be addressed by the business case.
- Gather data: Gather relevant information about the current situation and market conditions, as well as stakeholder needs.
- Analyze the alternatives: Identify and evaluate various solutions or approaches to addressing the problem or opportunity.
- Cost-benefit analysis: Estimate the costs, benefits, and potential ROI for each option.
- Estimate Risks: the potential risks and risk mitigation strategies are detailed out.
- Recommend Solution: Based on the analysis, come up with the best option ( final recommendation).
- Implementation Plan: Steps to be taken, timeline, resources etc required for recommended solution.
- Success Criteria: Measurable outcomes defining project success.
- Executive Summary- brief overview statement of key points for the decision-maker
23. How do you validate that a proposed solution meets business needs?
I do the following things to prove that a proposed solution will satisfy the business needs:
– Requirements Traceability
– Stakeholder Review Sessions
– Functional Testing
– User Acceptance Testing
– Performance metrics
24. What techniques do you use for data modeling?
Depending on the needs of a project and the nature of available data, there are different methods I apply in data modeling.
- Entity Relationship Diagram: Most ERD is done at the start.
- Dimensional Modeling: Star schema or Snowflake schema are applied in data warehousing projects.
- Unified Modeling Language (UML) – used for documenting classes, attributes, and relationships
25. What is the use of Configuration management and version control?
Configuration management is the art of managing changes to systems so that their conformance to specified requirements is maintained continuously. In other words, it means identification, control, verification, and status accounting of configuration items throughout the system lifecycle.
Version control is a sub-set of Configuration Management that particularly tracks changes into documents over some time, hence allowing collaboration, rollback, and auditability. It is an important tool for managing software development projects.
26. What are the various Testing Techniques that are used in the project?
The specific testing techniques used in a project depend on its size, complexity, and specific requirements. However, common approaches include:
Functional Testing
- Unit testing: Verifies individual components/functions.
- Integration testing: Tests the interaction between various System components.
- System testing: End-to-end testing.
- Acceptance testing: Confirms if the system satisfies user needs.
Non-Functional Testing
- Performance testing: Measures system response under various workloads.
- Security testing: Identifies vulnerabilities and weaknesses.
- Usability testing: Evaluates user interface and experience.
- Compatibility testing: Checks compatibility across different environments.
Other Techniques
- Regression testing: Verifies that new changes introduced didn’t break the old code/new defects.
- Smoke testing: Determines if the build is stable enough for further testing.
- Exploratory testing: Investigates the application without predefined test cases.
27. How is the 100 Points Method used for prioritizing the Product backlog?
The objective is to give more weight to the higher prioritized backlog items when compared to the other available User Stories. It involves giving the participants 100 points they can vote for the items in the product backlog such as Epics, or User Stories that add the most value to the organization. The votes do not need to be distributed equally; rather a weighted distribution can be allocated to reflect the higher priority that some backlog items are worth. The prioritization is determined by calculating the total points allocated to each User Story.
28. How would you approach gathering requirements for an API-based project?
Gathering requirements for an API-based project involves a systematic approach to ensure that the final product meets the needs of stakeholders and integrates effectively with other systems.
Steps to Write API Requirements
- Purpose Description: Clearly define the purpose of the API.
- Endpoint Definitions: Specify the endpoints of the API, describing what each endpoint does.
- Request and Response Formats: JSON/XML
- HTTP Methods: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE etc
- Authentication and Authorization: Token/API Keys
- Error Handling: status code
- Rate Limiting and Quotas: Specify any limitations on how often the API can be called.
29. How is creating RTM beneficial for Business Analysts?
Requirement traceability refers to the capability of tracing and identifying requirements easily. The Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM) is the major tool for accomplishing traceability. The requirements are traced both ways: from high-level requirements to user tests and design documents, and vice versa. Some of the benefits of using RTM are:
- It facilitates the assessment of a change request by finding affected documents and features.
- This will ensure that all requirements have been covered; it also prevents scope issues.
- It lets the stakeholders know that their needs will be understood and covered.
30. How does CATWOE help in business analysis and decision-making?
CATWOE can help prevent making appropriate decisions. The analysis of such a decision includes the terms on which such decisions will impact the customers (C), who all are the actors (A), what different transformation (T) processes are, how they might affect the system or its global picture, and worldwide (W) issues, who is actually responsible/has ownership (O) of the business, and what the environmental (E) impacts will be of the project/business.
Additional Interview Preparation Materials
We consistently release videos and articles based on our extensive experience conducting interviews in the corporate world. Here are some top resources:
- Scenario-based BA interview questions – An article with behavioural interview questions for Business Analysts
- Business Analyst interview Q&A (With Scenario based questions) – A paperback and Kindle book by Abhishek Srivastava available on Amazon World and Amazon India
- Interview Questions on UML Modelling – A concise video covering relevant topics
- Entry-Level Business Analyst Interview Questions – An informative article
- Business Analyst Interview questions and answers – YouTube Playlist
Conclusion
Preparing for an experienced Business Analyst interview demands a deep understanding of industry-specific concepts and problem-solving skills. This blog covered a range of questions. We have also provided additional resources to explore.
Techcanvass and our team of experts have been training and mentoring professionals. Our expertise is in Business Analysis, Domain Training, Data Analytics, and more. Techcanvass is an IIBA Endorsed education provider.
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