BUSINESS ANALYST
University of Washington
Seattle, WA
Full-time
Analysis
Posted on May 31, 2019
| Req #: | 164508 |
| Department: | UW FINANCE TRANSFORMATION |
| Job Location: | Seattle Campus |
| Posting Date: | 02/06/2019 |
| Closing Info: | Open Until Filled |
| Salary: | Salary is commensurate with experience and education. |
| Shift: | First Shift |
| Notes: | As a UW employee, you will enjoy generous benefits and work/life programs. For detailed information on Benefits for this position, click here. |
UW faculty and staff also enjoy outstanding benefits, professional growth opportunities and unique resources in an environment noted for diversity, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits and natural beauty. All of which has allowed the UW to be nationally recognized as a “Great College to Work For” for five consecutive years.
The UW Finance Transformation Program (UWFT) is a $200M initiative to replace the University’s financial systems with an integrated system to manage the full suite of financial transactions and reporting needs in the UW system – to include academic, administrative, and healthcare. UWFT will fundamentally change the processes and tools that the University employs to track, spend, collect, manage, and report University finances in excess of $7B in annual revenues, resulting in more timely and actionable information for leadership. Among the UW’s highest administrative priorities, this multi-year initiative is one of the largest finance system projects in Washington State and the outcome of the program will be highly visible at all levels of the University and the state.
The University of Washington’s Finance Transformation Program (UWFT) has an outstanding opportunity for a Business Analyst to provide a key role in the planning and implementation of an enterprise-wide financial system and modernization of related business processes. Multiple positions will be filled from this recruitment.
The UWFT program is a multi-year effort to transform the UW’s existing financial processes through business process redesign and the replacement of legacy systems with modern technology. This position will be part of a core program team responsible for defining, implementing and maintaining the UW’s methodology for envisioning future state financial processes and realizing this future state through selection of a modern Core Financials ERP.
The purpose of this position is to analyze, measure, design, depict, and present business and operational processes along with their relationship to and utilization of technology. This position is responsible for navigating the wealth of data and turning it into actionable and insightful information for the University. The Business Analyst will work directly with University Department/unit leaders, providing consultation and support in the development, analysis, interpretation and management of a variety of complex internal and external data sources as well as business process areas. The incumbent draws on expertise in data collection methodologies to support subsequent data analysis, and finance processes and statistics; prepares charts and graphs; applies appropriate statistical tests; provides analytical commentary; and educates analytical concepts in an understandable and actionable manner. The Business Analyst operates under general or minimum supervision, and performs duties with broad latitude for exercising independent judgment.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Analysis
• Investigate and analyze current state business processes and financial and management system landscapes and architecture
• Design data collection instruments that effectively obtain the data necessary to support identified analytical objectives
• Elicit requirements and operational objectives using interviews, document analysis, surveys and functional workgroups
• Develop guidelines for vendor demos and test scripts that represent future state process transformation in support of system selection activities
• Establish, implement and promote effective requirements gathering methodology, documentation and management practices.
• Capture, evaluate, prioritize and understand business needs and translate them into business process and system requirements.
• Organize and synthesize large amounts of information provided by stakeholders and develop relevant business analysis artifacts, such as use cases, as is and to be process flows
• Understand and document complex business processes, roles, business rules, policies and workflows related to current and future state financial processes
• Analyze business problems and develop solutions; identify and assess alternatives; develop business cases and proposals that support decision making among a diverse set of process partners.
• Critically evaluate information gathered from multiple sources and reconcile conflicts.
• Assess benefits to be derived from systems improvements and quantify impact to business units.
Project Management and Leadership
• Collaborate and partner with multiple stakeholders across the organization including project team members
• Work effectively in a large team environment and effectively learn and apply program methods and approaches.
• Lead process transformation teams focused on documenting current state and envisioning future state for major institutional end to end financial processes
• Communicate complex processes, problems, and solutions in a simple, compelling, accurate, and highly visual manner
• Work independently to manage key components of the project—includes defining tasks, managing the work, and being accountable for the deliverables of assigned components such as the total cost of ownership.
• Use independent judgement to determine appropriate escalation and resolution of issues within program structure.
• Work with all levels of management to critically evaluate and communicate business issues/risks with conviction to campus clients and team members
• Meet project deadlines to full completion
• Facilitate meetings and/or design sessions to validate, prioritize, and document requirements
• Make presentations to user groups and key stakeholders
• Work directly with the project manager(s) to track time, schedule, budgets and compile reports as needed for quality assurance and executive review.
Other Responsibilities
• Provide mentorship to junior business analysts
• Serve as critical liaison between business, technical, program and support teams
• Operate effectively in a matrixed environment
• Serve as liaison with the vendor BA resources, and maintain project standards and consistency across the implementation team.
• Conduct ad-hoc analysis for project team
REQUIREMENTS:
• Bachelors Degree in accounting, finance, business administration or other related area.
• Five years of experience doing progressively more complex business and financial analysis within a project or program environment such as scope definition, requirements gathering, business process re-engineering, etc.
• Significant understanding of financial terms, business processes, and financial reporting.
• Experience with system implementation deliverables and financial analysis, including fit-gap analysis, total cost of ownership, benefits analysis, and business process improvement.
• Self-starter and able to manage multiple priorities and tasks in a dynamic environment.
• Demonstrated excellent written/oral communication skills, technical documentation skills, user liaison skills, and personal interaction abilities.
• Advanced ability to develop efficient and effective analytic methodologies and approaches to generate value, address a broad range of operational and performance issues, execute the analysis in a timely, accurate and reliable manner, communicate findings clearly and concisely to diverse business leaders, key contributors and stakeholders.
• Advanced critical thinking and problem solving skills.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and as part of a team in a cooperative effort.
• Ability to deal with trade-offs, conflict, and change management in a collaborative and positive manner.
• Demonstrated excellent written/oral communication skills, technical documentation skills, user liaison skills, and personal interaction abilities.
Equivalent education/experience will substitute for all minimum qualifications except when there are legal requirements, such as a license/certification/registration.
DESIRED:
• Expertise with SharePoint (or similar project management tools), spreadsheet, word processing and presentation applications.
• Experience with a major audit, accounting or consulting firm.
• Experience in a large university, large medical center, or other large complex enterprise.
• Knowledge and experience developing/implementing enterprise level software systems in support of administrative or operational needs.
• Experience dealing with organizational change management.
• Demonstrated success in facilitating work groups and ability to develop consensus.
• Previous experience in a lead business analyst role or as key point of contact.
• Previous experience with higher education financial and/or budget processes.
CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT:
Application Process:
The application process for UW positions may include completion of a variety of online assessments to obtain additional information that will be used in the evaluation process. These assessments may include Work Authorization, Cover Letter and/or others. Any assessments that you need to complete will appear on your screen as soon as you select “Apply to this position”. Once you begin an assessment, it must be completed at that time; if you do not complete the assessment you will be prompted to do so the next time you access your “My Jobs” page. If you select to take it later, it will appear on your "My Jobs" page to take when you are ready. Please note that your application will not be reviewed, and you will not be considered for this position until all required assessments have been completed.
The University of Washington is a leader in environmental stewardship & sustainability, and committed to becoming climate neutral.
The University of Washington is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. To request disability accommodation in the application process, contact the Disability Services Office at 206-543-6450 / 206-543-6452 (tty) or dso@uw.edu.
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