Top 30 Business Analyst Interview Questions and Answers for banking domain

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

It is the most fundamental question you can expect during your interview. You can answer this question by explaining that a business analyst is a liaison or a link between different stakeholders belonging to different domains in an organization. A business analyst should have the capabilities to fulfill the business objectives and balance the needs of various stakeholders.

5. 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.

Pro Tip: Make sure you also focus on the skills outlined in the job advertisement when you are highlighting and explaining your experience and competencies.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

Pro Tip: There are many other business techniques like MOST and PESTLE, and you can learn more about them to prepare for your business analyst interview.

Technical/Problem Solving Business Analyst Interview Questions

10. 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.

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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.

14. Why it is necessary for a business analyst to get involved during the implementation of requirements?

It is frequently asked Business Analyst interview questions. Obtaining domain knowledge and giving an analytical solution are the two major criteria of a Business Analyst. Therefore, during the actual execution of a requirement or use case a Business Analyst can help to determine many business-related queries that may occur during the implementation phase. In contrast, they can learn from the problems which may help them to provide the solution in other situations and also help to boost their domain knowledge.

15. Which types of issues a Business Analyst may face?

A Business Analyst may face the following issues –

• Employees related issues
• Technical problems
• Lack of access
• Limitations in Business policies
• Business model errors

16. What is the role of a Business Analyst in a project?

The most important Business Analyst interview questions are about the role of a Business Analyst. A Business Analyst is needed from the kick-off to the execution of a project. Here are the top 5 reasons:

• During the project kick-off session, sometimes technical queries arise from stakeholder and client-side. These queries are solved by a Business Analyst as the technical project team is not involved during this phase.
• The next step after the kick-off session fundamentally involves some gap analysis, business process analysis, documentation, SOW review, project scheduling and of course preparing requirement specification documents which is all done by a Business Analyst.
• During the development and testing phase, a Business Analyst plays an important role in resolving any requirement related issues from the project teams. In addition, he can authenticate whether the requirements are properly executed and tested considering different functional and non-functional scenarios.
• In a waterfall model, new requirements or alteration of requirements can be requested from stakeholders since varying business demands. In such a situation, a Business Analyst can handle this change request with appropriate authentication and analysis.

17. Define Critical Path Analysis.

Every project consists of a set of activities from Start to Finish. A Critical Path is a set of activities that includes the longest path in the entire project. Therefore, a Critical Path Analysis is a significant element in decreasing project timelines & controls cost.

18. What is CATWOE and how it helps in Business analysis and decision making?

CATWOE is an abbreviation for Customers, Actors, Transformation process, Worldview, Owners and Environmental constraints. It helps in making the decision in advance. It analyzes how the decision has an impact on customers(C), that are involved as actors(A), what unique transformations(T) will occur that may affect the system, global representation and worldwide(W) matters, who will be responsible/ownership(O) for the business and how will the environment(E) affect to the project/business carried out.

19. What are the components of Strategy Analysis?

Below are the components of Strategy Analysis –

• Vision
• Mission
• Objectives
• Strategies
• Action plan

20. What do you understand by Business Modeling?

Recognize the value proposition for a business and then make a step-by-step process for operating the business. This step-by-step process is known as Business Modeling. It involves the components of Strategy Analysis like vision, mission, and strategies to reach those goals.

21. Define Project Deliverables.

The Project Deliverables are the set of determinate goods and services that are delivered to the end-user after the completion of the project. It is actually the output of the project.

22. What are the components of the Requirements Work Plan?

Below are the components of Requirements Work Plan-

• Project description
• Key issues
• Deliverable s
• Goals and objectives
• Strategy
• Resources
• Budget & time

23. What do you mean by Business Process Modeling?

Business process modeling belongs to business process management, which is used to advance the business process. It is the illustration of an organization’s business process.

24. What are the benefits of Business process modeling?

Benefits of Business Process Modeling are as follows-

• It is used to represent the understanding of business processes
• It provides reliability and monitors the processes of the project
• It is used to find and remove errors
• It gives away for a clear start and end for the process without interruptions

25. How does a Business Analyst examine performance metrics?

Business Analyst can examine performance metrics in a below-given way-

• Make sure your important deliverables are met
• The expenses and time required for the project should not be exceeded
• Make sure that quality deliverables are sustained

26. Which are the important qualities of an Agile Business Analyst?

An Agile Business Analyst must be able to:

• The Business Analyst is required to collaborate with the product owner and developers to produce requirements. The Business Analyst also must work to advance realistic functional requirements.
• The BA must-do requirement development in an iterative way
• The BA must make requirement specifications, data models and business rules as much insubstantial as possible.
• The BA must be technically comprehensive so that he can understand how the components of the system relate to each other. In addition to that, he must know the agile terminologies as he acts as the mediator between the customer and the project team.

27. Why is the Requirement Traceability Matrix used?

RTM is used in every project and hence it is one of the favorite Business Analyst interview questions and answers. RTM is used to record all the requirements given by the customer, so the aim of RTM is to confirm that all of the stated requirements are fulfilled.

28. What are the various software engineering processes?

Different software engineering processes are as follows-

• Collecting requirements
• Analyzing
• Designing
• Implementing
• Testing
• Deploying in the business environment

29. Define RUP Methodology.

Rational Unified Process (RUP) is a product application development method with the number of devices that help to code the last product and assignments recognized with this goal. RUP is an object-oriented approach used to assure effective project management and top-notch software production.

30. What do you understand by RAD Methodology?

Rapid Application Development model (RAD) is a type of incremental model. Every phase of the project is developed in parallel to an individual project. The progress in the project is time-oriented, delivered and later on accumulated into a working model.