Business Analyst

• Job Title – Business Analyst
• Location – BL9 8RR
• Working rota – Monday to Friday
• Working hours – 40 hours
• Working model – 4 days in the office, 1 day working from home

Role overview:

As a Business Analyst within the Group Transformation function, you will be working on complex and high priority initiatives across the JD Group to support change delivery and unlock the JD strategy. BA’s within Group Transformation will work on cross-functional Programmes or be embedded within an Agile Product squad.

As part of your role, you will work closely with business stakeholders, Project Managers, Developers, Architects, Suppliers, Testers, and Product team members. You will be a key member in the BA community where you will promote best practice and help the team to evolve and grow.

Quality and agility will be at the heart of everything you do, driving improvements that help us deliver quicker to market whilst giving our customers the best possible experience. We are looking for someone passionate about business analysis, delivering great results and their own personal development. In return, you will receive support, training and development to further your career.

Responsibilities:

• Ensure new initiatives are understood and the wider impact is known to the business.
• Lead requirements workshops with all stakeholder groups identified for the initiative.
• Build and maintain relationships with stakeholders at all levels of the business.
• Lead the elicitation and documentation of requirements, applying BA techniques to drive out the requirement.
• Prioritise business requirements using appropriate techniques.
• Validate that requirements are in line with objectives and scope, identifying and managing conflicts.
• Confident working in an agile or waterfall environment, with an understanding of the pros and cons of each approach.
• Play a leading role in a Product Squad, supporting the Product Manager during Discovery, ideation and initiative definition.
• Own and drive forward the requirements during Agile delivery, creating, estimating and prioritising user stories, maintaining the backlog with a focus on delivering Value to the business.
• Strong process mapping skills, with the ability to also upskill the wider BA team.
• Support the coaching and mentoring of the BA team, continually look for ways to improve working practices and the overall BA service.
• Provide high quality peer reviews and feedback on BA deliverables. Ensuring improvements are made and the BA understands why they are required.
• Take responsibility for your personal development, including working with your manager to set objectives and milestones and identify your training needs.
• Engage in promoting new ways of working and supporting technologies that will assist the team to become more efficient and deliver a higher quality of business analysis.

Functional & role objectives:

To support the Group Transformation function in delivering high quality programmes of work that add business benefit and value.

You will:

• Be an ambassador for Group Transformation, promoting our vision, ways of working, behaviours and adherence to governance and process.
• Proactively contribute towards making the Group Transformation function a great place to work, improving our togetherness, engagement and morale, and ensuring as a function we promote a working environment of continuous improvement.
• Be a supportive, inspiring team member. Be reliable and adaptable with a willingness to share knowledge and skills to help fellow colleagues and the team succeed.
• Be responsible for delivering high quality value-add BA activities into programmes of work, or standalone activities. Be collaborative, lead and take ownership of your elements of projects, ensuring a consistent high-quality service is provided.
• Build, develop and maintain strong collaborative relationships across Group Transformation and across the business to build awareness of the BA practice and how it adds value to JD.
• Ensure stakeholders are effectively managed and ensure communication (verbal and written) is of a high standard and audience appropriate.

Competencies and behaviours:

• Critical Analysis Skills - analyse and evaluate situations objectively to make unbiased recommendations.
• Problem solving - effectively analyse issues and opportunities with attention to detail, identifying maximum value, and identify ways to achieve goals by overcoming obstacles in a solution-oriented manner.
• Technical Awareness - have a broad understanding of all technical aspects of a project in order to make suitable recommendations.
• Teamwork - be a proactive team member who motivates and inspires others.
• Communication - sharp, clear, transparent, and effective communication skills applied objectively across a diverse set of stakeholders and channels.

Skills and Experience:

• Strong business analysis experience gained in ecommerce, retail or supply chain environments is highly advantageous.
• Strong facilitation and influencing skills.
• Confidence to question stakeholders and identify underlying requirements.
• Experienced in establishing relationships, understanding differing perspectives and managing stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds; adapting stakeholder engagement style to meet the needs of different audiences.
• Thrives in a fast-paced environment and proactively plans/manages time accordingly.
• Used to leading and supporting the capture, validation and analysis of functional and technical requirements.
• Experience in an Agile Scrum environment, able to prioritise backlogs, refine requirements, facilitate estimation sessions and ensure value is being delivered.

Desirable Skills/Experience:

• Certification in Agile such as Certified Agile BA/Product Owner/Scrum Master.
• Professional certification such as the BCS International Diploma in Business Analysis.
• Experience in coaching and mentoring Business Analysts and BA teams in best practice approaches and improving team performance.
• Leadership skills, can motivate, feedback and coach. Adapting communication styles as appropriate.
• Experience working with retail/ecommerce/supply chain teams such as merchandising, marketing, finance, loss control, UX, design, operations, tax, data protection, analytics, customer care, customer acquisition and retention.

The Company:

The JD Group is a leading omnichannel retailer of Sports Fashion, Street & Premium Fashion, Outdoors and Gyms with over 90,000 colleagues over 4,500 stores across several retail fascia's in over 36 countries around the world.

We are an equal opportunities employer who embraces and values differences. We recognise the importance of an inclusive workplace culture in which everyone can thrive irrespective of their background or identity.

To be a part of this successful and continuously growing company, you will have the desire to ingrain our strategic goals of being a people first, a digital leader and customer focused organisation which provides operational excellence and is continuous with identifying new areas of growth into our day-to-day.

We know our employees work tirelessly to make JD Sports the success it is today and in turn, we offer them some amazing benefits:

• Incremental Holiday Allowance
• Staff Discount on qualifying purchases across Group retail stores and online
• Exclusive Colleague Bike Discount scheme
• Discounted Gym membership
• Personal development opportunities to learn and develop at work
• Access to Apprenticeships and accredited qualifications

Interested?

If you are interested in this position, then press the Apply Now button.

Due to the high volumes of applications our opportunities attract, it takes time to review them all. If you don't hear back within two weeks of your application, please consider your application to have been unsuccessful on this occasion

Applications that meet the skills criteria will be contacted for a 1st stage meeting with the talent team. Shortlisted candidates will then be invited to interview with the hiring manager.

Thank you again for your time.
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