Established in 1981 with a single store in the Northwest of England, the JD Group is a leading omni-channel retailer of Sports Fashion, Outdoors and Gyms with our colleagues working in stores across several retail fascias in many markets around the world.
JD Sports Fashion Plc was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1996 and has been a FTSE100 publicly quoted company since 2019 and continues to grow in the UK and internationally.
We want to be the leading global omnichannel retailer in the sports and outdoor industry. To be a part of this successful company and help us to achieve this you will have the desire to ingrain our strategic goals of being a people-led, innovative and customer-focused organisation which provides operational excellence whilst identifying new areas of growth as part of our day to day objectives.
Senior Business Analyst
Reports To: Business Analyst Manager
Line Management Responsibility: No

SKILLS & QUALIFICATIONS:

The following skills and qualifications are typical to the role of a Senior Business Analyst. The list is non-exhaustive, and it is not compulsory for every SBA to have those skills and qualifications listed below.

Professional Experience

• 5–10+ years of experience in business analysis or a related field.
• Proven track record of leading complex projects and delivering business value.
• Experience working with cross-functional teams and stakeholders at all levels.

Technical Skills

• Tools: Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, JIRA, Confluence, Trello.
• Data analysis: Basic SQL, Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP), Power BI, Looker
• Modelling techniques: Use case modelling, process modelling (BPMN), data flow diagrams.
• Software development lifecycle (SDLC) knowledge: Agile, Scrum, Waterfall.
• Requirements management: Elicitation, documentation, validation, and traceability.

ROLE OVERVIEW:

As a Senior Business Analyst within the Group Transformation team, you will be working on complex and high priority initiatives across the JD Group to support change delivery and unlock the JD strategy. Senior Business Analysts within Group Transformation will work on cross-functional Programmes or be embedded within an Agile Product squad. Sometimes you will work on a change activity as the only business analyst and sometimes you will have BAs working with you that you will task manage.
As part of your role, you will work closely with business stakeholders, Programme and Project Managers, Developers, Architects, Suppliers, Testers, and Product team members. You will be a key member of 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. Senior Business Analysts will be highly performing, highly engaged colleagues passionate about business analysis, delivering great results with focus on their own personal development.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Work with Business Leads and Finance Business Partners to create business cases, focusing on effort vs value to inform and influence executive decisions effectively.
• Lead and design workshops to achieve specific outcomes.
• Build and maintain relationships with stakeholders at all levels of the business. Able to engage senior stakeholders, using the appropriate frequency and level of detail.
• Lead the elicitation and documentation of requirements in complex scenarios, adapting BA techniques as needed.
• Confidently manage prioritisation in complex scenarios, ensuring alignment with business goals.
• Work with Product Managers on both Quarterly and Horizon Planning, shaping the direction of a Product Squad.
• Play a lead role in a Product Squad and input at Tribe level, supporting the definition of initiatives and ideas that link back to strategic objectives.
• 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.
• Skilfully develop and adapt comprehensive As-Is and To-Be models, effectively identifying improvement areas and supporting strategic process changes.
• Positively implement robust requirements management and traceability practices.
• Support the coaching, mentoring and upskilling of the BA team helping provide development opportunities for the Business Analysts. Continually look for ways to improve working practices and the overall BA service.
• Provide high quality peer reviews and feedback on BA deliverables. Fostering a culture of quality by consistently identifying areas for improvement and ensuring high standards are met. Ensure 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.

EXAMPLE CERTIFICATIONS ASSOCIATED TO THE ROLE:

• CBAP (Certified Business Analysis Professional) – IIBA
• PMI-PBA (Professional in Business Analysis) – PMI
• CSPO (Certified Scrum Product Owner) – Scrum Alliance
• Lean Six Sigma – For process improvement expertise

The following list includes some key competencies and behaviours associated to the role of Senior Business Analyst. The competencies below align Group Transformation competencies with ones from the wider company list of JD competencies. For a full list of GT competencies and levels by role please refer to the published GT competency framework.

• Leading and supervising: The ability to demonstrate leadership in the workplace, taking personal responsibility for the performance and development of oneself and colleagues and driving engagement, motivation and empowerment across teams. The ability to coach and mentor colleagues, being inclusive at all times and constantly encouraging others to develop and grow as Business Analysts and leaders of the future. The ability to provide clear direction and set appropriate standards.
• Adapting and responding to change: The ability to adapt to changing circumstances, to accept new ideas and initiatives. Ability to adapt interpersonal style to suit different people and situations, showing respect and sensitivity towards cultural and religious differences.
• Persuading, influencing and stakeholder management: The ability to build and sustain the support to achieve intended outcomes and resolve conflict by making a strong personal impression on others, gaining clear agreement and commitment from others by persuading, convincing and negotiating, promoting ideas on behalf of self and others, provide relevant and timely communications that support the successful delivery of the initiative and drive decisions.
• Analysing: The ability to capture, assess, justify & prioritise business requirements in a comprehensive, measurable and traceable way to satisfy business need. The ability to analyse numerical data, verbal data and other sources of information. The ability to break information into component parts identifying patterns and relationships. The ability to probe for further information or greater understanding of the problem and make rational judgements from the information and analysis available. The ability to produce workable solutions to a range of problems and demonstrate an understanding of how one issue may be part of a much larger system. The ability to assess the costs and potential benefits of new processes, organisational structures and workflows and to communicate this to stakeholders to inform decision making.
• Management of controls, deciding and initiating action: The ability to make and seek from others prompt, clear decisions which may involve tough choices or considered risks. Taking full responsibility for actions, projects and people in the team. The ability to identify and monitor risks to plan, implement appropriate responses to those risks, and respond to issues that affect the initiative. The ability to manage variations and change requests in a controlled way. The ability to assure through ongoing assessments and reviews, that deliverables meet the quality standards defined and expected by the business