Business Analyst

Job Summary

The Business Analyst, Scrum Master and POD Lead is the accountable lead of an SKO delivery POD, a self-contained unit comprising a Front-End Developer, an API/Middleware Developer, a Database Developer, and a QA/Test Engineer, deployed to deliver projects and features for an SKO client.

The role combines four responsibilities: business analysis (planning, gathering, and analysing requirements), project and delivery management (planning, estimation, scope, risk, and release), Scrum Master facilitation (including sprint events and retrospectives), and POD leadership. The individual serves as the single point of contact for the client, supported by POD members on technical matters, and is accountable for the POD delivering agreed scope on time, to the agreed quality, and within the agreed commercial terms.

Responsibilities

• Requirements Elicitation, Analysis and Documentation: Plan and conduct stakeholder interviews, workshops, and clarification sessions with the client to understand business objectives, user needs, business rules, and functional and non-functional requirements. Prepare and maintain business requirements, functional specifications, use cases, user stories, and testable acceptance criteria. Identify assumptions, dependencies, and gaps, and maintain requirements traceability from request to release.
• Solution and Process Analysis: Analyse current and future-state processes, perform gap and impact analysis, and prepare process flows and wireframes. Work with the Front-End, API/Middleware, and Database Developers to translate requirements into a feasible solution across the UI, integration, and data layers, including API contracts and data requirements at a functional level.
• Backlog Management and Story Readiness: Maintain the POD backlog with the client Product Owner. Refine and split backlog items, clarify business value, and ensure stories meet the agreed Definition of Ready before sprint planning. Recommend priorities while leaving final product prioritisation with the client Product Owner.
• User Acceptance Testing and Business Validation: Align business test scenarios with the QA/Test Engineer, plan and coordinate client UAT, triage functional defects, and obtain formal client acceptance of delivered features.
• Project and Delivery Management: Delivery Planning, Estimation and Scheduling: Develop and maintain release plans, sprint roadmaps, and milestone schedules for each project or feature. Lead feature-level effort estimation with POD members, plan capacity across roles, allocate work, and set delivery commitments that are realistic and agreed with the client.
• Scope, Change and Risk Management: Manage scope against the agreed statement of work. Assess change requests for impact on effort, cost, timeline, and quality, and obtain approval through the agreed change-control process. Maintain a RAID log (risks, assumptions, issues, dependencies), apply mitigation actions, and escalate to SKO Delivery Management and the client in line with the escalation matrix.
• Release, Quality and Handover Management: Coordinate release readiness, deployment planning, and go-live activities with the POD and client teams. Ensure quality gates, the Definition of Done, and documentation standards are met, and manage handover, user guidance, and knowledge transfer after delivery.
• Scrum Master: Scrum Event Facilitation and Retrospectives: Facilitate sprint planning, daily Scrum, sprint reviews and demonstrations with the client, and sprint retrospectives within agreed timeboxes. Ensure retrospective outcomes are converted into owned, tracked improvement actions and reviewed in subsequent sprints.
• Impediment Removal, Agile Practice and Delivery Metrics: Identify and remove impediments, including access, environment, dependency, and decision delays. Promote Agile practices, transparency, and team self-management. Track team-level measures such as sprint goal achievement, velocity predictability, carry-over, defect leakage, and impediment ageing, and use them to drive continuous improvement.
• Client Engagement and POD Leadership: Client Single Point of Contact and Governance: Act as the primary point of contact between the client and the POD, supported by POD members on technical topics. Run client governance including weekly status reporting, sprint and release reviews, and periodic steering meetings. Manage client expectations, track agreed delivery KPIs and SLAs, and monitor client satisfaction and engagement health.
• POD Leadership and Team Development: Lead the POD as a cohesive unit. Onboard new members, set working norms, provide performance input to SKO line managers, plan leave and backup coverage, resolve team conflicts, and support the professional development of POD members.
• Working closely with the client Product Owner and stakeholders, and with SKO Delivery Management, the individual ensures that requirements are clearly understood, delivery commitments are realistic and transparent, and the POD operates as a cohesive, continuously improving team.

Requirements

• Required Certifications: a recognised business analysis certification (CBAP, CCBA, or IIBA-AAC) or equivalent.
• Strongly preferred: a Scrum certification (PSM I, CSM, or SAFe Scrum Master) and a project management certification (PMP, PRINCE2 Practitioner, or PMI-ACP).
• Required Experience: 7-10 years of total experience in software or technology-driven projects, including: 5+ years of business analysis; 2+ years performing Scrum Master or delivery lead responsibilities for a cross-functional team covering front-end, API/middleware, database, and QA roles; and 2+ years in a client-facing role as the primary point of contact for an external client.