Company Description

Uncommon Schools is a non-profit network of 53 outstanding public charter schools in grades K-12 across New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Our mission is to start and manage outstanding urban public charter schools that close the achievement gap and prepare students from low-income backgrounds for success in college and beyond. We are accomplishing that mission every day, with a college graduation rate that is well above the national average and thousands of stories of our students and alumni achieving their dreams.

Job Description

Internal Job Title: Associate Director of IT, Project Management, Business Analyst

Team Overview

The Data & IT Team is a true partner with Uncommon's schools and other Home Office teams to achieve Uncommon's mission and provide value through technology solutions and services. The Project Management team is instrumental in delivering solutions that further Uncommon's ability deliver on its mission. Projects range in size, complexity, and risk and require strong project management discipline to deliver the expected value.

Position Overview

As a member of Uncommon's IT Project Management Team, the Business Analyst will contribute to the successful implementation of workstreams that will help ensure the Team achieves its goals and objectives. The Business Analyst will support the Data Management and IT teams with creating business cases, gathering business requirements, documenting processes, and supporting the hand-off of project deliverables to appropriate operations teams.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

(1) Process Discovery and Documentation

• Process Documentation: Create and maintain process documentation in both visual and written formats. Written documentation must be in the language of the line of business that owns the process. Additionally, must be able to translate line-of-business language to technical language needed by IT and its technology partners.
• Plan User Interviews: Plan user interviews with the goal to deeply understand their business process(es), their roles and responsibilities, and discover the "why" behind current processes.
• Process improvement: Work with project sponsors, process owners, and key stakeholders to develop, test, and document process improvements.
• Build Expertise: Attend training/webinars offered by vendor to build expertise in the business analyst discipline and attain, at a minimum, the ECBA certification from IIBA with long-term goal of attaining CBAP certification.

(2) Business Requirements Gathering

• Conduct stakeholder interviews: Identify stakeholders and plan stakeholder interviews with the goal to deeply understand their business needs and goals. Interviews must result in fully understanding the requirements to satisfy the business needs and goals.
• Create Requirements Documents: Based on stakeholder interviews, the Business Analyst must clearly document the requirements. Written documentation must be in the language of the line of business that owns the process. Additionally, must be able to translate line-of-business language to technical language needed by IT and its technology partners.
• Develop Business Cases: As part of the project request intake process, the Business Analyst will be responsible for developing business cases used to evaluate the value of the request. This is evaluation is used to help select the right work for Data & IT to complete on behalf of Uncommon.

(3) Operations Hand-off

• Knowledge Base: Coordinate with product owners for the creation and management of all internal and school-facing knowledge base articles on support, troubleshooting, and best practices for the process/solution.
• Training: Assist product owners in developing and facilitating training.
• Operations Documentation: Work with operational teams to document new or changed processes related to supported applications.
• Share Organizational Best Practices: Share your expertise in analysis and documentation through learning opportunities for other members of the team and organization.

ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Work closely with Home Office teams, school-based Directors of Operations, and members of the Data and IT Team. The Business Analyst will report to the Director of IT, Project Management.

Qualifications

Required knowledge, skills, and abilities

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, experience developing communication plans, and the ability to bridge between the language of business process owners and technology teams
• Exceptional analytical, critical, and conceptual thinking skills
• A deep desire to understand how work gets done and the ability to ask questions to gain that understanding
• Ability to evaluate and create business processes, anticipating requirements, uncovering areas for improvement, and developing and implementing solutions
• Experience leading ongoing reviews of business processes
• Ability to perform requirements analysis
• Ensuring solutions meet business needs and requirements
• Performing user acceptance testing
• Serving as a liaison between stakeholders, users, and technical teams
• Ability to monitor deliverables and ensure timely completion of projects

Preferred knowledge, skills, and abilities:

• The ability to influence stakeholders and work closely with them to determine acceptable solutions
• Excellent documentation skills
• Experience creating detailed reports and giving presentations
• Competency in Microsoft applications including Word, Excel, and Outlook
• Experience using Microsoft Visio (preferred) or other diagramming tool
• Excellent planning, organizational, and time management skills
• A demonstrated history of leading and supporting successful projects in a mid-sized matrixed organization (K-12 experience a plus)

Minimum educational level

• Bachelor's degree required

Additional Information

Uncommon Schools offers competitive salaries commensurate with experience and a comprehensive benefits package. Aside from extensive professional development, all our staff members are equipped with a laptop computer, email, and all necessary supplies.

Uncommon believes in the importance of being a diverse, equitable and inclusive organization that enables our students and staff to thrive. We are committed to building a talented team that reflects the diverse backgrounds and experiences of our students. At the same time, we work to ensure an inclusive community through creating a space for important dialogue about issues of race and identity for our staff and students. As an equal opportunity employer, we hire without consideration to race, religion, creed, color, national origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status or disability.