Business Analyst Interview Question and Answer

1. What is a flowchart and why it is important?

Ans. A flowchart shows the complete flow of the system through symbols and diagrams.

2. Define BCG Matrix?

Ans. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix is developed to analyse several business processes and new product offering from companies.

3. What is the difference between the analysis model and the design model?

Ans. The analysis model is to help with the understanding of the problem by breaking it into its components. The design model is to help with the creation of a solution for an analysed problem.

4. What does UML stand for?

Ans. Unified Modelling Language

5. Name the two types of diagrams heavily used in BA?

Ans. Use Case Diagram and Collaboration Diagram

6. What are extends?

Ans. Extends are actions that must take place in a use case

7. What is the difference between a business requirement document (BRD) and a functional requirement document (FRD)?

Ans. Business Requirement document states the high-level business requirement along with the business need and business problem.

Functional Requirement document states the functionality required in the application designed for the business problem and the need to be mentioned in the Business requirement document.

8. Differentiate between Fish Model and V Model?

Ans. The fish model is costly and time consuming while V Model requires less time and cost.

9. What is Benchmarking?

Ans. Benchmarking is about measuring the performance of an organisation to compete in the industry.

10. What is Pareto Analysis?

Ans. Pareto analysis, also known as the 80/20 rule, is used for quality control and defect resolution.

11. What is the 100-point method?

Ans. The method is used to assign priority to different steps in a process.

12. What does INVEST stand for?

Ans. INVEST means Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Sized Appropriately, Testable. It can assist project managers and technical team to deliver quality products/services.

13. Define Application Usability?

Ans. Application usability is actually the quality of the system that makes the system useful for its end users. System’s usability is good if it is capable of achieving users’ goals.

14. Define OLTP Systems?

Ans. OLPT stands for On-Line Transaction Processing; such systems are capable to perform database transactions and are meant to provide good speed for database transactions.

15. Do you have any idea about Pugh Matrix?

Ans. Pugh Matrix is used to decide about the most optimal and alternate solutions. This technique is now a standard part of the Six Sigma technique. It is also known as the problem or design matrix.

16. Define BPMN Gateway?

Ans. BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) Gateway is a processing modelling component that is used to control the flow of interaction, sequence of processes.

17. What are the five elements in BPMN Gateway?

Ans. They are flow objects, data connection objects, swimlanes and artifacts.

18. What is FMEA?

Ans. It means Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. It is a failure analysis, that is used mainly in product development, system engineering and operations management.

Q19. Do you know what 8-omega is?

Ans. It is a business framework that is mainly being adopted by firms and organizations for the betterment of their business.

20. What are the factors in 8-omega?

Ans. The factors are strategy, people, process and technology.

21. What is Kano Analysis?

Ans. Kano Analysis is used to analyse a system in terms of its requirements to identify its impact on customers’ satisfaction.

22. What are the key areas in a Kano Analysis?

Ans. Unexpected Delighters, Performance Attributes and Must Have Attributes.

23. Define Personas?

Ans. Personas are used instead of real users that assist developers and technical team to judge the user behaviour in different scenarios.

24. Define Pair-Choice Technique?

Ans. The pair-Choice Technique is used to give priority to various items in a process.

25. How can you differentiate between pool and swimlane?

Ans. A swimlane is related to group activities on an activity diagram while a pool is dedicated activity to a single person.

26. Name the documents that a Business analyst creates.

Ans.  Documents that a business analyst needs to prepare, include –

• Business Case
• Business Analysis Plan
• Business Requirements Document (BRD)
• Stakeholder Management Plan
• System Requirements Specification Document (SRS)
• Process Document
• Gap Analysis Document
• Requirements Traceability Table (RTT)
• System Test Cases
• UAT Progress Report

27. What is SIPOC?

Ans. SIPOC is an acronym for Supplies, Inputs, Process, Outputs and Customers. This tool uses information from these segments and creates a process map, providing a high-level overview of a Six Sigma project. Many organizations these days use the opposite acronym COPIS, putting customers first and explaining the value of a customer to the organization.

28. As a business analyst, which tools you will be using extensively?

Ans. There are many tools; however, the most popular ones are –

• MS Office Suite
• Google Docs
• Rational Requisite Pro
• SWOT
• Trello
• Pencil
• Version One
• Balsamiq

29. What is a Data Collection Plan?

Ans. A Data Collection Plan is used to collect all the critical data in a system. It covers –

• Type of data that needs to be collected or gathered
• Different data sources for analyzing a data set 

30. What is SRS?

Ans. It is the abbreviation for System/Software Requirements Specification and is a set of documents that describe the features of a system or software application.

31. What are the key elements of SRS?

Ans. SRS includes a number of elements that define the intended functionality required by businesses to meet the requirements of the end users. These elements are –

• Scope of Work
• Functional Requirements
• Non-Functional Requirements
• Dependencies
• Assumptions
• Constraints
• Acceptance Criteria
• Data Model

32. What is Scope Creep? How will avoid Scope Creep?

Ans.  Also known as requirement creep, Scope Creep refers to damages or deviations in any project’s scope within the same resource range, and these are beyond human control. It indicates poor project management and is a potential risk to a project.

33. What are the common reasons behind Scope Creep?

Ans. It can be because of any uncontrolled issue, but the primary reasons behind Scope Creep are –

• Poor or miscommunication between the stakeholders of a project
• Improper documentation of project requirements

34. What is MSA?

Ans. The full form of MSA is Measurement System Analysis. MSA is used to check if a measurement system is accurate. It evaluates a system’s accuracy, precision, and stability.

35. What is Gap Analysis?

Ans. It is a method to assess differences in performance between the existing system and functionalities of a business. It is a performance level comparison that checks whether business requirements are being met and devises the ways that can help to get the required results.

36. Can you differentiate a Risk and an Issue?

Ans. A Risk is a problem that has been predicted earlier and improvement plans are devised for them, while an Issue is problem that has already occurred.

37. What do you understand by the term “Misuse Case”?

Ans. Misuse Case is a malicious activity that causes system failure as it misguides the system function flow.

38. What is Requirement Prioritization?

Ans. Requirement Prioritization is the process of allocating and managing different requirements to cope with the limited resources of projects, as per relative importance and urgency.

39. What are the different techniques used for requirement prioritization?

Ans. The most popular techniques used for requirement prioritization include –

• Dependency map
• MoSCoW – Must, Should, Could or Would
• Voting
• Bubble sort technique
• Kano Model Analysis
• Hundred Dollar Method
• Five Whys

40. Name the components of strategy analysis.

Ans. The key components of strategy analysis are –

• Vision
• Mission
• Objectives
• Strategies
• Action plan

41. What is the requirement elicitation technique?

Ans. Requirement elicitation is a process of gathering requirements from stakeholders, users, and customers through meetings, questionnaires, interviews, brainstorming prototyping, sessions, etc. It is considered a very challenging and most error-prone communication methodology, which can be successfully achieved only through an effective customer-developer partnership.

42. What is RUP Methodology?

Ans. It is an abbreviation for Rational Unified Process and is a methodology to improve a product’s application. It is an object-oriented approach for successful project management and high-quality software development.

43. Explain the usability of the Requirement Traceability Matrix.

Ans. Requirement Traceability Matrix records a user’s requirements and ensures that all the requirements of the client are meticulously met.

44. What is Alternate Flow in Use Case Diagram?

Ans. Alternate Flow in Use Case Diagram is a scenario that suggests that a user has taken an alternative route to achieve the desired result. It is an optional flow in case of any failure.

45. What is an Affinity Diagram?

Ans. An Affinity Diagram is an analytical tool used to cluster or organize ideas into subgroups. These ideas are mostly generating from discussions or brainstorming sessions and used in analyzing complex issues.

46.  Explain INVEST.

Ans. It is the abbreviation for –

‘I’ndependent, ‘N‘egotiable, ‘V‘aluable, ‘E‘stimable, ‘S‘ized Appropriately and ‘T‘estable.

It helps business analysts create quality user stories.

47. As a business analyst, what type of problems you may face?

Ans. Problems may arise at any given stage of a project and a business analyst should be prepared for challenges like –

• Undocumented processes
• Technology-related problems
• Business policies related issues
• Business model errors
• Issues with stakeholders
• Miscommunication among team regarding the scope of work

49. What is the Agile Manifesto?

Ans. Agile Manifesto is a brief software guide for agile software development and is built on 4 values and 12 principles.

49. Name different types of Agile methodologies.

Ans. Some popular Agile methodologies are –

• Agile Scrum Methodology
• Lean Software Development
• Kanban
• Extreme Programming (XP)
• Crystal Methodology
• Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)
• Feature Driven Development (FDD)

50. What is the difference between a Histogram and a Boxplot?

Ans.  A histogram graphical represents the frequency distribution of numeric data, while a Boxplot summarizes the critical aspects of continuous data distribution.

These are some of the popular questions asked in a Business Analyst interview. Always be prepared to answer all types of questions — technical skills, interpersonal, leadership or methodology. If you are someone who has recently started your career in Business Analyst, you can get certified in the various technique and skills needed to be an expert in the field.

51. What is an effective feasibility study?

Ans. A good feasibility study for any business analyst is to identify problems and the requirements necessary for a project to run successfully. Furthermore, you can mention that there are six essential aspects to cover in a feasibility study such as:

• Project Scope: It is about defining the problems and opportunities that affect the business directly or indirectly. 
• Current analysis: By identifying and weighing the current project’s advantages and disadvantages, a business analyst can discover where modifications are required. This helps for upcoming projects and even helps in saving both money and time. 
• Requirements: It is to find the requirements of each element within the project.
• Approach: This is to determine whether the solutions for project operations are practicable. 
• Evaluation: It is done to see whether the approach taken is economical. This can be done by calculating the total cost and preparing a summary that includes other aspects such as ROI, cost benefits and so on. 
• Review: This is the final step in a feasibility study. It validates if the study is accurate or not. 

52. Mention two differences between software development lifecycle (SDLC) and project lifecycle (PLC). 

Ans.

53. Briefly explain business process modelling and its advantages. 

Ans. A graphical representation of an enterprise’s workflows to identify areas of improvement is referred to as business process modelling. This is among the most important aspects of business process management. The benefits you should mention are:

1. It identifies and removes inefficient processes. 
2. Everyone in the team is clear about the goals. 

54. Name some business process modelling tools. 

Ans. This is a follow-up question to the business process modelling question. Here the hiring manager wants to know your advanced expertise in the field. 

Do mention the following:

• SIPOC Diagrams

A SIPOC diagram refers to its acronym – Suppliers, Inputs, Process to improve, Outputs and Customers receiving the outputs. This diagram helps in identifying the processes that require improvement before work begins. 

• Unified Modelling Language (UML) Diagrams

This kind of object-oriented visual diagram covers individuals (referred to as actors), actions, roles and classes within a system. 

• Gantt Charts

These charts are used for breaking down complex tasks into multiple sub-tasks that need to be completed in a specific time frame. This helps organisations track workflows easily where strict deadlines have to be met. 

• Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN)

This type of diagram is mostly used for standard business process modelling. Currently, the BPMN 2.0 model is used and learned as a methodology. 

55. Mention a few differences between the Waterfall Model and Spiral Model. Which, according to you, is the best?

Ans. 

When you have to answer which model is the best, it is essential to point out that a company prefers such and such model based on two aspects:

1. Type of project
2. The organization’s culture