Business Analyst Interview Questions

Hello friends! in this article, we have compiles a comprehensive list of over 50 business analyst interview questions. The theoretical or the concept-based questions on business analysis are followed by some real scenario-based questions.

So, let’s begin.

Ques.1. What is the role of a Business Analyst?
Ans. You can start the answer by saying it’s a basic definition like, ”A business analyst is a person who assesses business problems and comes up with technological solutions. He/she acts as a link between business operation and IT.”

Ques.2. How do you see yourself as a fit for the role?
Ans. A business analyst should be a great communicator. He should have an analytical mind, critical thinking, and should come with innovative solutions. So try to explain all this by giving real-life examples of how in different situations you have reflected these qualities. Be expressive and a good conversationalist.

Ques.3. What should be the key skills to be a great analyst?
Ans. Some key skills to be a great business analyst are-

• Good communication skills
• Strategic approach
• Critical thinking
• Problem solver
• Analytical skills
• Leadership skills
• A good diplomat
• Technical proficiency

Just explain why these roles are needed very briefly.

Ques.4. Are you aware of the terms such as SWOT or MoSCoW?

Ans. The SWOT stands for strength, weakness, opportunity, and threats. These 4 things are always assessed in the business to give your product the best advantage.

MoSCoW stands for must or should and could or would. A business analyst should always be able to analyze if a requirement is a must or a should. Such techniques help reducing risks in a company as well as bring cost-efficiency.

Ques.5. List some diagrams you are familiar with that are used by a business analyst.

Ans. Some commonly used diagrams by the business analyst are-

1. Activity diagrams – An activity diagram is a type of behavioral diagram. It reflects the behavior of the system. It depicts the flow of one activity to another activity.
2. Flowchart – A flowchart shows the whole flow of the system through symbols and blocks. Such a diagram helps in building a better understanding of the system to non-tech business stakeholders.
3. Use case model – This diagram helps in representing the interaction between the user and the system. It shows the relationship between the user and different use cases in which the user will be involved.
4. Collaboration diagram – A collaboration diagram shows the relation between the objects.

Ques.6. What should be a structured approach in a business project?
Ans. A structured approach in a business project can go like this-

• Initiation – In this phase, the objective of the business is identified. The deliverable and risks involved are analyzed. Overall how the business will turn up is determined.
• Planning – Once, the business plan is approved it is moved to the planning phase. Large tasks are broken down into smaller blocks to ease the working.
• Execution – It is the implementation phase. The software development life cycle starts right from this phase.
• Monitoring – The proper working of the software is ensured in this step.
• Closure – The final deployment of the product is done in this step.

Ques.7. What is Saas?
Ans. Saas stands for software as a service. It is a way of delivering applications over the internet- as a service. Netflix, amazon prime are a few examples of SaaS.

Ques.8. Do you know the term UML?
Ans. UML stands for unified modeling language. it is a developmental, modeling language that helps to visualize the design of the system in a standardized way.

Ques.9. What are the different diagrams under UML?
Ans. It is broadly divided into two categories – Behavior diagram and Structure diagram. Both the categories are then subdivided into more diagrams.

Behavior Diagram-

• Use Case Diagram
• Activity Diagram
• State Machine Diagram
• Sequence Diagram
• Communication Diagram
• Interaction Overview Diagram
• Timing Diagram

Structure Diagram-

• Class Diagram
• Component Diagram
• Deployment Diagram
• Object Diagram
• Package Diagram
• Profile Diagram
• Composite Structure Diagram

Ques.10. Why should you use UML diagrams?
Ans. A UML diagram is used to represent the behavior and structure of the system. It makes it easier to understand the relationship between the system, users, objects, and other entities.

Ques.11. What is business modeling?
Ans. It is a structured plan to make a profit in the business. The key features involved in the plan are vision, mission, objectives, strategies, and action plan.

Ques.12. What is a use case diagram?
Ans. The use case model/diagram is a way of representing the relationship between the system and the user. It gives a detailed view of interactions of how the user will work within the system.

Ques.13. What is an activity diagram? How is it useful?
Ans. The activity diagram is a type of flowchart which helps to visualize the workflow of a business use case.
The activity diagram is useful because it helps to understand various activities that take place within the organization. The important elements in the Activity diagram are initial nodes, control flows, activities, decisions, guard conditions, a fork, and join and end nodes.

Ques.14. What are the challenges that a business analyst can face during an ongoing project?
Ans. The analyst can face issues like-

• Issues with the client
• Technological issues
• Access related
• Undocumented processes
• Conflicts with the stakeholders and much more.

Ques.15. What should be your analytical approach towards a project?
Ans. Firstly break down the needs of the client and issues that can be faced by the user as well as the organization. Then find solutions to each problem and implements work of action.

Ques.16. How will you do risk management in a project?
Ans. The steps through which you can eradicate a risk is-

1. Identify – Identifying what type and how severe a risk is.
2. Analyze – Analyzing the risk. Considering the damages and control.
3. Plan – Laying out methods of action that will be required for controlling the risk.
4. Action – Working on the plan.

Ques.17. What do you know about SDLC?
Ans. The SDLC or the software development life cycle is the whole process involved in the development of software. The steps involved in it are – Planning, Analysis, Design, Implementation, and Maintenance. The SDLC is used to meet the expectations of the customer.

Ques.18. What is PLC?
Ans. A PLC stands for the project life cycle. It is a 4 step methodology used to help the project manager to guide a project from start to end.

The steps involved in it are-

1. The Initiation Phase – Starting of the project
2. The Planning Phase – Organizing and Preparing
3. The Execution Phase- Carrying out the project
4. The Termination Phase – Closing the project

Ques.19. Differentiate between SDLC and PLC.
Ans. The SDLC is a part of the PLC.

PLC-

1. The PLC focuses on the project management phases, processes, tools, and techniques for effectively managing the project.
2. Involves multiple software in a single customer scenario.
3. PLC phases include Idea generation, screening, research, development, testing, and analysis.

SDLC-

1. The SDLC focuses on the software engineering phases, processes, tools, and techniques for building and/or implementing the IT solution.
2. Mostly involves single software across different phases.
3. SDLC phases include requirement gathering, design, coding, documentation, operations, and maintenance.

Ques.20. What is the critical path analysis?
Ans. A project has several activities from start till the end. A critical path includes the activities which include the longest path of the project. Therefore the analysis of the critical path is important in reducing the timelines and controlling the cost.

Ques.21. What is the difference between an agile model and a waterfall model?

Ans. Waterfall vs Agile

Read more about water fall model here.

Ques.22. What is RUP methodology?
Ans. RUP stands for Rational Unified Process. It comes under the agile software development methodology. It is divided into 5 categories-

1. Business modeling – This is the inception of the business. In this stage, the business deliverables are discussed.
2. Requirements – Planning of the resources and detailed evaluation of risks is conducted.
3. Analysis and design – The architecture of the project is made in this phase.
4. Testing – System source code is developed and testing is done.
5. Deployment – The final product is deployed in the market.

Ques.23. What is RAD methodology?
Ans. RAD stands for rapid application development. It is a 4 phase agile methodology for software development. It is an iterative model in which prioritizing the prototypes and frequent feedbacks are taken.

It helps in changing the requirements at any point in time of the project. RAD involves the below phases-

1. Define the requirements
2. Create a prototype
3. Receive feedback
4. Finalize software

Ques.24. What are the benefits of using business process modeling?
Ans. The different benefits of using business process modeling are-

• It gives a clear understanding of business requirements.
• Increases the efficiency of the project.
• Helps to analyze risks.
• Gives a proper structure to the project.
• Creates a clear path from start to end.

Ques.25. What are the initial steps involved in product development?
Ans. The different steps involved in product development are-

• Market analysis
• SWOT analysis
• Personas
• Competitor analysis
• Analyzing the strategic vision

Ques. 26. Differentiate between SRS and BRD in business analysis.
Ans. Difference between SRS and BRD-

Ques.27. What is scrum?
Ans. Scrum is an agile methodology used in the development of any software. It is executed in small blocks of work. The framework is designed for the working of a small team of 10 or fewer members. It is an iterative and incremental framework for managing complex work.

Ques.28. What is Kanban?
Ans. Just like Scrum, Kanban is also a method to make it easy to manage the work while delivering the products timely without overburdening the team.

Ques.29. What are the different types of agile methodologies?
Ans. The different types of agile methodologies are-

• Agile scrum methodology
• Lean software development
• Extreme Programming (XP)
• Feature-driven development (FDD)
• Crystal Methodology
• DSDM (Dynamic Software Development Method)

Ques.30. Difference between scrum and extreme programming.
Ans. Both the methods are iterative and follow small blocks of iterations called sprints.

The difference is in the length of the sprints. In scrum, they last for two weeks to one month. Whereas in extreme programming they last for one to two weeks.

Also, extreme programming is more flexible than scrum. This is because it allows changes during iterations.

Ques.31. What is a process design?
Ans. In the process design, the whole workflow of the project is created to simplify things. In addition, it aims at creating a hassle-free path for everyone to understand.
The different steps involved in process design are-

1. Study the Client – What the client expects from the final product.
2. Research – It is a very important step before the actual implementation of the project starts.
3. Brainstorming ideas – The involvement of each and every person concerned with the project is a must. The input of ideas from everyone is equally important.
4. Designing – This comes after all the structural layouts have been created. This is the implementation phase of the project.
5. Revisions – This involves testing and development. It is important to go through the software created to ensure a fault-free outcome.
6. Completion – This is the final step of the whole process. This is when the product is ready to be deployed in the market.

Ques.32. Difference between business analysis and business analytics.
Ans. Business analysis – It is process-related. It identifies problems and provides methods to solve them. For example SWOT, CATWOE, etc.

Business analytics – It helps in providing solutions using statistical methods. Mainly four types of business analytics are used. These are – descriptive analytics, decisive analytics, prescriptive analytics, and predictive analytics.

Ques.33. What is benchmarking?
Ans. It is the process of measuring different aspects of the organization to make sure the company competes. Benchmarking helps in improving the internal opportunities of the company. This involves listing down scopes of improvement in one’s own product making it compete with the same products of other companies.

Ques.34. Different types of actors in case diagrams.
Ans. Primary actor – Starts the process. It is usually the one that triggers the use case.

Secondary actor – It assists the primary actor. It is the user which provides the information to the system. For example, a printer or service provider.

The actors can be-

• Human
• System
• Hardware
• Timer

Ques.35. What is Pareto analysis?
Ans. Pareto analysis is a decision-making technique also called as 80/20 rule. According to it, 20% of causes create 80% effects in the system. Thus the name.

For example, you might find that 20 percent of work can generate 87 percent of the outcomes. Or, 80 percent of problems could be resolved by dealing with 20 percent of causes.

Ques. 36. What is BPMN?
Ans. BPMN is the Business Process Model and Notation. It is a graphical representation of business processes. There are five basic elements of BPMN.

• Flow Objects
• Data
• Connecting Objects
• Swimlanes
• Artifacts

BPDs assist in creating new types of flow objects or artifacts. Thus making the diagram more understandable.

Ques.37. What does INVEST stand for?
Ans. INVEST stands for –

• Independent
• Negotiable
• Valuable
• Estimable
• Sized Appropriately
• Testable

Ques.38. What is the difference between exception flow and alternate flow?
Ans. Alternate flow is the alternative actions that can be performed apart from the main flow. It can also be considered as an optional flow.

Exception flow is the path traversed, in case of any exception or error.

Ques.39. What are the extends?
Ans. Extends is a relationship shown by a dotted line. It is usually used to specify optional behavior that has no independent meaning.
Extends adds one use case to another step to a first-class use case. It is used when one use case does not make sense without the other use case. This because it is an extended version.

Ques.40. Name the two documents related to a use case.
Ans. The two documents are-
1. FRD (Functional Requirement Document)
The FRD serves is similar to a contract. It includes the requirements of the application and the developers agree to fulfill them. It is an official document.

2. SDD (System Design Document)
This documents all the requirements of the system, the operating system required, architecture, and other specifications.

Ques.41. How do you define Personas?
Ans. Personas assist developers and technical teams. These are used instead of real users that in judging the user behavior in different scenarios.
Basically, personas are social roles, performed by any actor or character.

Ques.42. What is OLTP?
Ans. OLTP stands for On-Line Transaction Processing. Such systems are capable of performing database transactions. The OLTP involves making small changes in the database. Like, inserting, deleting, or updating the existing data.

Ques.43. What does FMEA stand for?
Ans. It means Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. It is a failure analysis, used in product development, system engineering, and operations management.

Failure modes are how a process can fail. Effects are the ways that these failures can lead to waste, defects, or harmful outcomes for the customer.

The 3 steps involved in the analysis are-

• Failure modes – The risks that can make things go wrong.
• Failure causes – Here, we identify the cause, what could make things go wrong.
• And, Failure effects – Consequences of each failure are recognized.

Ques.44. Define the BCG matrix.
Ans. The Boston Consulting Group Matrix is also called the growth/share matrix. It is a tool to monitor the company’s business units (the products). It helps them understand-

What is necessary?
Where to invest?
How much profit?

Thus helping in long-term strategic planning.

Ques.45. What is the V model?
Ans. The verification and validation of the V model is a sequential way to process the testing and development phases. It shows how testing and development can go hand in hand.

Ques.46. What is the Fish model?
Ans. In the fish model both, validation and verification are done parallel, but by different teams in each phase. This is one of the reasons it might end up being expansive. The structure created of this model looks like a fish. Thus the name.

Some of its characteristics are-

1. Each phase is tested and reviewed by other people.
2. Due to regressive testing and reviewing, the fish model proves to be more expensive.
3. It is preferred when the customer is clear with its requirements.

Ques.47. What does PEST stand for?
Ans. PEST stands for Political, Economic, Social, and Technological. It is used to analyze the business environment, in which it has to be operated.
It is used by organizations to discover, evaluate, organize, and track macro-economic factors. Basically, the factors that can impact their business now and in the future.

Ques.48. What do you know about GAP Analysis?
Ans. It is a process of comparing and determining the difference between two things or processes. It draws a comparison between what is expected and what is being delivered.

Ques.49. What is JAD?
Ans. The JAD stands for Joint Application Development. It involves the user/client in the complete design and development phase from start to end.

Ques.50. What is ETL?
Ans. ETL stands for Extraction, Transformation, and Load. It is a data processing method mainly used in data warehousing. It is a recurring activity (daily, weekly, monthly) of a Data warehouse system.

In simpler words, it extracts data from various sources. Perform a few processes on them in the staging area (like calculations, concatenation, analysis, etc.). And then finally upload the whole thing in the data warehouse.

Ques.51. Do you think testing knowledge required as a business analyst?
Ans. Yes, although the job profile requirements are different. However, to make sure the products meet the expectations of the end-user BA is required to be involved in each phase of testing to validate it.

Ques.52. Explain Black Box Testing.
Ans. Black box testing is a type of testing where the entire unit is tested as a whole. Here, the tester only checks the input and the output of the system, nothing about the technicalities of the system.

Ques.53. What is a Kano analysis?
Ans. The Kano analysis is a graph used to analyze customer requirements. It is used to measure satisfaction, needs, and what the client wants.
It gives precisely what the customer actually wants. And, how the requirements will be fulfilled.

Ques.54. What do you know about scope creep?
Ans. Scope creep is also called requirement creep. It means uncontrolled changes in the project’s scope without increasing the resources like schedule, budget.

Customer needs do change over time. Delivering a project that answers their needs often means altering the scope. Therefore scope creep is a reality that every good project manager expects and plans for.

Ques.55. How can you avoid Scope Creep?
Ans. Scope creep can be avoided by using the following measures.

1. Plan and document all the requirements before starting the project. This will help in avoiding unnecessary last-minute changes.
2. Always create a project schedule. Many days before the start of the project.
3. Use a methodology that is agile and not reluctant to changes.

Ques.56. What is CaaS?
Ans. CaaS stands for Communication as a Service. CaaS is useful for application deployment. It is a type of cloud service where the service provider allows the clients to manage and release containerized applications.
Google Kubernetes and Docker Swarm are two examples of CaaS.

Ques.57. What are the risk and issues?
Ans. Both the terms might look similar but risk is a future event. It is the negative impact that the company might go through. This is due to decisions taken in the present.
Whereas, the issues are errors that come up in the present and can be fixed.

Ques.58. What is a misuse case?
Ans. A misuse case is an activity performed by a user that causes a system failure. It is derived from the opposite of the use case. It may be a malicious activity that misguides the system function flow.
The misuse cases are created to improve the quality of the system. The cases that could not be involved in the use cases are included in this. Thus risks can be identified to customers specifically.

Scenario-Based Business Analyst Interview Questions

Below are some scenario-based business analyst interview questions. Go through these to give you an extra edge when you face the interview.

Ques. How will you build a business airline of yours? How would you go about it? What will be your analytics aspect of it?
Ans. With these types of questions, the interviewer just wants to check your approach to such situations. My suggestion is to be calm and give the answer in steps.

1. Get oriented
   Do not dive directly into the business. Get to know what the business demands, its scope, do thorough market research, etc.
2. Define scope
   This step makes everyone involved in a business and gives a clear view to everyone what is expected of them. Thus making the business more tangible.
3. Formulate a business analysis plan
   Choose the most appropriate types of business analysis deliverables, project methodology, identifying the stakeholders, creating a timeline for business analysis deliverables.
4. Define detailed requirements
   Listing the detailed and documented needs of the business. It will also document all the risks that will be involved during the whole process till it’s delivered.
5. Solution evolution and Validation
   Making sure that the solution should be able to meet the stakeholders’ objectives.

Ques. How can you increase the sales of a particular product? What data will be required?
Ans. We can use the following strategies-

1. Get the whole information about the product. Like – what is its current situation in the market, why isn’t its sales going up, etc?
2. Focus on existing customers.
3. Build a customer service approach.
4. Promote the brand.
5. Do marketing.

Ques. How will you sell family insurance to a truck company?
Ans. Extract the data of the employees with age 35+(because they might have a family). Pitch a technique that will persuade them how there are risks involved in such type of business.
And how the insurance would bring financial stability for their families.

This completes our comprehensive list of top Business Analyst Interview Questions for both fresher as well experienced professionals.

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