Lead Business Analyst - Team Leader

At M&G our vision is: to become the best loved and most successful savings and investment business and we're looking for people who are excited about joining us on our journey. We're digitally transforming and investing heavily in technology and innovation to develop new and improved customer propositions that really raise the bar for our customers. To help us achieve our vision we're looking for exceptional people who live our values and behaviours and who can inspire others; embrace change; deliver results and keep it simple.

We know that an inclusive environment makes us more accessible and ensures we attract, engage, promote and retain exceptional people. We welcome applications from all individuals regardless of age, gender/gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity/nationality, disability, or military service and welcome those who have taken career breaks. We will consider flexible working arrangements or home working arrangements for any of our roles and also offer work place accommodations to ensure you have what you need to effectively deliver in your role.

What you can expect from us:
We are committed to creating an environment where you can be exceptional at all you do. To help us deliver this, we promise to:

• Challenge Your Limits by creating a stimulating working environment and providing opportunities for you to be involved in meaningful and challenging work
• Support Your Aspirations with a commitment to learning and development that helps you achieve and build your experience with people who want you to succeed
• Value Your Input whereby leaders and managers will involve you in key decisions, listen to your thoughts and recognise the important contribution you make
• Balance Your Life through a work life partnership that focuses on making this an inclusive, diverse and friendly place to work and offers the flexibility and support that enables everyone to be at their best

How do we support our employees:
All M&G plc employees will be supported in the workplace through our M&G Employee Assistance Programme (EAP). If you need counselling, confidential financial or legal advice. The service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and offers access to qualified professionals who can provide specialist information, advice and support on many issues. It offers a broad range of services, including help with family issues, maintaining work/life balance and mental health support.

The Role:

This position requires someone with significant experience leading teams and inspiring direct reports. In addition to providing senior business analyst expertise and delivery outcomes in projects and programmes, this role requires the individual to support the Head of Business Analysis in people management aspects such as recruitment, performance management and career development for a small team (c5-6) of business analyst colleagues. The incumbent will also support the Head of Business Analysis in developing the Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Business Analysts including aspects such as the strategy, frameworks, techniques and tooling to develop a Centre of Excellence, to ensure business analysts' efforts best align with business outcomes for projects and programme they are deployed on.

From a technical perspective as part of projects and programmes, this position requires the individual to also be responsible for the successful delivery of key analytical deliverables such as the analysis needed for a business case, the business and technical requirements specifications, change management and the testing alignment needed to deliver on the relevant project / workstream objectives. The output of the workstream will feed directly into the overall {Project Outcomes which are to be determined at this stage} so will require close co-operation with the leaders of those workstreams. The position also has a requirement to take both a people and technical leadership role on projects, supporting the project manager in delivery and senior stakeholder engagement.

Key Responsibilities For This Role:

People Management responsibilities:

• Provide line management for a team of c 5 - 6 colleagues (senior BAs, BAs and Associate BAs)
• In partnership with project and programme managers, manage resourcing and recruitment activities to secure business analyst resources that meet both domain knowledge and technical requirements. This includes tailoring job descriptions, liaison with M&G Resourcing partners, interviews and selection.
• Conduct regular 1:1 performance management conversations (C1-5), with the input of relevant stakeholders including programme / project manager. This includes regular reviews of the BA skills matrix to determine individual training and development opportunities.
• Support the Head of Business Analysts in developing a high-quality pool of BA talent and support their development activity to equip them to be effective in the projects and programmes they are deployed in. This includes sourcing and deploying appropriate BA specialist skills training.
• Provide people management administrative support for c. 5 - 6 business analyst resources including managing Workday actions such as holiday and sick leave recording and conducting technology recertifications etc.
• Support the Head of Business Analysts in developing the Centre of Excellence including aspects such as overall resource planning, best practice, frameworks, documentation that colleagues will follow

Technical Senior Business Analyst responsibilities:

• Provide leadership to the BAs on the programme, assisting with work allocation, quality assurance and being the first point of call for escalations regarding the analysis work components.
• Support the development of a business case and associated operating model for a project/programme or portfolio.
• Support the Project/Programme Manager in defining the benefits definition and associated realisation management.
• Produce requirements (including epics and user stories), perform interviews, analysis documents, run workshops (at a strategic level that includes complex business problems) define or record business process, prototyping scenarios, data analysis, task and workflow analysis.
• Critically evaluate information gathered from multiple sources, reconcile conflicts, decompose high-level information into details, abstract up from low-level information to a general understanding, and distinguish user requests from the underlying true needs.
• Proactively communicate and collaborate with external and internal parties to analyse information needs, functional requirements, existing capabilities and feasibility, with the objective of delivering a clear implementation framework.
• Be a self-starter who can work independently and with users to define concepts and under direction of the project /programme manager.
• Drive and challenge project team members on their assumptions of how they will successfully execute their plans.
• Leverage strong analytical skills required to gain a thorough understanding of how to interpret customer business needs and translate them into applicable operational requirements.
• Collaborate with implementation teams and subject matter experts to establish the technical vision and analyse trade-offs between usability and performance needs.
• Ensure that technology build is completed to specifications, and drives testing of system elements of the operating model.
• Compile key external facing documents such as Service Level Agreements and work with the external managers to manage and review 3rd party analysis deliverables, focusing on quality and relevance to the project.
• Work with the product business teams to lead operational readiness.
• Ensure that there is a plan and that business is ready to adopt the new solution.
• Ensure the overall solution is valid and is in accordance to the agreed objectives and expectations set by the project and programme.
• Align the test planning with the test and project manager.
• Take responsibility for training documentation preparation.

Key Skills, Competencies & Experience:

Skills and Competencies:

• Proven experience managing medium to large teams of BA's
• Ability to manage and coach business analyst resources.
• Ability to engage both business and technology stakeholders, to C-suite and executive level.
• Ability to drive the strategic business and technical requirements definition across large projects and programmes.
• Strong facilitation skills to elicit information from key stakeholders internally and externally.
• Ability to tailor and present complex data to different stakeholders.

• Confident and effective communicator (both written and verbal) across all levels of the organisation.
• Passionate about developing a work environment that embraces and values diversity.
• Well-developed understanding and practical application of business feasibility assessments.
• Deep understanding of business analysis tools, techniques and standards to drive the highest quality user documentation, impact assessments and cost benefits analysis.
• Advanced process mapping and design skills, including facilitation of process improvement.
• Ability to expertly apply multiple approaches and techniques, in order to lead data analysis.
• Creative thinking to contribute to the overall solution design.
• Proven and demonstrable analytical and problem-solving skills essential, with the ability to think laterally and generate creative solutions.
• Ability to identify benefits and support their realisation.
• Ability to align business solution outcomes to overall corporate strategy requirements.
• Excellent MS Office skills, particularly with MS Excel and Visio.
• Advanced knowledge of Agile and associated ceremonies.
• Excellent organisational and prioritisation skills with a keen attention to detail and ability to manage multiple deliverables, with complexity.
• Ability to support the test strategy to ensure alignment to project and programme outcomes.
• Support the system training and change management strategy.
• Strong risk mindset to support the project manager in risk identification and mitigation proposals.

Experience:

• Experience in managing and developing others
• Highly experienced BA with a proven track record in successful delivery
• Proactive and delivery focused with excellent communication skills.
• Transformation and project delivery experience
• Add specific domain experience as this relates to the specific project/programme

We live by four behaviours at M&G and we ask all our employees to:

• Inspire Others - Support and encourage each other, creating an environment where everyone can contribute and succeed
• Embrace Change - Be open to change, willing to be challenged and able to adapt quickly and imaginatively to new ideas
• Deliver Results - Focus on outcomes, set high standards and deliver with energy and determination
• Keep it Simple - Cut through complexity and bureaucracy, be clear and decisive and never overcomplicate things