Senior Business Analyst

Karishma BHUGOWON

Senior Business Analyst Scrum Master (CSM) Bilingual

Toronto, Ontario • 506-***-****

*****************@*****.*** • linkedin.com/in/karishmabhugowon Professional Summary

● Diligent, motivated, results-oriented and Bilingual (French & English) Senior Business Analyst with over 8 years of professional experience

● Experienced Certified Scrum Master proficient in Agile and Waterfall methodologies, with a proven track record spanning Retail, Finance, Insurance, and Telecom

● Extensive knowledge of all the phases of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), including adeptness in Requirement Gathering, conducting comprehensive Business Analysis, proficiently documenting and delivering Business Requirement Documents (BRD), and prioritizing Epics & User Stories with Acceptance Criteria

● Collaborates with the Scrum Master to facilitate Scrum Ceremonies (including Sprint planning, review, retrospective, and Daily Stand-ups), ensuring timely updates on the weekly and monthly progress of the Scrum team

● Initiates continuous improvement efforts, fostering trust-based relationships with project sponsors and stakeholders to improve communication, collaboration, and alignment for the success of various software projects

● Demonstrates leadership and coordination skills to represent clients, identify solutions and help prioritize project options

● Facilitates strategic planning sessions and workshops to gather input and insights from cross-functional teams

● Showcase excellent verbal, presentation, and written communication skills, effectively conveying technical project information and concepts to stakeholders and facilitating productive discussions to gather business requirements and address project needs

● Lead project deliveries throughout different stages of the software development lifecycle, ensuring timely completion, adherence to quality standards, and successful deployment of solutions to fulfill stakeholders' requirements

● Proficiently utilize Jira, Confluence, G Suite, and Atlassian product suites to manage multiple project activities, project budgets and timelines, streamlining project workflows and enhancing collaborations

● A committed team player with exceptional analytical thinking, time management, interpersonal, behavioral, and negotiation skills

● Skilled in bridging technology gaps between business stakeholders and technical teams, enabling effective communication and aligning project objectives with business goals.

● Skilled in effectively interacting with both external and internal stakeholders to achieve the organization's objectives

Skills

● Requirements Gathering: Requirement elicitation, Project Documentation, User story writing, Use Cases, Requirement specification, Requirement traceability (RTM), RACI matrix

● Analysis Tools & Techniques: Requirement analysis, Business Analysis, Problem-solving, Critical thinking, Workflow Analysis, Data Analysis, Feasibility Study

● Risk Management: Root Cause Analysis, Risk Register

● Project Management Methodologies: Agile Environment (Scrum/Kanban), Waterfall

● Business Process Modeling: Process Flows, Product Roadmap, Conceptual Diagram, Technical Reports, Business Process improvement, Data Modeling

● Interpersonal /Soft skills: Stakeholder Communication, Work independently, Collaboration, Adaptability, Time management, Conflict Management, Coaching/Mentoring, Detail-oriented, Teamwork

● Communication and Facilitation Skills: Stakeholder management, Workshops, Presentation skills, Interviews, Brainstorm sessions, Observations, Joint Application Development (JAD sessions), Negotiation, Listening, Written, Verbal & Non-verbal, Influencing, Coaching/Mentoring

● Quality Assurance (Testing): Test management plans, test cases and execution, User Acceptance Testing (UAT phase), Client Feedback/Demos, track defects, API Testing (POSTMAN), System Testing, Knowledge transfer sessions and Technical Reporting

● Technical Skills & Tools:

-Microsoft Applications (Outlook, Teams, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio), Google Suite

-Communication and collaboration tools (Slack, Teams and Zoom)

-Project management tools: (Atlassian Confluence, Jira, Trello), Backlog Management, ServiceNow

-Analytical Tools: (Power BI, Tableau-Visual representations or Dashboard creations), SQL Server

-Modeling tools (Figma, Lucid Chart, MS Visio, Miro), Conceptual Diagram, Unified Modeling Language UML (Use case diagram, Data flow Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams), Wireframing, Prototype, UI Mock-ups (Balsamiq, Microsoft Azure DevOps, and Draw.io)

● System: SAP ERP, Oracle, MySQL, CRM (Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365) WORK EXPERIENCE

Bell, Toronto • Senior Business Analyst (04/2022) - Present

● Utilized Agile methodologies to manage process improvement projects from initiation to completion of the project life cycle in alignment with the project scope.

● Established and cultivated relationships, and communication channels among business stakeholders and cross- functional teams ensuring timely conflict resolution and enhancing structured analysis and solution outcome

● Applied efficient requirement elicitation methods through workshops, structure and unstructured interviews, questionnaires and surveys to compile thorough requirements.

● Held meeting with business stakeholders to evaluate existing processes and deepen comprehension of their requirements, pinpointing opportunities for enhancement in order to achieve business efficiency

● Evaluations of current state (As is) and desired state (To Be) performing a gap analysis to gain a clearer understanding

● Developed project plan, work breakdown structures (WBS) and baseline data to outline project requirements

● Applied diverse business analysis techniques, including Fishbone Analysis, SWOT Analysis, Root Cause Analysis etc to conduct thorough analysis and facilitate implementation of pertinent solutions

● Operated within technical environments encompassing MS Visio, Microsoft Office Suite, JAD sessions, use cases, business process mapping of current state to future state

● Continuously provided ongoing support and leveraged extensive experience in product management, addressing and resolving business issues throughout the product development lifecycle

● Advocated for customer journey improvements by mapping and understanding customer interactions and touchpoints

● Worked in collaboration with Product Owner and stakeholders to oversee the product backlog and prioritize user stories for each sprint

● Employed UML and process diagrams, including Use Case and flowcharts, to visually depict the processes effectively, presenting them to stakeholders for enhanced communication

● Took on project leadership responsibilities when required, collaborating with the project manager to maintain project timelines and prevent scope creep

● Worked in consultation with the project team under the direction of the Steering Committee to observe and develop artifacts as set forth within the project plan and timelines

● Helped in reducing turnaround time from first inquiry to delivery of critical customer-centric business processes

● Skilled in creating and running SQL Queries for database like Oracle and MySQL

● Created training materials, tips sheets, training manuals, and instructional videos Shoppers Drug Mart, Toronto • Business Analyst (08/2020) - (03/2022)

● Operated within a fully Agile environment utilizing JIRA and gathering of complete and clear requirements through the use of targeted open-ended questioning for the Pharmacy Health Application

● Gathered functional requirement (FR) & non-functional requirements (NFR) from business stakeholders using effective facilitation techniques. Created Statements of Work (SOWs), User Stories, and supporting documents like Wireframes, UML, Activity diagrams. Successfully attained project objectives within defined constraints and progress reports

● Coordinated data migration and post-migration activities to facilitate the expansion of fiber network services.

● Wrote user stories aimed at integrating the client-facing app and CRM with the ERP (Microsoft Dynamics 365) system, encompassing aspects like API’s and data mapping

● Assisting and Supporting Product Owner by writing the user stories with related Acceptance criteria and Definition of Done (DoD) while also managing and maintaining the product backlog

● Collaborated with team members to review requirements utilizing Use Case Diagrams and Activity Diagrams to the Scrum team

● Conducted thorough reviews of user stories with the Product Owner to ensure completeness and adherence to the INVEST approach, verifying readiness for inclusion in Sprints according to the Definition of Ready (DoR)

● Capturing and monitoring user stories utilizing Jira for documentation and tracking purposes.

● Engaging in all Scrum ceremonies collaboratively with the Scrum Master to ensure adherence to timeboxing and achievement of sprint objectives within the designated two-week timeframe.

● Expressed business requirements gathered from user interviews and workshops, translating them into innovative technical specifications for developers.

● Demonstrated proficient communication and presentation skills in session showcasing the product to end users.

● Facilitated daily defect status and progress meetings with the QA team; managed defect tracking through Clear Quest, identifying and documenting all issues, functionality gaps, and new functionality requirements.

● Engaged in monitoring process flows and developed Business Process Verification Plans. Conducted and wrote user test checklists manual for UAT Phase

Canadian Tire, Toronto • Business Analyst (01/2019) - (07/2020)

● Utilized a variety of project management methodologies to oversee process improvement projects throughout the project life cycle.

● Created Business Requirement Document (BRD) while operating within a waterfall methodology framework. Kept stakeholders informed with regular updates on work progress and estimated deliverables

● Managed stakeholder’s engagement in the project and the required documentation. Addressed initiatives by leveraging Office 365 products and technologies.

● Engaged in analyzing and defining effective and cost-efficient solutions to support customer processes, business products, and functional requirements.

● Helped in reducing the processing time from initial request to delivery and facilitated Joint Application Design (JAD) sessions

● Efficient enhancement of existing business process to achieve outstanding results.

● Facilitated planning activities, managed schedule dependencies, assigned tasks, and tracked status to ensure seamless data migrations.

● Used management reporting tool like Power BI analytics capabilities, to identify patterns, data analysis or correlations in the data, in order to understand customer behavior, market trends, and operational performance.

● Collected requirements through interviews with project sponsors, document analysis, and business process descriptions and collaborated closely with clients to write system requirements derived from approved business requirements.

Manulife Insurance, Toronto • Junior Business Analyst (08/2017) - (12/2018)

● Worked within the Waterfall methodology and contributed to the successful completion of process engineering projects. Provided regular updates on work progress and estimated deliverables to stakeholders. Also ensured completion of all tasks within designated timeframes and participated in change management.

● Utilized business analysis elicitation techniques, such as client interviews and discussions to identify end-user requirements for the website.

● Facilitated one-to-one interviews, web conferences, and Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions with different stakeholders; analyzed findings and proposed solutions to establish a cohesive process for communication, issue escalation, and resolution.

● Produced documentation such as Functional Specifications and Use Case Specifications, among other artifacts.

● Produced use case documents and used MS Visio to draw UML diagrams including use case, activity, and class diagrams, to define business process flows and workflows. Thus, assisting in the development and quality assurance teams to better understand the requirements.

● Engaged in Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions for requirement, feasibility, and risk analysis with various stakeholders, including designers, developers, QA, and management. Identified and analyze critical and high-risk areas of the application.

● Worked closely with the QA team to review and validate test plans, test cases, end-to-end requirements traceability, ensuring alignment with user requirements for the final application.

● Collaborated with development and business units to ensure that Test Scripts, Configuration and Change Management plans were aligned with technical requirements

● Created a user acceptance testing plan and test case scenarios to direct a specialized group of key end-users in evaluating the application's user interface and functionality. KPMG, Mauritius • Tax Consultant (09/2013) - (01/2016)

● Provided tax and accounting services (financial analysis and management reporting) to a portfolio of companies operating in different industries namely, hotels, banks, insurance companies, financial services, construction, investment holding, and manufacturing companies among others.

● Tax planning strategies to help clients minimize their tax liabilities while maximizing tax benefits. This may involve analyzing clients' financial situations, identifying tax-saving opportunities, and providing recommendations to optimize their tax positions.

● Supported tax compliance activities by preparing tax returns, tax advice, calculating tax provisions, and researching tax laws and regulations, and ensuring the accuracy and completeness of financial information.

● Provided tax advisory services, tax advice and guidance to clients on various tax-related matters, including corporate tax, individual tax, international tax, transfer pricing, and indirect taxes (e.g., VAT. This could include assisting with tax audits, mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, and other strategic transactions.)

● Experienced in Income tax, Value Added Tax, Foreign Tax Credit, International tax

● Built and maintained relationships with clients by understanding their business needs, providing high-quality service, and delivering value-added solutions. This may involve regular communication, meetings, and presentations to address clients' tax concerns and provide proactive tax advice.

● Assisted in the preparation of financial statement in accordance with relevant accounting standards, such as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). This includes compiling balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statements, and disclosures.

● Maintained accurate and up-to-date financial records by recording financial transactions, such as sales, purchases, expenses, and payments, in accounting software or general ledger. Also involved in reconciling accounts and ensure that financial data is properly classified and documented.

● Stayed up-to-date on accounting standards, tax laws, and regulatory changes and prepared and government tax returns, and assist in responding to audits or inquiries from regulatory authorities

● Analyzed financial data (Financial Analysis) to assess the organization's financial health and performance, including profitability, liquidity, efficiency, and solvency metrics, and provided recommendations to clients based on analysis findings.

● Conducted detailed variance analysis between actual financial results and budgeted or forecasted figures, identifying key drivers of variances and providing insights to clients on performance trends and potential areas for improvement.

EDUCATION AND CERTIFICATIONS

● Bachelor’s in Accounting minor Management University of Mauritius

● Advanced Diploma in Business Administration Association of Business Executives

● CSM- Certified Scrum Master

● IIBA Entry Certificate in Business Analysis (ECBA)

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