Business Analyst, Local Only

Position: Business Analyst / Product Analyst
Location: Houston, TX
Duration: 12 months

Job Description:

Role Summary

The Agile Business Analyst / Product Analyst – plays a critical role in shaping, delivering, and continuously improving the product. The role works closely with business stakeholders, operations leaders, and Agile delivery teams to translate complex off-duty, scheduling, and workforce management needs into clear, actionable product requirements.

The focus is on backlog readiness, user outcomes, regulatory compliance, and scalable product design, delivering measurable operational value.

Key Responsibilities

• Product Discovery & Backlog Management

• Partner with the Product Owner to define and refine the product roadmap

• Translate operational and policy requirements into epics, features, and user stories aligned to application capabilities

• Own detailed grooming of the backlog, ensuring stories are:

• Clear, testable, and value-driven

• Defined with acceptance criteria and business rules

• Balance feature prioritization across compliance, usability, performance, and business value

Agile Delivery Support

• Act as the primary requirements and domain expert within the Agile/Scrum team

• Participate in Agile ceremonies including backlog refinement, sprint planning, reviews, and retrospectives

• Provide continuous clarification to Developers and QA on workflows, rules, and edge cases

• Support incremental, iterative delivery aligned with Agile product principles

Functional Expertise

• Analyze and document workflows within application including:

• Duty and Off-Duty scheduling

• Leave, holiday, and absence management

• Shift rosters and assignments

• Overtime, comp-offs, and on-call rotations

• Approval hierarchies and exception handling

• Ensure application configurations reflect real-world operational scenarios and policy constraints

• Define configurable rules and parameters to support multiple departments, roles, or jurisdictions

Process Optimization & User Experience

• Map current-state vs future-state off-duty and scheduling processes

• Identify opportunities to reduce manual interventions, rework, and approval delays

• Collaborate with UX/design teams to improve usability and adoption

• Advocate for end users by incorporating feedback into product enhancements

Validation, UAT & Release Readiness

• Define acceptance criteria and support creation of functional test scenarios

• Participate in sprint demos, validating the features against business needs

• Support UAT execution and defect triage

• Ensure features are release-ready with minimal rework

Data, Reporting & Compliance

• Work with stakeholders to define meaningful reports and dashboards

• Analyze data around:

• Leave utilization

• Staffing and coverage gaps

• Overtime trends

• Compliance and audit metrics

• Ensure the functionality aligns with labor laws, union agreements, and organizational policies

• Maintain audit-friendly documentation in Agile knowledge repositories

Required Skills & Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Technology, Engineering, or related discipline

Experience

• 5–8 years as a Business Analyst or Product Analyst

• Proven experience working in Agile / Product development teams

• Hands-on experience with workforce / schedule / off-duty management systems

Core Competencies

• Strong expertise in user stories, acceptance criteria, and backlog refinement

• Deep understanding of workforce and off-duty concepts:

• Shift & roster planning

• Leave and attendance

• Overtime and compensatory off

• Role-based approvals and compliance

• Experience with Agile tools (Azure Dev

Ops)

• Ability to translate operational complexity into scalable product features

Soft Skills

• Excellent stakeholder communication and facilitation skills

• Strong analytical and problem-solving mindset

• Ability to work with ambiguity in evolving product environments

• High attention to detail with a value-oriented approach

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience implementing or enhancing workforce / schedule / off-duty management systems

• Experience in large, regulated, or 24×7 operations environments

• Product or Agile certifications (CSPO, PSPO, SAFe POPM, CBAP/CCBA)

• Exposure to integrations with HRMS, Payroll, or Time & Attendance systems

Success Metrics

• High-quality, sprint-ready backlog

• Reduced production defects and rework

• Improved scheduling accuracy and operational visibility

• Positive end-user and stakeholder feedback

• Faster adoption of enhancements