Functional Analyst

The Functional Analyst clearly identifies the problems that the business is experiencing and/or the business requirements and maps out possible solutions that can be developed and integrated in the enterprise production environment. The Functional Analyst investigates costs and benefits, then designs the chosen solution in detail, defining exactly what it should look like, which data are involved, and which processes are supported.

How do we imagine our future Functional Analyst?

During the preparation phase:

• Accompany the business analyst and client through the reflection towards a solution, propose alternative and adequate solutions in line with enterprise architecture and strategy, and considering cost/benefit.
• Ensure that the client understands and adopts enterprise rules and standards concerning architectural standards, security, etc.
• Work together with the architects to set up the architecture.
• Close collaboration with project manager / asset manager / product owner.
• Relay between the client, business analyst and involved asset teams, ensuring a unified view towards the client and clear understanding of needs by all IT parties.

During the elaboration phase:

• Functional elaboration of the chosen solution, translation of business requirements into detailed functional requirements.
• Align with involved assets on functional responsibilities.
• Application design of the solution, identifying and detailing impacts on different application components as specified in the architecture.
• Align with technical teams to specify requirements.

During the construction phase:

• Follow-up of development and testing to ensure coherence between functional specifications and the developed solution.
• Provide technical definitions of components supported by different teams (queues, security, integration layers, etc.).

In an agile context, preparation, elaboration and construction are sliced and combined in sprints.
Support suppliers during development and testing, analyse defects, support release and deployment teams, provide ad hoc support once in production, and maintain documentation accordingly.