Lead Business Analyst - Locals Preferred

Job Title: Lead Business Analyst - Onsite Richmond, VA

Location: Richmond, Virginia

Duration: 6 months

Job Description:

The Lead Business Analyst is a strategic and people-focused role responsible for elevating the quality, consistency, and impact of the Business Analyst team. This position blends mentorship, analytical leadership, and cross-functional collaboration to ensure high-quality requirements, streamlined processes, and effective communication between business and technical stakeholders.

You will guide a talented team of 8-10 Business Analysts, shape BA standards and best practices, and help deliver enterprise-wide solutions that support organizational goals and improve operational efficiency.

Key Responsibilities

1. Business Analysis Standards & Requirements

• Establish, promote, and maintain consistent BA practices, templates, and documentation standards.
• Ensure high-quality business requirement artifacts (BRDs, RTMs, user stories, acceptance criteria, process flows, data requirements).
• Oversee requirement validation to ensure both business and technical needs are fully addressed.
• Review and provide constructive feedback on BA deliverables to reduce rework and strengthen solution quality.
• Ensure timely and complete delivery of BA artifacts to support project timelines and milestones.
• Promote testing approaches that address functional, non-functional, and data requirements.

1. Collaboration, Facilitation & Stakeholder Alignment

• Foster strong collaboration across business units, IT teams, vendors, and stakeholders.
• Act as a liaison between business and technical teams to ensure clarity, alignment, and shared understanding of business needs.
• Facilitate workshops, requirement sessions, and cross-team discussions to drive decision-making.
• Support change management efforts through consistent and proactive stakeholder communication.
• Work with product owners, project managers, and leadership to prioritize requirements, mitigate risks, and maintain project momentum.

1. Communication & Presentation

• Demonstrate exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
• Translate complex business needs into clear, concise, and actionable requirements and documentation.
• Tailor communication for executives, technical teams, and end users to ensure shared understanding.
• Present findings, recommendations, and project updates to senior leadership with clarity and confidence.
• Produce high-quality documentation that is accurate, structured, and easy to understand.

1. Team Leadership, Coaching & Continuous Improvement

• Mentor, guide, and support Business Analysts, promoting skill development, confidence, and analytical excellence.
• Identify improvement opportunities through process analysis, team feedback, and project outcomes.
• Recommend and help implement improvements to BA practices to increase efficiency and consistency.
• Ensure alignment with leadership and team members before introducing new methodologies or practice changes.
• Remove roadblocks, provide direction, and proactively address risks that impact BA effectiveness.
• Lead by example, demonstrating accountability, professionalism, transparency, and a commitment to quality.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor s degree in business, Information Technology, or a related field
• 7 years of experience as a Business Analyst, including 3 years mentoring or leading analysts
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills
• Strong understanding of requirement elicitation, documentation, and process modeling
• Proven experience with Agile methodologies (Scrum and/or Kanban)
• Excellent facilitation and stakeholder engagement skills
• Experience working with enterprise-level applications or multi-module systems
• Proficiency with BA and ALM tools such as Jira, Azure DevOps, or similar

Preferred

• Experience guiding BA practice standards or supporting BA Centers of Excellence
• Experience with data governance, data integration, or data quality initiatives
• Familiarity with testing methodologies and ALM or automated testing tools
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to use data to drive insights

Skills & Competencies

• Leadership and mentoring abilities
• Exceptional communication and presentation skills
• Strong analytical and process improvement mindset
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and facilitation capabilities
• High attention to detail and commitment to quality
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and support projects concurrently
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite and process modeling tools

Requirements