Top 61 Business Analyst Interview Questions and Answers

Here is a growing list of the top business analyst interview questions with comprehensive answers. So, prepare these interview questions for business analysts of all levels and ace the interview round!

A business analyst (BA) statistically analyses data to find the best business solutions for an organisation. The professional documents the business or processes or systems, and further evaluates the business model or its integration with technology.

Business analysts are an important part of organisations nowadays to increase business values and offer cost-reductive solutions. There are a lot of opportunities for business analysts in the industry. To become an expert, you can take a certification course.

Here are some of the frequently-asked Business Analyst interview questions that will help aspirants crack the rounds.

Q1. What is a flowchart?

Ans. For this common business analyst interview question, you would need to explain the meaning first then explain the when and why you should use flowchart diagrams.

A flowchart is a visual representation of a process, system, or workflow. It involves the use of standardised symbols and shapes to illustrate the sequence of steps, decisions, and actions involved in that process.

Overall, it is used at various stages to document, analyse, communicate, and improve business processes.

Elaborate on the reasons in this manner.

For Process Documentation

This involves creating a visual representation of how a process currently works, from start to finish. The purpose is to have a clear and comprehensive overview of the process, making it easier to analyse and communicate with stakeholders.

For Process Analysis

This is to identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and areas for improvement within a process. By visually mapping out the steps and decision points, analysts can pinpoint where issues may arise and propose solutions.

For Requirements Gathering

To ensure that all stakeholders have a common understanding of how a process should work. They help in clarifying and documenting the expected workflow, making it easier to gather and validate requirements from various parties.

For System Design

These flowcharts describe how users will interact with a software system, outlining user interfaces, data inputs, and system outputs. They serve as a blueprint for developers.

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Q2. Define BCG Matrix?

Ans. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix is developed to analyse several business processes and new product offerings from companies.

The methodology involves classifying products or business units into four quadrants based on their market growth rate and relative market share. 

• Stars: These are products or business units with a high market share in a rapidly growing market. Companies should invest heavily in stars to maintain and potentially increase their market share.
• Cash Cows: Cash cows have a high market share but are in a slow-growth market. They generate consistent cash flows and should be maintained to support other products or business units.
• Question Marks (or Problem Children): These are products or business units with a low market share in a high-growth market. They require investment to increase market share and become stars, but not all will succeed.
• Dogs: Dogs have a low market share in a slow-growth market. They do not generate significant cash flows and may need to be divested unless they serve a strategic purpose.

Q3. What is the difference between the analysis model and the design model?

Ans. The analysis model is to help with the understanding of the problem by breaking it into its components. The design model is to help with the creation of a solution for an analysed problem.

Beyond this, you may think of elaborating on it. A well-structured answer like below can help you explain your experience in business analysis. 

Sample Answer:

“An analysis model and a design model serve distinct purposes in the business analysis process. An analysis model focuses on understanding the ‘what’ aspect of a system or process. This is done by emphasising the identification and documentation of business requirements, constraints, and functional aspects. 

It provides a clear picture of the current or existing state, helping us comprehend the problem domain. Common tools for analysis modelling include use cases, data flow diagrams, and requirements documents.

On the other hand, a design model shifts its focus to the ‘how’ aspect of the solution. It takes the high-level requirements and functional specifications from the analysis phase. Then it can specify how the system or solution will be built. 

Design models include technical details, architecture, component specifications, interfaces, and considerations for scalability, performance, and security. UML diagrams, architectural diagrams, and database schemas are often used for design modelling.”

Q4. What does UML stand for?

Ans. Unified Modelling Language is the full form.

While answering this related-to-IT business analyst interview question, you can explain a little more but concisely about it. 

Here is a sample answer. 

“UML is an ISO/IEC 19501:2004 specification. It was primarily used in software development owing to IBM and HP, but it can be used to understand business processes. It offers a variety of diagrams that cater to different aspects of system modelling and visualization. 

• Use Case Diagrams – To capture and illustrate the interactions between system users (actors) and the system itself.
• Class Diagrams – To depict the structure of a system by showing the classes, their attributes, and the relationships between classes.
• Sequence Diagrams – To show the interactions and communication among objects or components in chronological order. 
• Activity Diagrams – To represent the flow of activities or actions within a system, helping to model business processes or workflows.”

Q5. Name the two types of diagrams heavily used in BA?

Ans. Use Case Diagram and Collaboration Diagram are two major types used in business analysis.

Q6. What are extends?

Ans. Extends are actions that must take place in a use case. Such business analyst interview questions want to test your knowledge of such basic topics. Try elaborating on it.

Q7. What is the difference between a business requirement document (BRD) and a functional requirement document (FRD)?

Ans. The business requirement document states the high-level business requirement along with the business need and business problem.

On the other hand, a functional requirement document states the functionality required in the application designed for the business problem and the need to be mentioned in the Business requirement document.

Q8. Differentiate between Fish Model and V Model?

Ans. The fish model is costly and time-consuming while V Model requires less time and cost.

Q9. What is Benchmarking?

Ans. Benchmarking is about measuring the performance of an organisation to compete in the industry.

Q10. What is Pareto Analysis?

Ans. Pareto analysis, also known as the 80/20 rule, is used for quality control and defect resolution.

Q11. What is the 100-point method?

Ans. The method is used to assign priority to different steps in a process.

Q12. What does INVEST stand for?

Ans. INVEST means Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Sized Appropriately, and Testable. It can assist project managers and technical teams to deliver quality products/services.

Q13. Define Application Usability?

Ans. Application usability is actually the quality of the system that makes the system useful for its end users. The system’s usability is good if it is capable of achieving users’ goals.

Q14. Define OLTP Systems?

Ans. OLTP stands for On-Line Transaction Processing; such systems are capable to perform database transactions and are meant to provide good speed for database transactions.

Q15. Do you have any idea about Pugh Matrix?

Ans. Pugh Matrix is used to decide about the most optimal and alternate solutions. This technique is now a standard part of the Six Sigma technique. It is also known as the problem or design matrix.

Q16. Define BPMN Gateway?

Ans. BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) Gateway is a processing modelling component that is used to control the flow of interaction, sequence of processes.

Q17. What are the five elements in BPMN Gateway?

Ans. They are flow objects, data connection objects, swimlanes and artefacts.

Q18. What is FMEA?

Ans. It means Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. It is a failure analysis that is used mainly in product development, system engineering and operations management.

Q19. Do you know what 8-omega is?

Ans. It is a business framework that is mainly being adopted by firms and organizations for the betterment of their business.

Q20. What are the factors in 8-omega?

Ans. The factors are strategy, people, process, and technology.

Q21. What is Kano Analysis?

Ans. Kano Analysis is used to analyse a system in terms of its requirements to identify its impact on customers’ satisfaction.

Q22. What are the key areas in a Kano Analysis?

Ans. Unexpected Delighters, Performance Attributes and Must-Have Attributes.

Q23. Define Personas?

Ans. Personas are used instead of real users that assist developers and technical teams to judge the user behaviour in different scenarios.

Q24. Define Pair-Choice Technique?

Ans. The pair-Choice Technique is used to give priority to various items in a process.

Q25. How can you differentiate between pool and swimlane?

Ans. A swimlane is related to group activities on an activity diagram, while a pool is dedicated activity to a single person.

Q26. Name the documents that a Business analyst creates.

Ans.  This is an important business analyst interview question that you should consider. Mention that the documents that a business analyst needs to prepare, include –

• Business Case
• Business Analysis Plan
• Business Requirements Document (BRD)
• Stakeholder Management Plan
• System Requirements Specification Document (SRS)
• Process Document
• Gap Analysis Document
• Requirements Traceability Table (RTT)
• System Test Cases
• UAT Progress Report

Q27. What is SIPOC?

Ans. SIPOC is an acronym for Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs and Customers. This tool uses information from these segments and creates a process map, providing a high-level overview of a Six Sigma project. Many organizations these days use the opposite acronym COPIS, putting customers first and explaining the value of a customer to the organization.

Q28. As a business analyst, which tools will you use extensively?

Ans. There are many tools; however, the most popular ones are –

• MS Office Suite
• Google Docs
• Rational Requisite Pro
• SWOT
• Trello
• Pencil
• Version One
• Balsamiq

Q29. What is a Data Collection Plan?

Ans. A Data Collection Plan is used to collect all the critical data in a system. It covers two things.

• Type of data that needs to be collected or gathered
• Different data sources for analyzing a data set

Q30. What is SRS?

Ans. It is the abbreviation for System/Software Requirements Specification and is a set of documents that describe the features of a system or software application.

Q31. What are the key elements of SRS?

Ans. SRS includes a number of elements that define the intended functionality required by businesses to meet the requirements of the end-users. These elements are –

• Scope of Work
• Functional Requirements
• Non-Functional Requirements
• Dependencies
• Assumptions
• Constraints
• Acceptance Criteria
• Data Model

Q32. What is Scope Creep? How will avoid Scope Creep?

Ans.  Also known as requirement creep, Scope Creep refers to damages or deviations in any project’s scope within the same resource range, and these are beyond human control. It indicates poor project management and is a potential risk to a project.

Q33. What are the common reasons behind Scope Creep?

Ans. It can be because of any uncontrolled issue, but the primary reasons behind Scope Creep are –

• Poor or miscommunication between the stakeholders of a project
• Improper documentation of project requirements

Q34. What is MSA?

Ans. The full form of MSA is Measurement System Analysis. MSA is used to check if a measurement system is accurate. It evaluates a system’s accuracy, precision, and stability.

Q35. What is Gap Analysis?

Ans. It is a method to assess differences in performance between the existing system and functionalities of a business. It is a performance level comparison that checks whether business requirements are being met and devises the ways that can help to get the required results.

Q36. Can you differentiate between a Risk and an Issue?

Ans. A Risk is a problem that has been predicted earlier and improvement plans are devised for them, while an Issue is a problem that has already occurred.

Q37. What do you understand by the term “Misuse Case”?

Ans. Misuse Case is a malicious activity that causes system failure as it misguides the system function flow.

Q38. What is Requirement Prioritization?

Ans. Requirement Prioritization is the process of allocating and managing different requirements to cope with the limited resources of projects, as per relative importance and urgency.

Q39. What are the different techniques used for requirement prioritization?

Ans. This is an important business analyst interview question and a follow-up to the previous one. You can mention and in fact, even provide examples of the most popular techniques used for requirement prioritization listed below.

• Dependency map
• MoSCoW – Must, Should, Could or Would
• Voting
• Bubble sort technique
• Kano Model Analysis
• Hundred Dollar Method
• Five Whys

Q40. Name the components of strategy analysis.

Ans. The key components of strategy analysis are –

• Vision
• Mission
• Objectives
• Strategies
• Action plan

Q41. What is the requirement elicitation technique?

Ans. Requirement elicitation is a process of gathering requirements from stakeholders, users, and customers through meetings, questionnaires, interviews, brainstorming prototyping, sessions, etc. It is considered a very challenging and most error-prone communication methodology, which can be successfully achieved only through an effective customer-developer partnership.

Q42. What is RUP Methodology?

Ans. It is an abbreviation for Rational Unified Process and is a methodology to improve a product’s application. It is an object-oriented approach for successful project management and high-quality software development.

Q43. Explain the usability of the Requirement Traceability Matrix.

Ans. Requirement Traceability Matrix records a user’s requirements and ensures that all the requirements of the client are meticulously met.

Q44. What is Alternate Flow in Use Case Diagram?

Ans. Alternate Flow in Use Case Diagram is a scenario that suggests that a user has taken an alternative route to achieve the desired result. It is an optional flow in case of any failure.

Q45. What is an Affinity Diagram?

Ans. An Affinity Diagram is an analytical tool used to cluster or organize ideas into subgroups. These ideas are mostly generated from discussions or brainstorming sessions and used in analysing complex issues.

Q46.  Explain INVEST.

Ans. It is the abbreviation for –

‘I’ndependent, ‘N‘egotiable, ‘V‘aluable, ‘E‘stimable, ‘S‘ized Appropriately and ‘T‘estable.

It helps business analysts create quality user stories.

Q47. As a business analyst, what type of problems you may face?

Ans. Problems may arise at any given stage of a project and a business analyst should be prepared for challenges like –

• Undocumented processes
• Technology-related problems
• Business policies related issues
• Business model errors
• Issues with stakeholders
• Miscommunication among team regarding the scope of work

Q49. What is the Agile Manifesto?

Ans. Agile Manifesto is a brief software guide for agile software development and is built on 4 values and 12 principles.

Do read up on agile project management as well.

Q49. Name different types of Agile methodologies.

Ans. Some popular Agile methodologies are –

• Agile Scrum Methodology
• Lean Software Development
• Kanban
• Extreme Programming (XP)
• Crystal Methodology
• Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)
• Feature Driven Development (FDD)

Q50. What is the difference between a Histogram and a Boxplot?

Ans.  A histogram graphical represents the frequency distribution of numeric data, while a Boxplot summarizes the critical aspects of continuous data distribution.

Q51. What is an effective feasibility study?

Ans. A good feasibility study for any business analyst is to identify problems and the requirements necessary for a project to run successfully. Furthermore, you can mention that there are six essential aspects to cover in a feasibility study such as:

• Project Scope: It is about defining the problems and opportunities that affect the business directly or indirectly. 
• Current analysis: By identifying and weighing the current project’s advantages and disadvantages, a business analyst can discover where modifications are required. This helps for upcoming projects and even helps in saving both money and time. 
• Requirements: It is to find the requirements of each element within the project.
• Approach: This is to determine whether the solutions for project operations are practicable. 
• Evaluation: It is done to see whether the approach taken is economical. This can be done by calculating the total cost and preparing a summary that includes other aspects such as ROI, cost benefits and so on. 
• Review: This is the final step in a feasibility study. It validates if the study is accurate or not. 

Q52. Mention two differences between software development lifecycle (SDLC) and project lifecycle (PLC). 

Ans. You can give examples to elaborate this answer to the business analyst interview question.

Software Development Life Cycle	Project Life Cycle
Deals with software engineering processes and tools	Deals with project management phases, tools and techniques
It is focused on quality and consistency in each stage of software development	Its framework deals with time, cost and scope

Q53. Briefly explain business process modelling and its advantages. 

Ans. A graphical representation of an enterprise’s workflows to identify areas of improvement is referred to as business process modelling. This is among the most important aspects of business process management. The benefits you should mention are:

1. It identifies and removes inefficient processes. 
2. Everyone in the team is clear about the goals. 

Q54. Name some business process modelling tools. 

Ans. This is a follow-up question to the business process modelling question. Here the hiring manager wants to know your advanced expertise in the field. 

Do mention the following:

• SIPOC Diagrams

A SIPOC diagram refers to its acronym – Suppliers, Inputs, Process to improve, Outputs and Customers receiving the outputs. This diagram helps in identifying the processes that require improvement before work begins. 

• Unified Modelling Language (UML) Diagrams

This kind of object-oriented visual diagram covers individuals (referred to as actors), actions, roles and classes within a system. 

• Gantt Charts

These charts are used for breaking down complex tasks into multiple sub-tasks that need to be completed in a specific time frame. This helps organisations track workflows easily where strict deadlines have to be met. 

• Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN)

This type of diagram is mostly used for standard business process modelling. Currently, the BPMN 2.0 model is used and learned as a methodology. 

Q55. Mention a few differences between the Waterfall Model and Spiral Model. Which, according to you, is the best?

Ans. For this easy business analyst interview question, you can elaborate on the following.

Waterfall Model	Spiral Model
It is sequential and linear	It is non-sequential
Errors are rectified after process completion	Errors can be rectified before completing a stage or process
It does not encourage flexibility	It offers plenty of flexibility

When you have to answer which model is the best, it is essential to point out that a company prefers such and such model based on two aspects:

1. Type of project
2. The organisation’s culture

Q56. Why should business analysts know about business models? Which ones are you aware of?

Ans. To make profits, it is important for a company to follow a business model. Business analysts assess the company’s value proposition, policies, how it generates revenue and more. So these professionals must know various business models to help a company stand out in the market. 

This is a general interview question for junior business analysts. But recruiters may even ask seniors based on the types they have practical experience of. Mention and elaborate on these popular ones with examples. 

1. Ad-based Business Model, where the company earns money through ads on the website. 
2. Dropshipping is an alternative business model for eCommerce sites. Customers can see and purchase from the listings on the site. But the suppliers have the inventory and they do the shipping. 
3. The SaaS business model is quite popular. SaaS is a software service that businesses use to earn money from customers for services they use. 

Read about the different types of business models to explain your answer better.

Q57.What is the basic difference between functional and non-functional specifications?

Ans. Functional specifications or requirements are features or functions of a product to be implemented by developers. The focus of functional requirements is to meet the requirement of the user. 

On the other hand, non-functional specifications determine how the product should be performing. The focus of non-functional requirements is on what the user expects from a product. 

You can also mention the differences by describing how the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) guide defines requirements. This will help your business analyst interview answer be more specific.

Q58. Name the stages of a project that a business analyst is involved in.

Ans. Typically, through the project life-cycle, business analysts work with project managers to cover four stages

1. Initiation of the project
2. Planning the project
3. Executing the project
4. Closing the project

As an additional tip, try to elaborate your answer to this business analyst interview question with situations in which business analysts and project managers work together through the project. Along with that, speak about documents that both the professionals need to create – Project Vision, Solution Vision, etc. Also, talk about coordinating with project stakeholders and communicating risks in the project, and so on. Ideally, you can give examples for each of the stages. 

Q59. Describe the importance of the CRUD matrix briefly. 

Ans. CRUD stands for Create (create or store data), Read (read or retrieve data), Update (modify the stored data), Delete (to remove data). CRUD matrix is a table that is used by business analysts to determine the sets of users who generally have different types of accessing permissions to access the data that is stored in a system.

Q60. What exactly is the Requirements Traceability?

And. The recruiter in this business analyst interview question wants to know your familiarity and knowledge of the BABOK (Business Analysis Body of Knowledge) Guide. You can say that with traceability, you get to know if the solution to the problem adheres to the requirements and their individual relationships with each other.  You can also mention that the guide discusses not being too theoretical while using requirements traceability. 

Q61. Describe the core concept model in Strategy Analysis, as briefly as you can.

Ans. This question arises from the BABOK guide on change. If you have read it and need to brush up a little, discuss the following.

• Change – creating a change strategy for the future
• Need – identifying needs in the existing state and prioritising for the future
• Solution – defining the solution for the change
• Stakeholder – collaborating with stakeholders
• Value – defining the value of the solution
• Context – describing the overarching narrative of the change strategy

Conclusion

These Business Analyst interview questions will prepare you better and definitely impress the recruiter. Apart from that, do have a look at the trending sub-domains of this discipline including data visualization, Tableau, etc. Also, check out some business data mining courses that will build a solid foundation of core data-driven concepts in the field. Along with that, there are several free business analysis courses for you to explore and take up anytime before a business analyst interview.