Francesca Collins

Working as the sole Business Analyst to:

• Mapping processes across all business areas and third-party vendors to identify areas of improvement
• Built relationships with stakeholders at all seniority levels to clarify roles, responsibilities, and identify critical pain points
• Implementing process and system changes, considering priority/criticality order
• Training users on process changes

• Working closely with the Project Manager/Scrum Master, I oversaw a team of BI Consultants to implement a structured agile framework, refine the use of DevOps and conduct agile ceremonies to improve team structure and productivity
• I took on additional responsibilities within the duration of this project which resulted in me being the appointed the Product Owner

Key Responsibilities:

• Led daily stand ups for team accountability and resolve arising issues
• Facilitated requirement workshops with stakeholders of all seniority to capture business needs, obtaining necessary sign offs
• Translated requirements into user stories with clear acceptance criteria and priority
• Led backlog refinement sessions to go through all epics and user stories to ensure developer, test and business users understanding
• Assisted in sprint planning, appointing story points and assigning work based on developer skill and capacity
• Led sprint review sessions to demonstrate completed work, verifying acceptance criteria compliance and obtain business sign off

Improving Finance Processes:

• To ensure the continuation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 within the Finance Department, I mapped the 'as is' processes using Visio and Elements Cloud to highlight areas of improvement and identify complex problems to divulge is subsequent user stories were required or process changes to ensure best use of the application
• I mentored a Junior Business Analyst where we shared best practice, but also assisted in their workload planning

Key Responsibilities:

• Collaborated and managed the Junior Business Analyst to execute comprehensive process maps
• Conducted workshops with various Finance users to gather the 'as is' process for the entire department
• Cross referenced these processes with the Microsoft Dynamics 365 system processes to ensure complete efficiency
• Highlighted pain points within the processes to create user stories and acceptance criteria and submitted these for development
• This played a key role in keeping Microsoft Dynamics 365 as the Finance application

Key Achievements:

• Assisted in setting up a BA and PM function/framework
• Trained users on Azure DevOps
• Rolled out an Agile framework that was adopted by the whole business
• Appointed as stand in Product Owner
• Obtained SAFe 6 Agilist qualification

• I worked on the digital transformation programme to move all internal departments onto new and existing platforms (e.g
• Salesforce and Trade App) whilst also improving and supporting implementation of business processes
• Other projects to note:
• Transitioning the Human Resources department and the rest of the business onto a new HR and Payroll system (Dayforce) ensuring the business requirements were met by the third party development team
• Implementing Zuora as the new Checkatrade billing engine, migrating all current and historical customer data and assisting with the API plug ins

Key Responsibilities:

• Compile and present business cases and project briefs for review and sign off
• Model as-is business processes and design to-be business processes
• Elicit requirements/user stories and develop the acceptance criteria
• Work with the product owners to design solutions
• Communicating with the relevant stakeholders daily ensuring clear communication
• Manage senior stakeholder expectations on both a technical and business level
• Working with internal and third-party development teams on solutions to ensure they match the business requirements
• Create multiple business requirements documents to support change between old and new processes and systems
• Attending daily stand ups, three amigos, demos and working as part of an agile team delivering iteratively
• Run demo sessions with business stakeholders
• Develop training materials for transformation business areas
• Support User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
• Assist in writing UAT Test Scripts
• Training business areas on how to conduct UAT and defect management
• Prepare, support and guide users in how to use the system to complete daily operational/transactional tasks

• A Business Change Analyst on the Smart Metering Programme working across multiple Waterfall and Agile projects and capabilities within the department
• Specialising in business readiness and Training and Education

Key responsibilities for Business readiness included:

• Stakeholder engagement
• Analysis of change initiatives
• Manage and resolve risks and issues
• Identify and escalate challenges whilst providing potential actions to address the problem
• Troubleshoot, problem solve and action plan
• Manage personal workload efficiently to meet deadlines, and review accuracy and quality of own work prior to sharing with the Business Change Manager

Key responsibilities within Training and Education included:

• Develop and deliver quality, accurate and timely training, communication and engagement activities to the impacted audiences in line with the agreed approach and plan
• Gain insight and understanding of the audience and constraints to develop suitable content
• Work in parallel with other areas of Business Change to ensure streamlined and consistent approach
• Using various change methods and models to help embed the change at low, mid and senior level
• Assist and coach the business on how to communicate effectively during change and introduce them to the change curve