Rita Arafa Email & Phone Number

Manchester, United Kingdom

This company has experienced very rapid growth in the last couple of years which has meant that their original model of having a small commercial team with a couple of developers was no longer sufficient or sustainable. The senior management realised that they needed to establish a Business Analysis (BA) function in the company to sit between the End User Stakeholders and the Developers who are delivering the end product. They brought me in on a contract basis to define and make operational a new Business Analysis function, train a current employee on the work of a BA and put in place the processes and procedures required for the BA function to work with the other established teams in the company. In support of this I have set up appropriate templates to be used to gather requirements and put in place validation procedures to get sign-off of the end-user requirements and technical sign-off before the specifications are passed through for planning and prioritisation. I have introduced the provision of functional specifications to communicate the requirements unambiguously to the developers using Epics and User Stories. I also contribute to the daily Scum and fortnightly planning meetings.Key Achievements:o Proving to key stakeholders within the company the benefits of having a BA functiono Putting in place working practices that are applicable to this particular environmento Establishing a fully integrated and functioning BA function in the company where none existed before.

Leeds, United Kingdom

The HSCIC was an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department of Health. It was the national provider of information, data and IT systems for commissioners, analysts and clinicians in health and social care.I managed the BA Team in the ISD division of the HSCIC. My responsibilities included line-management of a team of Tech Business Analysts and liaising with senior stakeholders, project owners and relevant contacts in the ISD, other health directorates and health informatics organisations. I promoted the benefits of employing my analysts on projects, helped stakeholders identify what type of analysis support they required and then negotiated and planed the delivery times, scope and level of involvement of the analysts on their projects. I was also heavily involved in supporting major organisational restructures and Ways of Working change in our organisation, particularly with understanding the flow of NHS information, pre and post structural change. I had major input into re-evaluating and defining the work processes and practices of my team and in how we interact with other teams in the organisation.Line managing the Business Analysts Team involved planning the future deployment of individuals, managing their work-load, assigning them on to appropriate projects dependent on their individual skills, reviewing their work and supporting and advising them when required. I also conducted their PDRs, manage team KPIs and the recruiting of new staff.Key Achievements:o Achieved a balance of empowering and inspiring the analysis team while ensuring a governed and assured output from the team members.o Gained respect and recognition amongst managers, peers and staff by not hiding from difficult situations and always presented a fair and impartial case of the value that my team could provide.o Supported my team members through a number of major organisational restructures and transformations while maintaining a high level of quality team output.

During this time, I worked as a Senior Business Analyst on two programmes consecutively. On the Dental IT programme I was the sole business analyst, building up strong working relationships with the Steering Group and end-users, identifying and documenting the requirements for the national electronic Dental IT System. On the Choose and Book programme my main area of work was on a major new release of the application which was used by GPs and Hospitals throughout England, defining the requirements through workshops and clinical engagement from the first scoping of the release through to the eventual implementation of the new functionality. I worked with designated stakeholders including secondary care clinicians, GPs, clinical leads, hospital & GP practice administrators & managers. Using my experience working with the medical profession and in medical environments, I identified and analysed functional requirements, documented them and gained stakeholder support for the Dental IT and Choose and Book solutions. Key Achievements:o I set up and ran a Design Steering Group which involved winning over and getting the support of very senior clinicians who previously had been extremely cynical about the work we were trying to achieve.o I managed the expectations of stakeholders on what could be achieved and by when.o I was the link between the non-technical end users (customers) and the technical developers who delivered the functionality

Initially a systems analyst working in the Development Division, covering the whole of the analysis and design lifecycle including requirements gathering through to the production of both functional and systems specifications, using OO and UML design methods and techniques. Promoted to manage a team of six analysts. I worked primarily in a client facing role, interpreting the client’s business requirements. I produced the documentation and functional specifications, as well as overseeing and checking my team's work. I managed my team, including appraisals, setting objectives and key performance goals, pay reviews and recruitment. I liaised with colleagues in the technical and testing teams, the account managers as well as senior managers both internally and externally to the company. I also assisted the Divisional Head and the Project Management Team in helping to produce, implement and maintain working processes and practices within the Division and specifically for my team.

During my time at Sovereign I supported the Tranzline Sales and Marketing relational database used by the internal telemarketing department and the external sales departments. I helped maintain and develop the database using SQL and Oracle+ as well as liasing between the users and the suppliers to resolve business problems and supporting the users. I project managed a major upgrade in the system including requirements and business analysis, testing, conversion and implementation and user training and support. I was also involved in supporting the set up of a new satellite office in Warrington. I have developed, maintained and supported MS Access databases and helped out with user support on the Helpdesk.

Macclesfield

Work involved requirements analysis and development of office applications and user support in MS Office Systems (including Word, Excel and Access), Procurement support and Help Desk operations.I was also involved in several major procurements for new computer systems around the hospital that involved talking to the users to establish their requirements, dealing with the suppliers, evaluating their responses to tender and arranging demonstrations.I also supported users in the hospital using office systems and also the Patient Administration System. I designed and developed a database for the Training and Development Department used to record details and produce reports on the courses run by the department, NVQ's and participants and I also identified the requirements, designed, programmed and supported a system in MS Access for the Appeals Office

Bsc, Information Systems

Education record