Ascension is seeking an experienced Senior Business Systems Analyst to support Montgomery County Public Schools’ enterprise technology, application modernization, systems integration, and business-process improvement initiatives.

The selected professional will serve as the bridge between MCPS business stakeholders, technical teams, system administrators, developers, vendors, and end users. This individual will determine what users and programs need from an information system, translate those needs into clear functional and technical requirements, evaluate current workflows, and help ensure that technology solutions are properly designed, configured, tested, documented, and accepted.

This position is well suited for a senior analyst who understands both business operations and enterprise information systems. The ideal candidate can lead requirements discussions with nontechnical stakeholders, communicate effectively with software engineers and database professionals, and convert complex or sometimes ambiguous customer needs into practical, testable solutions.

MCPS is establishing a master agreement through which individual Statements of Work and Requests for Resumes may be issued for custom development, systems integration, enterprise application support, modernization, automation, data services, and staff augmentation. The role may therefore support one or more assignments during the contract term rather than one continuously funded position.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Senior Business Systems Analyst will elicit, analyze, validate, and document business, functional, system, data, interface, security, accessibility, and reporting requirements for complex applications and technology initiatives. The analyst will assess existing business processes and systems, identify gaps and dependencies, develop functional specifications and process models, support system configuration and development, and coordinate testing and user acceptance.

Depending on the specific assignment, the analyst may support enterprise platforms such as Oracle Fusion Cloud, Infor Lawson, student information systems, Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Power Platform applications, custom web applications, databases, integrations, dashboards, or legacy-system modernization efforts. The MCPS scope covers the full System Development Life Cycle and includes application support, engineering and modernization, intelligent automation, data science, security, web systems, document management, training, and technical documentation.

The successful candidate will be:

• Detail-oriented and disciplined in requirements documentation.
• Comfortable working with stakeholders who have different priorities and levels of technical knowledge.
• Skilled at identifying incomplete, conflicting, or unstated requirements.
• Self-directed and capable of progressing work with limited supervision.
• Organized enough to manage several requirements, decisions, issues, and deliverables concurrently.
• Able to anticipate downstream impacts involving integrations, data, security, testing, training, and change management.
• Committed to protecting student, employee, and operational information.
• Prepared to work in an environment where priorities and task-order needs may evolve.

Position Responsibilities

The Senior Business Systems Analyst is expected to perform activities such as the following:

• Elicit business, functional, technical, data, reporting, interface, security, privacy, and accessibility requirements through interviews, workshops, observations, document reviews, surveys, and facilitated working sessions.
• Analyze existing applications, databases, workflows, policies, operating procedures, and system interfaces to identify gaps, risks, duplication, bottlenecks, and improvement opportunities.
• Translate business needs into functional specifications, system requirements, user stories, use cases, acceptance criteria, process models, data requirements, and configuration documentation.
• Document current-state and future-state processes using process maps, workflow diagrams, decision tables, requirements traceability matrices, and supporting narratives.
• Facilitate requirements-validation sessions with business owners, subject matter experts, developers, architects, database specialists, cybersecurity personnel, testers, and end users.
• Reconcile conflicting stakeholder requirements and help decision-makers evaluate priorities, tradeoffs, dependencies, costs, risks, and expected outcomes.
• Evaluate proposed systems, enhancements, configurations, interfaces, and automation opportunities against documented business and technical requirements.
• Support system design and configuration activities by clarifying requirements and providing functional guidance to developers and technical teams.
• Coordinate requirements across applications, databases, APIs, cloud platforms, reporting tools, and on-premises environments.
• Develop functional specifications for application modules, workflows, role-based permissions, integrations, reports, dashboards, notifications, forms, and data-conversion activities.
• Maintain requirements baselines, decision logs, issue logs, change requests, traceability records, and version-controlled documentation.
• Assess the impact of proposed requirement or configuration changes on scope, schedule, data, interfaces, security, testing, training, and end-user operations.
• Prepare test scenarios, test conditions, expected results, and user-acceptance criteria in coordination with quality assurance and testing personnel.
• Support functional, integration, regression, performance, accessibility, and user-acceptance testing.
• Coordinate user acceptance testing, including test planning, participant preparation, issue tracking, defect clarification, retesting, and acceptance documentation.
• Validate that delivered capabilities satisfy approved requirements before implementation or production release.
• Analyze defects and implementation issues to distinguish between requirement gaps, configuration problems, software defects, data issues, and user-training needs.
• Support data mapping, data conversion, data validation, reconciliation, and migration activities.
• Identify opportunities to improve or automate processes through tools such as Microsoft Power Automate, Power Apps, SharePoint, Power BI, workflow platforms, and enterprise application functionality.
• Develop reports, dashboards, status summaries, milestone updates, and briefing materials for project leadership and stakeholders.
• Prepare or contribute to system documentation, standard operating procedures, job aids, user guides, release notes, and training materials.
• Ensure requirements and deliverables account for ADA Section 508 and Non-Visual Access requirements.
• Apply appropriate Agile, Scrum, hybrid, or traditional SDLC practices based on the assignment.
• Participate in sprint planning, backlog refinement, demonstrations, retrospectives, design reviews, change-control meetings, and release-readiness reviews.
• Monitor assigned milestones, risks, issues, dependencies, decisions, and action items.
• Report weekly progress, completed tasks, hours expended, upcoming work, risks, and impediments as required by MCPS.
• Protect MCPS information in accordance with FERPA, COPPA, the Maryland Student Privacy Act, MCPS policies, and applicable security requirements.
• Collaborate effectively with MCPS employees, other contractors, software vendors, implementation partners, and third-party service providers.
• Recommend practical solutions that balance user needs, technical feasibility, security, accessibility, maintainability, cost, and implementation risk.

Anticipated Tools and Methods

The specific technology stack will be established by each task order. Candidates should be prepared to work with a combination of:

• Microsoft 365, Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, and SharePoint
• Azure DevOps, Jira, ServiceNow, or comparable requirements and work-management platforms
• Microsoft Power Platform, including Power BI, Power Apps, and Power Automate
• SQL and relational database concepts
• Oracle Fusion Cloud, Oracle Integration Cloud, Infor Lawson, or comparable enterprise platforms
• Student information, human capital, financial, document-management, and reporting systems
• Requirements traceability matrices
• User stories, use cases, acceptance criteria, and functional specifications
• Business process modeling and workflow mapping
• Agile/Scrum, DevOps, Waterfall, and hybrid SDLC approaches
• Test-management, defect-tracking, and user-acceptance processes
• Data mapping, interface specifications, and API documentation
• Section 508 and Non-Visual Access validation methods