Protect our Land, Ascend with Us!

Ascension is seeking an experienced Senior Business Analyst / Business Process Improvement Lead to support the U.S. Coast Guard’s Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber and Intelligence—or C5I—organization as it modernizes and strengthens the business processes used to support mission technology delivery.

The ideal candidate is an experienced business transformation professional who can move comfortably between strategy, governance, process analysis, Lean Six Sigma continual improvement, stakeholder facilitation, organizational change, and implementation.

This position is particularly well suited for someone who does more than document business processes. We are looking for a professional who can examine how an organization currently operates, determine why a process is not achieving its intended outcome, develop practical future-state alternatives, facilitate stakeholder agreement, and help the organization implement sustainable improvements.

The role directly supports PWS Task 2.1 Business Governance Support and Task 2.4 Continual Process Improvement, with potential support to Task 2.6 Organizational Change Management when that optional task is exercised. The broader USCG requirement calls for business process planning, process development, process integration planning, performance measurement, governance, analytics, process improvement, and organizational change support in an Agile environment.

2. Summary of the Contractor Role

The Senior Business Analyst / Business Process Improvement Lead serves as a senior business transformation resource embedded within a government-led Agile environment.

The individual will work with Coast Guard executives, managers, process owners, analysts, technical personnel, and other stakeholders to establish and improve governance structures; document and evaluate current-state operations; design future-state processes; assess organizational effectiveness; develop courses of action; establish SOPs and governance documentation; facilitate stakeholder working sessions; and institutionalize continual process improvement.

The position requires someone capable of taking an ambiguous organizational problem and transforming it into a structured analysis and executable improvement plan.

The candidate should be:

• Highly analytical while remaining practical and implementation-oriented.
• Comfortable facilitating discussions involving competing stakeholder interests.
• Self-directed and capable of operating with limited day-to-day supervision.
• Skilled at identifying root causes rather than simply documenting symptoms.
• Able to translate executive objectives into processes, workflows, controls, measures, and actionable work plans.
• An organized planner capable of managing several priorities simultaneously.
• Confident presenting recommendations to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Comfortable operating in a federal IT/C5I environment where business processes, technology, cybersecurity, acquisition, resources, and mission operations intersect.

The Coast Guard specifically requires contractor personnel to function as integral members of Agile teams and participate in activities such as Sprint Planning, Backlog Reviews, Sprint Reviews, and Sprint Retrospectives.

3. Position Responsibilities and Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

The Senior Business Analyst / Business Process Improvement Lead will:

• ASSESS existing organizational structures, governance models, workflows, business processes, work plans, stakeholder relationships, and operating practices to identify performance gaps and opportunities for improvement.
• DOCUMENT current-state and future-state business processes using process maps, swim-lane diagrams, workflow models, standard operating procedures, decision matrices, and related business architecture artifacts.
• DEVELOP governance structures, frameworks, decision protocols, operating models, SOPs, process documentation, roles and responsibilities, and supporting governance assets.
• ANALYZE strategic guidance, organizational priorities, service-delivery demands, stakeholder requirements, organizational capabilities, and external events affecting Coast Guard C5I operations.
• EVALUATE organizational effectiveness and determine whether existing processes, capabilities, work plans, and management decisions support established strategic objectives.
• IDENTIFY process bottlenecks, duplication, unnecessary handoffs, control weaknesses, organizational constraints, risks, and root causes affecting performance.
• DEVELOP alternative courses of action and provide defensible recommendations addressing organizational and business-process issues.
• FACILITATE workshops, working groups, interviews, process-mapping sessions, requirements sessions, governance meetings, and stakeholder discussions.
• ENGAGE organizational stakeholders to understand operational problems, clarify requirements, resolve competing needs, and build consensus around recommended improvements.
• CREATE work plans, implementation roadmaps, action plans, decision-support materials, executive briefings, governance artifacts, and other documentation needed to execute approved recommendations.
• APPLY Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints, root-cause analysis, value-stream analysis, and related continual process improvement techniques.
• SUPPORT Coast Guard Continual Process Improvement initiatives and Command-level Continual Performance Improvement activities.
• DEVELOP AND MAINTAIN CPI training products such as curricula, presentation materials, curriculum change logs, exercises, surveys, instructional aids, and supporting documentation.
• FACILITATE or support Lean/Six Sigma CPI training sessions, curriculum working sessions, and process-improvement events.
• EVALUATE organizational maturity and assist with adopting appropriate maturity models and capability-improvement frameworks.
• DEVELOP maturity-improvement action plans identifying activities necessary for organizational components to progress toward desired maturity levels.
• SUPPORT, when authorized under the optional Organizational Change Management task, organizational-change initiatives including adoption planning, stakeholder impact analysis, communications, readiness assessment, implementation planning, and reinforcement activities.
• SUPPORT initiatives involving the DoD Enterprise Service Management Framework, acquisition-to-sustainment support, acquisition strategy implementation, mission-support business models, and other Command priorities when assigned.
• PARTICIPATE in Agile ceremonies including Sprint Planning, Backlog Reviews, Sprint Reviews, Sprint Retrospectives, and related government Scrum Team activities.
• DEVELOP user stories, acceptance criteria, backlog inputs, process requirements, and Product Increment support artifacts where appropriate.
• MAINTAIN configuration and version control of policies, SOPs, governance documents, process maps, analyses, and other government work products.
• USE SharePoint Online and other Coast Guard-approved collaboration platforms to organize and maintain governance and process documentation.
• COLLABORATE with performance-management and data-analysis personnel to define metrics and KPIs that demonstrate whether implemented process improvements are delivering intended business outcomes.
• PREPARE concise executive-level presentations, analyses, recommendations, decision papers, meeting materials, and status updates.
• ENSURE work products are accurate, professionally written, appropriately controlled, accessible, and compliant with applicable Coast Guard and DHS requirements.

The PWS specifically requires governance development, current/future-state swim-lane mapping, organizational effectiveness analysis, COA development, stakeholder facilitation, SOP development, CPI training, maturity-model adoption, and organizational-change support.