Job Details

Senior Business Analyst

The Academic Office of Clinical Trials (AOCT) is seeking a Senior Business Analyst to join our dynamic team at the Houston Methodist Research Institute. This is a unique opportunity to work closely with senior leadership on high-impact organizational initiatives that support and advance our clinical research programs. We are seeking a proactive, detail-oriented professional with strong analytical and critical thinking skills. Must be able to communicate data clearly and effectively to diverse audiences. This role will collaborate with executive stakeholders to drive strategic projects, analyze complex data sets, and translate insights into actionable recommendations. Develop and deliver clear, timely reports and visualizations to support decision-making. Experience with tools such as Power BI, Tableau, EPIC, and clinical research platforms is a strong plus.

People Essential Functions:

• Engages and interfaces with stakeholders within and outside the organization.
• Effectively partners with team members to complete assigned projects.
• Fosters relationships and engages in regular communications within the department, IT, and the organization at large in the areas of issue resolution, status updates, and their effect on customers.
• Acts as liaison between the customer and the technical team facilitating requirements gathering sessions, sets expectations, and coordinates team members utilizing effective teamwork and collaborative skills.
• Engages customers and elicits requirements using various methods. Negotiates priorities and resolves conflicts between customers, technologists, and management.

Service Essential Functions:

• Proactively seeks out opportunities to meet internal and external customer needs.
• Responds promptly to internal and external customer requests.
• Mentors and guides team members in achieving standards set by management to exceed clients' expectations.
• Fosters relationships and engages in regular communications within the department, IT, and the organization at large in the areas of issue resolution, status updates, and their effect on customers.
• Leads discovery and analysis phase of projects and efforts. Also leads requirements elicitation workshops.

Quality/Safety Essential Functions:

• Represents requirements information in graphical forms that augment textual representations in natural language.
• Creates requirements plans that directly translate into project planning. Identify and document requirement risks along with risk mitigation.
• Translates functional and non-functional user requirements.
• Facilitates the prioritization of requirements into a product maturity roadmap.
• Leads the setting, monitoring, and meeting of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with customers. Develops detailed system test plans, executes system test cases, and provides issue tracking and consolidation. Manages a coordinated User Acceptance Test (UAT) effort.

Finance Essential Functions:

• Utilizes department resources and supplies effectively.
• Provides costs and resource estimates, work plans, and documentation to ensure timely project completion.
• Manages and prioritizes time effectively to meet established timelines.
• Identifies cost-saving or revenue opportunities by engaging in process improvement efforts.

Growth/Innovation Essential Functions:

• Stays abreast of emerging technology, process trends, and methodologies and seeks out innovative methodologies to provide solutions that improve productivity, workflow, production, efficiency, and effectiveness.
• Shares knowledge with team and stakeholders as appropriate.
• Proactively manages own professional development. Completes Individual Development Plan (IDP).

Education:

• Bachelor's degree required, preferably in Computer Science, Business Administration, or related discipline.

Work Experience:

• Five years experience supporting IT projects in an IT analyst role or similar function to include three years leading and facilitating IT projects and three years experience in clinical, business, or financial operations.

Licenses and Certifications - Required:

• N/A

Licenses and Certifications - Preferred:

• PMP - Certified Project Management Professional (PMI) -- PMP certification

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Demonstrates the skills and competencies necessary to safely perform the assigned job, determined through on-going skills, competency assessments, and performance evaluations.
• Sufficient proficiency in speaking, reading, and writing the English language necessary to perform the essential functions of this job, especially with regard to activities impacting patient or employee safety or security.
• Ability to effectively communicate with patients, physicians, family members, and co-workers in a manner consistent with a customer service focus and application of positive language principles.
• Ability to talk with individuals and groups about their needs and ask the right questions to surface essential requirements information.
• Ability to critically evaluate the information gathered from multiple sources, reconcile conflicts, decompose high-level information into details, abstract up from low-level information to a more general understanding, distinguish presented user requests from the underlying true needs, and distinguish solution ideas from requirements.
• Ability to engage customers and technicians for the purpose of extracting discussion, ideas, opinions, and general contribution in individual settings, meetings, or to lead requirements elicitation workshops.
• Ability to communicate information effectively to customers, managers, vendors, and technical staff.
• Ability to work with a vast array of information gathered during elicitation and analysis and to cope with rapidly changing information and priorities.
• Advanced interpersonal skills and ability to interact at all levels of the organization.
• Ability to work independently and take initiative.
• Knowledge of healthcare operations desired.
• Knowledge and appreciation of business concepts and requirements as applicable to a large academic, research, and/or healthcare facility preferred.
• Knowledge of project management tools preferred.
• Ability to work independently.
• Demonstrated success in project improvement.
• Ability to prioritize effectively and adjust to organizational needs and demands.

Supplemental Requirements:

• Work Attire:
• Business professional Yes
• On Call:
• Yes
• Travel:
• May require travel within the Houston Metropolitan area Yes
• May require travel outside Houston Metropolitan area Yes

Company Profile:

Houston Methodist Academic Institute oversees the Education Institute and Research Institute, including 772 faculty and 56,250 learners. The Academic Institute aligns our research and education initiatives in service to the clinical mission, providing solutions that answer the call for new technologies and skills our clinicians need for patient care. Houston Methodist Education Institute coordinates our primary academic affiliation with Weill Cornell Medicine and other joint programs, including the Engineering Medicine Program at Texas A&M University Intercollegiate School of Engineering Medicine. The Education Institute also oversees continuing medical education and graduate medical education, and supports more than 1,000 trainees in residence for medical, nursing, allied health, and research education programs. Houston Methodist Research Institute supports research programs and infrastructure that enable faculty across the system to bring new scientific discoveries to patients as rapidly as possible through the full cycle of a cure from conceptual bench research, to prototyping and development, to clinical trials and FDA approval. The Research Institute supports more than 1,387 clinical research protocols and $70.3 million in extramurally funded translational research programs. Houston Methodist is an Equal Opportunity Employer.