Business Analyst

About Us:

The OU’s Torah Initiatives department comprises a broad array of impactful Torah programming and software motivated by the vision of a community where every adult makes Limud haTorah a central part of their life.  

The Product Development team is responsible for creating and delivering innovative and effective solutions that support the many departments within the OU. Our team plays a crucial role in facilitating smooth and efficient operations within the organization and helps to drive growth and success by delivering top-quality products and services.  

The Orthodox Union (OU) is the largest Orthodox Jewish organization in the United States. Founded in 1898, the OU supports a network of synagogues, youth programs, Jewish and Religious Zionist advocacy programs, programs for the disabled, localized religious study programs, and international units. The OU maintains a kosher certification service, whose circled U symbol is found on the labels of many kosher commercial and consumer food products.

Position Overview:

The Business Analyst’s role is pivotal in bridging the gap between the Torah Initiative department and IT teams to ensure projects are delivered successfully.  

This role is to elicit, analyze, document, and validate the business needs of internal stakeholders for IT software solutions. This includes interviewing stakeholders and gathering and compiling user requirements for development teams throughout the software lifecycle. This Analyst will also apply proven communication, analytical, and problem-solving skills to help support the development process and to ensure that project deliverables are met according to specifications. Also, work towards integrating data practices and standardizing products across the organization.  

Responsibilities:  

• Project Specifications: Lead the effort to write project specifications and ensure all necessary details are captured and communicated.  
  • Collect technical requirements and incorporate them into clear and actionable documents.  
  • Turn conceptual user requirements into functional specifications in a clear manner that is comprehensible to developers/project team.  
  • Verify requirements for completeness, consistency, comprehensibility, feasibility, and conformity to standards, and suggest existing solutions where applicable.
• Cost Analysis: Supporting the cost management of the projects  
• Progress Tracking: Monitor project progress by coordinating with developers and internal stakeholders to identify item statuses, delays, issues, or needs. Handle escalation for deliverable challenges.
  • Communicate projected timelines before project initiation. 
  • Communicate changes, enhancements, and modifications through written documentation to all stakeholders so that issues and solutions are understood.  
• Quality Assurance: Supporting quality assurance processes to ensure that all deliverables meet the required standards and specifications.  
• Delivery: Facilitate the successful delivery of project outcomes, meeting agreed timelines and quality standards. Provide limited data governance support and analysis to departments.  

Requirements:  

• At least 1 year of experience as a Business Analyst.
• Strong familiarity with Judaism, including topics such as Torah, Mishna, and other related subjects.  
• Basic understanding of Mobile and Web development lifecycles.  
• Familiarity with database-driven systems; PowerBI experience preferred  
• Experience using project management tools to organize and track deliverables.  
• Proven track record of supporting projects with QA teams and supporting frequent release schedules.  
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to document and relay information effectively to keep all parties aligned and maintain consistent expectations.