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Business Analyst Skills Evaluation
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Author:
Bruce A. Winrow |
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Date
introduced: 1984 |
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Administration
time: 1 hour and 50 minutes |
Purpose
To evaluate a candidate's aptitude and
potential for business systems analysis, procedures analysis and user department/IS
department interface. This test assumes some prior business experience, but no previous
knowledge or experience in data processing.
General
Description
Basic Version -
consists of the technical portion only, which evaluates the candidate's logical ability,
skill at interpretation of business specifications, and potential for translating business
problems into symbolic logic.
Comprehensive Version
- consists of the basic version plus a very wide range of tests measuring such personality
factors and traits as skill at interpersonal relations, people contact desired,
emotional stability, stress tolerance, group participation, consistency, dominance,
adventurousness, leadership, initiative, drive, verbal skills and memory.
Positions
for which the test is appropriate
The Business Analyst Skills Evaluation is
used to evaluate the abilities and potential aptitudes of applicants for the position of
Business Analyst. The test is ideal as a hiring, promotion or training tool, and is
appropriate for all levels of experience. A candidate requires NO familiarity with any
data processing concept.
Job
criteria measured
| Logical ability: two of the problems require
the candidate to provide results based on his/her ability to reason with symbols |
| Interpretation of intricate specifications:
one problem in particular determines the candidate's ability to correctly interpret very
succinct requirements, without further explanation |
| Attention to detail: in the scoring, points
are subtracted for the candidate's inability to include detailed requirements |
| Accuracy: three of the problems require the
candidate to accurately translate an answer from symbolic to numeric or symbolic to
graphic |
| Problem solving using reasoning with symbols:
the most difficult problem on the test requires the candidate to utilize reasoning with
symbols to reach a conclusion |
| Ability to understand the work of individual
components of an organization together with their interrelationships and relationship to
the organization as a whole |
| Ability to interpret and understand complex
business procedures |
| Ability to translate business solutions into
symbolic logic |
Test
administration
The
administration of this test is simple. The test takes 1 hour and 50 minutes to
complete. The applicant should be given the test booklet, and told that
all instructions are stated in the test booklet. The room for the test
should be a relatively quiet one preferably without a telephone that
might ring during the test. The candidate must not communicate with any
person during the test, or be given the opportunity to make a photocopy
of the test. All work should be done in the test booklet, in pencil.
Please do not provide scrap paper.
Sample
question (segment)
CREDIBLE CAR CORP. marketed several
lines of auto parts throughout the United States. They recently installed a new computer
system - order entry and billing. Much to everyone's embarrassment the invoices were
constantly wrong, resulting in a disastrous effect on the company's reputation for quality
and accuracy.
Mr. Jones, the
Marketing Manager, talked to the systems and operations managers about this problem.
"How could you fellows have made such a blunder?" he asked. "Didn't you
test those systems? This failure will cost us plenty."
The Systems man smiled. "It's your
mistake," he said. "Remember last year that fellow Smith, who is responsible for
customer liaison, wanted to take over some applications. He claimed that the marketing
people knew more about how consumers react to such systems than anyone. Besides, those
simple systems were very easy to buy - you could get them right off the shelf. He's your
man, and this is your mistake."
If YOU were hired to deal with this problem,
what five key steps (ranked in priority order) would you take to ultimately rectify the
situation?
Sample Candidate Evaluation Report
Click here to view a sample detailed evaluation report.
Evaluation
The overall rating
is based on scores according to the following table:
| Total |
Overall Rating |
Likelihood for Success |
80-100% |
Strongly Recommended |
We strongly recommend this
individual as having the potential for a successful career as a business analyst. |
| 65-79% |
Recommended |
We recommend this individual for
a career as a business analyst provided further supervised training is supplied. |
| 58-64% |
Recommended for Limited Use |
We recommend this individual for
a career as a business analyst only if highly motivated and if an intensive, well
supervised training course is available. |
| 0-57% |
Not Recommended |
We DO NOT recommend this
individual for a career as a business analyst. |
Validation Information
April 19, 1987: The Business Analyst Skills Evaluation was administered to 30
candidates of varying levels of data processing experience at a Walden client
company located in Pittsburgh, PA. The Business Analyst Skills Evaluation test
scores were correlated to observed supervisory ratings for work done in business
systems analysis after twelve months on the job. The correlation coefficient (r
= 0.49) is significant to the 0.01 level and indicates that the test is highly
predictive of on-the-job success in business systems analysis. A secondary
analysis (t Test) of the Wolfe AABP test battery was conducted with regard to
male vs. female programming candidates. The results (t = 0.67) showed that there
is no significant difference between the tests scores of male and female
candidates.
June, 1987: This test was administered to 116 candidates at a large insurance
company in Boston, MA. The test was found to be highly correlated with
supervisory ratings (r = 0.29), which is significant to the 0.01 level. This
report was prepared by Carol Ann Dalto, Ph.D.
November, 1992: Based on the evaluation of three positions at a major bank in
New York, utilizing the Walden Business Analyst Skills Evaluation, the results
conclusively demonstrated that the selection procedure measures and is a
representative sample of those knowledge, skills and/or abilities, which are
used in, and are a necessary prerequisite to, performance of critical or
important work behavior(s). Conclusion: In every case, there was a significant
overlap between the number of “essential” traits identified for the
positions of Microcomputer Systems Analyst I, Microcomputer Systems Analyst II,
Microcomputer Systems Analyst III, and those tested by the Business Analyst
Skills Evaluation.
Languages
published
| English |
| French |
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