ANSWER

Is this a trick question?  What is the hiring manager looking for from business analysis candidates?  As a Manager of Business Analysis, let me give you the insights I’m looking for about the candidate. 

If you’re not familiar with peer reviews, it’s a process where Business Analysis team members review one person’s work and provide feedback on it.  For example, a group of user stories are shared with the team for pre-reading before a peer review meeting.  In the meeting, each user story is discussed with team members providing feedback.  This is an opportunity for the author to get suggestions about ambiguous wording and structure.  It’s also an opportunity to get input from peers based on their knowledge of the business that can be helpful in making the user stories more robust. 

As a candidate being interviewed, this question is about aspects of your personality, working style, and understanding the value of peer reviews.  The first component is how comfortable you feel about receiving feedback.  Some people can feel offended and take feedback personally, even when presented in a neutral, non-confrontational manner.  As a hiring manager, the inability to take feedback for professional improvement is a red flag that raises concern. 

Another aspect of this question is your ability to provide constructive feedback in a supportive manner for your peers.  Your communication style needs to be sensitive to not just the material but the individual receiving the feedback to ensure you’re not creating undue stress or conflict with team members.  Emotional intelligence is part of our skillset as business analysis professionals. 

The third part about answering this question is understanding and appreciating the value of peer reviews.  There are several benefits of peer reviews, and these may be helpful to acknowledge when answering this question: 

• Peer reviews improve quality of the end product 

• They help the author improve their skills 

• They help the team improve by discussing different points of view and perceptions of the material 

• For junior resources, it’s a learning environment by hearing what senior resources are suggesting, which could be a business analysis skill or knowledge about your business 

If you’re interested in learning the bigger picture as to where peer reviews fall within business analysis management, do a search for Community of Practice or Community of Excellence. 

I hope you found this helpful.  Good luck with your interview! 

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Scott Bennett
Manager, Business Analysis
Owner of the Business Analysis Leaders LinkedIn group