Rachael Wohlers

My latest role as a Senior Business Analyst of 14 years has been challenging to say the least, working on complex systems, working with multiple stakeholders, leadership teams and multi million dollar projects with demanding deadlines, but what a ride, enjoyed every moment of it and learnt a lot and gained some amazing relationship internally and externally.

Some of my highlights:

• Lead business analyst for delivery teams
• Acting Scrum Lead in their absence
• Facilitate daily team stand-ups and team ceremonies such as team planning and retrospectives
• Managed stakeholder expectations through transparent communication and timely status updates, ensuring alignment between project deliverables and business objectives.
• Created detailed user stories for system enhancements, leading to improved functionality and user satisfaction.
• Facilitated requirement gathering workshops, resulting in clear project objectives and deliverables.
• Mentored junior analysts on best practices for business analysis techniques, fostering professional growth within teams.
• Provided hands-on troubleshooting for issues at multiple scales, from individual systems to multi-site infrastructure.
• Provided technical support and troubleshooting assistance
• Managed vendor relationships effectively

This is not an exhausted list but I don't want to bore those reading this.

During my time as a Senior Business Analyst I also had the opportunity to act as a Product Owner for my team. This was a very rewarding role and it was unfortunate that the role was fixed for 1 year.

Some of my highlights:

• Managed backlog prioritization, ensuring alignment with business goals and stakeholder expectations.
• Collaborated with engineering teams on technical feasibility assessments, resulting in realistic scope definition for projects.
• Developed comprehensive roadmaps outlining the product vision, goals, and milestones for successful execution.
• Proactively identified risks associated with project timelines or deliverables, implementing mitigation strategies when necessary.
• Owned and prioritized product backlog.
• Cultivated strong relationships with key stakeholders by maintaining open lines of communication and addressing concerns promptly.
• Oversaw entire product deployments from vision and creation to rollout and delivery.
• Facilitated communication between development teams and stakeholders, ensuring clear understanding of requirements and expectations.

The 4 years I worked as a policy analyst gave me the knowledge to interpret legislation into operational practice for Work & Income frontline staff and Call Centre staff.

Some highlights of the what I learnt in the role:

• Interpreting legislative requirements
• Developing Operational Policy guidelines to support legislation
• Project consultation between business and IT .
• Provided quality assurance on requirements
• Led 7 projects and developed project plans to meet the key deliverables and tasks.
• Responsible for the initial and ongoing guidance and support to 4 fixed term and 1 permanent staff member to help develop their skills in project management.
• Developed communication materials with clear messaging that translated complex concepts into easily digestible information.
• Checked documentation for accuracy and validity on updated systems.

As a Helpline Advisor I became an subject matter expert in all Work and Income products, services, systems, policy and legislation. This was through proactive management and self learning in order to provide clear and accurate advice to meet the constant flow of queries received across the country from staff, minister’s office, legal, and policy.

Some of my highlights:

• IT application champion
• Training to new and existing staff
• Developing training material
• Screening then logging system faults
• Assist with system testing
• QA documents
• Domestic violence coordinator
• Witness protection coordinator
• Liaison person for NZ Police
• Liaison person for Centre Link Australia

This short period working as a Business Analyst was to fill in for an absent employee, and also to have the opportunity to gain experience in the IT world and grow as analyst.

Some highlights during this time:

• I was the sole Business Analyst responsible for maintaining an IT application used by Work & Income frontline staff
• In this period I worked closely with the vendor to make changes to several calculations within the application
• I was also was responsible for testing application enhancements and troubleshooting

Over 10 years of case management I worked intensely with clients by assisting towards their wellbeing, often addressing the following:

• Health issues
• Childcare
• Training
• Employment
• Housing
• Financial planning
• Benefit entitlements

Within this role I also held positions of:

• Quality Assessor
• Training coordinator for clients
• Trainer for new employees
• Acting Assistance Service Centre manager
• Staff mentor