Working@PXLTD

Looking for Business Analysts @ Project X Ltd.

Role:  Business Analyst
Company description:
Project X Ltd. is a boutique advisory, systems integration and support firm focusing on providing:

• Advisory Services
• Data Warehousing / Data Integration
• Business Intelligence
• xBusiness (device and web-enabled services)
• Support Services

By focusing on our clients’ objectives and best interests we are able to work collaboratively to drive Business Value through Rapid Results.

Our team of experienced professionals works along side our customers using an integrated delivery model, which allows us to tailor our approach to the individual needs of an engagement. From strategy through to execution, we work with our clients to achieve results in a quick and cost effective manner.

Our Difference is our Approach:

• Creative, innovative and adaptive approach to solutions to meet client objectives
• Single focus on delivering value and act with a sense of urgency
• Work in the best interests of client (client‐lead)
• Generate real results
• Develop trusted relationships

Our clients’ see us as a friendly and approachable firm whose people will work with them to meet their objectives. Some of our past success has been in the areas of Telecom, Financial Services, Retail and Manufacturing where together we have worked to achieve great results.

Reports to:  Vice President of Consulting

General responsibilities:

Business Systems Analysts reporting to the project manager will work with the end business primes and the technology teams to understand and document source systems data models, document data and workflows for operations and applications.  Ensuring that the proper level of understanding of the requirements can create the understanding required for the technical teams to do their designs.  The Business System Analyst will also provide continuity of support through the development phase and work with the business primes in the testing phases.

Key responsibilities:

• Ability to quickly understand the business issues and data challenges of client's organization and industry
• Ability to extract client requirements using business analysis techniques
• • Ability to facilitate both team and client meetings
  • Agile and Waterfall methods
• Perform gap analysis against business requirements
• Develop specifications for each of the reporting data marts. 
• Gather and the requirements for all reports and queries that are part of the overall package.
• Create detailed business and functional requirements documents and own document updates and reviews throughout the project lifecycle
• Lead testing initiative:  create test plan, test scenarios and test data
• Ensures issues are identified, tracked, reported on and resolved in a timely manner, being the voice of the business requirements

Skills/Experience:

• Soft
• • Excellent interpersonal and client relationship skills
  • A demonstrated ability to interact with a variety of end-users and business clients
  • Possesses understanding in the areas of BI reporting and database and system design
  • Strong analytical and problem solving capability with excellent attention to detail
  • Capacity to assign priorities to multiple competing and important activities under tight deadlines
  • Practical approach vs. theoretical knowledge

• Technical
• • Experience in Oracle, SQL Server or Teradata environments
  • Experience in MicroStrategy, Cognos or Business Objects environments
  • Knowledge of SQL and ability to write basic queries
  • Strong data and process modeling and analysis skills gained on Data Warehouse/Business Intelligence projects

• Education and Communication
• • Excellent English communication skills - both written & verbal.  Bilingual in French a definite asset.
  • Post secondary Degree - preferably Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Computer Science/Engineering or equivalent combination of education & work experience.

What we Offer:

Your will find Project X to be an exciting place to advance your career and contribute to challenging projects.  We offer a number of advantages including:

• Challenging assignments using the latest BI/DW tools
• An opportunity to innovate
• Colleagues who are passionate about delivering great projects
• Compensation commemorate with experience and skills

RRK - Words From Deborah

Words no better said in respect to Graham's CAP (capability, attitude and presence).

Deborah has the three, Respect, Recognition and Knowledge.

We really liked these three attributes of a company, employee and culture.

References

Why do companies do reference checks?

• To ensure that what is on paper is true;
• To look for insight that an potential employee would not share (habits, strengths, weaknesses)
• Get another persons opinion that should be someone who likes the candidate; and
• many other reasons.

So this should be an important part of your career arsenal and you should prepare the referencee to the nature of the call they are going to take.  This can help greatly as they will know the nature of the call, the type of information to share and plainly know about the call and not be surprised.

I got a call this week from someone to be a reference.  I am more than willing to be a reference for the person, but I did not know about it or the nature of the reference.  As it turned out, this was just a general reference of a recruiter in a staffing company without any respect to a specific opportunity.

Tsk Tsk on the candidate as I was very caught off guard.  Make sure your referencee knows something.

ETL Developer - Senior, Ascential DataStage

Hey all you Senior DataStage Developers

We are still looking for between 2-4 Senior DataStage Developers to join Project X a couple of projects and to help to shape and evolve the Business Intelligence and Data Warehouse environment for a client who believes in the value of data.

Start Date:    September/October
Duration:      3-24 months
Type:            This could be a contract or full-time position, we are flexible to the candidate and situation
Location:      Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Skills:           ETL,Ascential DataStage, SQL, Data Warehousing, Data Marts, Data Quality, Data Modelling

We are growing and have some customer projects we are ramping up for.  So we are looking for some good people that have varied proven ETL experience.  You will be working as part of our team helping a client evolve to their chosen reference architecture which we are helping to finalize now.

• You have been doing this sort of thing for 5-10 years and thrive in solving problems where others can not.
• You will enjoy the challenge of building, tuning and optimizing ETL code as part of an evolution of an Enterprise Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence program and roadmap.
• You have in depth DataStage skills
• You are qualified and understand it's strengths weaknesses and abilities.

Key Responsibilities:

• Work to understand data requirements under existing scenarios and work with clients to build good high performance ETL in DataStage
• Develop ETL on DataStage
• Test, Debug and Tune ETL processes
• Support existing ETL processes
• Documentation in support of the delivery process

Key Skills and Experience:

• DataStage ETL - lots of proven experience - 5+ years - version 7.1 and above / parallels
• Data Warehousing and Data Marts along with the concepts - experience with RDBMS tools, data models and modelling tools, architecture and Business Intelligence - strong
• SQL Knowledge - Strong
• Have been there and done that and have a proven track record of success
• Team Leader and Team Player
• Ability to communicate well with all the various stakeholders

We know you are a senior and competent person and will compensate you accordingly.  If you have any questions, please feel free to drop a comment or send me an email at [email protected].

Update 1: updated timing and some details.

BEA Developer

Are you a BEA developer.  We are looking for some smart and seasoned developers in the following areas:

• Aqualogic
• J2EE Services Development
• Service Oriented Architecture
• Customer Master File - DWL (now absorbed by IBM)

OK so you may not have all of those, we know that, but if you are interested in this area we want to talk with you.

ETL Developer - Senior, Informatica

A Call out to Senior Informatica Developers

We are now generally looking for Senior Informatica Developers to join upcoming projects and  to shape and evolve the Business Intelligence and Data Warehouse environment for a clients who believe in the value of data.

Start Date:    not specific
Duration:      not specific
Type:            This could be a contract or full-time position, we are flexible to the candidate and situation
Location:      Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Skills:           ETL,Informatica, SQL, Data Warehousing, Data Marts, Data Quality

We are growing and have some customer projects we are ramping up for.  So we are looking for some good people that have varied proven ETL experience.  You will be working as part of our team helping a client evolve to their chosen reference architecture which we are helping to finalize now.

• You have been doing this sort of thing for 5-10 years and thrive in solving problems where others can not.
• You will enjoy the challenge of building, tuning and optimizing ETL code as part of an evolution of an Enterprise Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence program and roadmap.
• You have in depth Informatica skills
• You are qualified and understand it's strengths weaknesses and abilities.

Key Responsibilities:

• Work to understand data requirements under existing scenarios and work with clients to build good high performance ETL in Informatica
• Develop ETL on Informatica
• Test, Debug and Tune ETL processes
• Support existing ETL processes
• Documentation in support of the delivery process

Key Skills and Experience:

• Informatica ETL - lots of proven experience - 5+ years
• Data Warehousing and Data Marts along with the concepts - experience with RDBMS tools, data models, architecture and Business Intelligence - strong
• SQL Knowledge - Strong
• Have been there and done that and have a proven track record of success
• Team Leader and Team Player
• Ability to communicate well with all the various stakeholders

We know you are a senior and competent person and will compensate you accordingly.  If you have any questions, please feel free to drop a comment or send me an email at [email protected].

Update 1: More Clarity added
Update 2: Now a general requirement, not for a specific project.

Business Analyst

We are looking for an experienced Data Warehouse Business Analyst to work in a dynamic, fast paced environment. The consultant will manage Business Analysis as part of an overall project team, deliver project artifacts, interface with clients, and deliver high quality Business Intelligence solutions.

Requirements and responsibilities include:

- Facilitates discussions with Project Sponsor, Stakeholders and Key Users to gather business and process flow requirements.
- Conducts interviews and work sessions with key users and translates results into the appropriate documentation
- Analyses and documents business processes and formulates the Business Problem definition.
- May document proposed business processes.
- Identifies current systems and tools leveraged by business users.
- Assists the Project Manager in Risk Analysis and mitigation planning.
- Prepares the Business Requirements Document (BRD).
- Participates in the Presentation of Concept to gain acceptance by user population and obtain sign-off from Sponsor and Stakeholders.
- Provides input in the preparation of the target Data Models and performs data analysis.
- Assists the business in finalizing User test cases
- Reviews preliminary Test Plan and makes revisions accordingly.
- Supports the Application Team by being the functional 'go-to' person for resolving business related issues / decisions. Works closely with business stakeholders to resolve issues.
- Leads the preparation, test execution and verification of project components

Required skills:

- Experience as a Business Analyst in an Enterprise level Data warehousing environment
- Ability to quickly understand the business and the related processes
- Client facing skills are a must.
- Risk analysis experience
- Excellent communication skills
- Ability to interact with outside clients and customers
- Ability to work in high-paced outside the box problem solving environment

Senior IT Project Manager

We are looking for experienced, PMI certified Senior Project Manager in the software development area. The ideal candidate will:

• Solid Communication skills and an understanding on mediation and driving to consensus
• Understand the concepts of client management and team building
• Be a team leader in determining customer requirements and translating requirements into operational plans
• Ability to leverage multiple delivery models and geographically dispersed teams
• Determine, monitor and review all project economics to include project costs, operational budgets, staffing requirements, project resources and project risk
• Ensure adherence to customer long-term strategic goals, project charter and contracts
• Meet with customers to review project scope/progress and resolve project issues
• Coach and counsel members of cross-functional teams to accomplish projects, meet established schedules or resolve technical/operational issues
• Develop, propose and negotiate project proposals, quotations and add-ons to leadership and/or the customer
• Be innovative and ready to learn new methods of client breakthrough
• Stay current on emerging technologies and project management techniques

Qualifications

• College/University education and 10 years Project Management work experience or equivalent combination
• Proven track record of managing projects and successfully implementing and managing formal quality processes in projects
• Large project exposure and/or previous consulting experience
• Understands and is able to apply systems development life cycle principles, concepts and techniques on related projects
• Excellent communication (verbal and written), presentation, training and leadership skills
• Experience in the Telecom, Retail or Financial Services is an asset

IT Hiring Trends

A great article from DM Review discusses trends in IT hiring based upon some information from Robert Half.

In the article they highlight a couple things of immediate relevance to Project X.

1. Net hiring growth in Q2 due to business demands.
2. Areas of growth are in common areas with common skill-sets

The second point as indicated is of interest to us as these are not generally the skill-sets we are looking for.  We will be looking for more specific less widely taught skills.  So this means, that if the skills don't exist we are going to have to build them.  And guess what, that is our plan.

Welcome to the new Blog

Project X has been growing as of late and we need some good people.

In an effort to evolve our HR and Recruiting efforts we have launched this blog.  So welcome.  We plan to use this space to talk about general items of interest to people who work in our industry.  Within that realm we will show people what we are about and the opportunities in joining Project X.