Senior Business Analyst

The Parliamentary Document Management System (PDMS) connects Australian Government agencies and Parliament through a transformational, whole of government workflow system designed to streamline parliamentary records management across the Australian Government. 

PDMS provides a secure environment that connects agencies and ministerial offices, making it easier to manage parliamentary tasks efficiently and consistently. By simplifying workflows and improving visibility, PDMS enables staff to focus on their core priorities. 

As a PDMS Business Analyst within the Government Services Branch (GSB), you will play a critical role in analysing enhancements and defining business rules and user requirements for the PDMS application. You will provide specialist business analysis expertise while collaborating closely with application developers, the Product Manager, Product Owner, Scrum Master, test analysts and designers to deliver high‑quality, functional products through iterative and incremental delivery. 

 The Business Analyst will be responsible for creating, maintaining and updating PDMS‑related documentation and artefacts, ensuring user requirements are effectively translated into working solutions. A key responsibility includes providing decision‑making support to the Product Manager, enabling a strong focus on the product goal and roadmap. 

 The Business Analysts will support agile ways of working by fostering collaboration and delivering value to users at every sprint. They will operate under limited direction, contribute to project planning and scheduling, and support the achievement of outcomes. The roles require the demonstration of sound judgement, initiative and effective decision‑making. 

Key duties and responsibilities

Key duties and responsibilities include (but not limited to): 

• Collaborate with business and technical teams to identify and analyse issues, define business rules, and develop requirements. 

• Map current/future state processes (BPMN). 

• Create user stories, functional/non-functional specifications, and user journeys. 

• Evaluate system functionality, conduct gap analysis, and translate business needs into clear, traceable requirements for developers. 

• Act as a central liaison between teams to ensure solutions are fit for purpose. 

• Assist with the creation and prioritisation of backlog items, including developing acceptance criteria. 

• Agile environment – Engage in an iterative and incremental project lifecycle and adapt to changing requirements and priorities throughout the development process.  

• Focus on light weight documentation. 

• Upskill/mentor junior staff. 

• Embrace change and be adaptable to evolving requirements, with the ability to reprioritise and adjust focus in response to customer feedback and shifting business needs.  

• Encourage frequent and continuous customer collaboration throughout the development process, through regular feedback sessions and demonstrations.  

• Emphasises and models collaboration and teamwork, often working closely with cross-functional teams (incl. developers, testers, and other stakeholders).  

• Prioritises delivering minimum viable products (MVPs) or increments of value in short, fixed time frames (Sprints).  

Highly Desirable Criteria 

3-5+ years of relevant experience.  

Candidates should explicitly address the above criteria in their response/application. 

Desirable Criteria 

• Experience working and aligning to Agile ways of working. 

• Experience using DevOPs. 

• Experience working in Government settings.  

• Knowledge of user-centric design and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).  

NB. The subsequent evaluation criteria detailed in the RFQ (understanding, capacity, risk, VFM, etc.) relates to the broader evaluation criteria adopted by the Buyer when considering Seller responses. 

About the team

The Parliamentary Document Management System (PDMS) connects Australian Government agencies and Parliament through a transformational workflow management system. The PDMS improves parliamentary workflow between agencies and ministerial offices, helping users to drive efficiency and enables them to focus on their core priorities. PDMS supports ministerial level correspondence, briefings and submissions, parliamentary Questions on Notice, Senate Estimates briefings and Questions on Notice, executive level communications, and parliamentary inquiries and general communications and media, up to the PROTECTED level. Since its introduction in 2013, PDMS supports: Over 90 Australian Government Agencies. On average 45,000 active users per week. Over 250,000 registered users. Over 400,000 records created per year. PDMS is hosted in a PROTECTED cloud enclave, with access provided via GovLINK and VANguard for single sign-on authentication. The platform is currently primarily hosted using Windows Server and SQL Server with high availability features. It uses SharePoint for content management. The backend is built with .NET Framework and the frontend with Angular, all running on IIS. User authentication is managed through Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS). The system supports around 35TB of replicated data across two secure data centres, meeting Australian Government security standards.

About the project

The PDMS team is currently managing a substantial backlog of complex work. To maintain delivery momentum and support effective knowledge transfer, there is a need to engage highly skilled PDMS Business Analysts with specialised expertise and sufficient business analysis capability. These capabilities are essential to support agile product and service delivery to the APS. The Business Analysts will enable the team to manage complex work efficiently, share best practice, and support capability uplift across the team.

Essential criteria

1.Demonstrated understanding and appreciation: The extent to which a candidate demonstrates an understanding and appreciation of the Requirements (Role description + Key duties and responsibilities).

2.Demonstrated capacity, capability, and experience: The extent to which a candidate demonstrates capacity, capability, and experience to fulfil the Requirements (Role description + Key duties and responsibilities) to a high standard and within specified timeframes.

3.Risk The risk associated with a candidate, including those identified during interviews, referee reports, and non-compliance with terms and conditions.

4.Pricing and whole-of-life costs

This role is a full-time role (8 hours a day) and will require ad hoc out of standard hours support, including weekends, weekday mornings and/or nights. Flexible working arrangements may be considered including hybrid working arrangement, however there is minimum requirement of 3 days a week in the office.