Services

I’m Kathleen Craig, CBAP—a business & systems analyst who translates strategy into shippable work. I partner with founders, product leaders, and delivery teams to define what matters, design pragmatic solutions, and deliver measurable results.

Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) by the International Institute of Business Analysis

Comfortable facilitating executive decisions and hands-on with teams

Proven leader in Agile and SAFe environments with a focus on RESTful API architecture, cloud migration, legacy modernization, and governance-driven data strategy.

Adept at bridging technical and business goals and aligning solutions with long-term strategic objectives.

Known for maximizing platform value, and delivering high-quality, scalable solutions through product vision, roadmap ownership, and consistent delivery.

Business Analysis

Led web platform modernization planning, cross-system dependency and gap analysis for Charles Schwab
Facilitated requirements workshops and created capability maps that helped a financial services firm align stakeholders and reduce costly miscommunication.
By documenting user stories that meet the INVEST checklist, my scrum teams moved from endless debates to clear, testable goals.
Led American Campus Communities through ITIL/ITSM implementation using ServiceNow, from vendor selection through deployment. The result was a standardized incident and change management process that improved reliability across the enterprise.

System Analysis & Design

Helped drive the re-platforming of legacy U.S. Treasury applications to AWS, replacing a Struts monolith with a modern Java/Angular architecture. Wrote user stories and system user guides that allowed both developers and business teams to understand the systems.
At Charles Schwab, designed and documented dozens of RESTful APIs for a greenfield data platform. These APIs became the backbone for integrating user interfaces with enterprise data, delivering a stable and scalable solution that still supports critical business operations today.
Led enterprise online housing and architecture modernization as the Enterprise Architecture BSA at American Campus Communities.

Agile Reporting & Tooling

Developed Power BI dashboards that transformed how leaders at TIAA-CREF tracked enterprise application incidents and change management. Instead of chasing spreadsheets, executives had real-time, visual metrics they could use to guide decisions.
Configured Jira backlogs, boards, and sprints for distributed Agile teams
Automated backlog seeding and sprint scheduling using JS to integrate with Atlassian APIs to accelerate Jira demo and test environments.

I have a number of examples of different business systems analysis artifacts I've created over the years. I'm happy to share and discuss in a conference call.

This example, based on a Business Analyst audition problem, illustrates how I approach defining scope, engaging stakeholders, and turning strategy into action.

The Problem

The Business Digital Solutions Team is responsible for developing a brand new Claim Portal for internal claims employees (~125). This corporate web application will be focused on creating greater efficiencies for claims processes.

The first efficiency the team will focus on relates to the simplification and automation of medical bill payments. The company receives nearly 100,000 medical bills a year from medical providers who have treated our customers. Our auto claims adjusters are responsible to issue payment on these bills within 30 days and currently have trouble meeting this deadline because of bill volume and the multi-step, multi-system process they have to go through to review bills, make payment and update the claim.

You are the lead business analyst for this effort and are tasked with creating the backlog of stories for the portion of the Claims Portal dedicated to streamlining medical bill payments. Please present, in detail:

The steps, tasks or activities you will pursue to create the story backlog. Focus on the process you go through, not specific business requirements. No insurance background should be required.
The approximate timeline and milestones for this story creation work

My Approach Summarized

I broke the challenge into a structured plan:

Get Educated
Understand existing processes, systems, and pain points. Meet stakeholders, review documentation, and identify technical dependencies.
Engage the Team
Confirm priorities, validate assumptions, and align everyone on scope, risks, and contingencies.
Structure the Work
Break down high-level features into epics and user stories, aligned with roadmap priorities and team velocity.
Enable Delivery
Establish grooming cadence, sprint planning, and clear documentation so the team has a working backlog and shared understanding.

Get Educated - The Details

Review all project documentation to date
Observe the current process, understand challenges first hand, meet stakeholders
Interview team members to learn their individual perception and understanding of the current and future state of the medical claim process and technology

Read Agile Team agreement, Meet with the Scrum Master

What is the definition of done?
Who closes a story when all tasks are complete?
Are sprint reviews/demos held each sprint? If not, how do you determine when there will be one and when there won’t be?
What is the frequency of group backlog reviews, grooming, sprint planning agendas and timing?
Who adds the various tasks to each story and when? When are tasks assigned?
Are task estimates, percent complete, and status updated daily prior to the stand-up?
Is there a "technical product owner"?·
Does UX happen as a set of tasks within a development story or does UX have their own stories and/or backlog?