01
What is root cause analysis and which techniques do you know?
Show answer
Finding the underlying reason for a problem using the 5 Whys, fishbone diagrams or Pareto analysis, then fixing the cause not the symptom.
Atlassian Business Analytics Interview Questions & Answers
Curated interview practice questions with answers. These are practice scenarios, not a verified list of past interview questions.
Solved for AtlassianStart practicing
3 QUESTIONS FREESign up or log in to unlock the full question bank and track your progress.Unlock every question and answer, then continue practising company-wise and package-wise.
3 questions free Unlock the rest in seconds
02
What is a CTE?
Show answer
A named temporary result introduced with WITH that makes long queries readable and reusable in the same statement.
03
What are functional and non-functional requirements?
Show answer
Functional requirements describe what the system does (login, reports); non-functional ones describe how well it does it (speed, security, availability, usability).
04
How do you handle large datasets in Excel?
Show answer
Use tables, Power Query, remove volatile functions, filter before calculating and move to Power Pivot or a database when rows reach the millions.
05
What is a SWOT analysis?
Show answer
A framework listing internal Strengths and Weaknesses and external Opportunities and Threats to assess a project or business position.
06
Explain Porter's Five Forces.
Show answer
A model assessing industry attractiveness through supplier power, buyer power, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes and rivalry among competitors.
07
How would you decide whether to launch a new product?
Show answer
Assess market size and demand, customer need, competition, unit economics, capabilities, risks and strategic fit, then test with a pilot before scale-up.
08
What is a traceability matrix?
Show answer
A table linking each requirement to design, test cases and delivery status, ensuring nothing is missed and helping assess change impact.
09
Difference between INNER JOIN and LEFT JOIN?
Show answer
INNER returns only matching rows; LEFT returns all rows from the left table and NULLs where there is no match.
10
What is the difference between SQL and Excel for analysis?
Show answer
Excel suits small to medium data and quick ad-hoc work; SQL queries large databases directly and repeatably.
11
How do you chart a trend with a target line?
Show answer
Create a line or column chart of actuals and add the target as another series formatted as a line.
12
How do you calculate the percentage contribution of each category?
Show answer
SUM(sales) per category divided by SUM(SUM(sales)) OVER () and multiplied by 100 gives each category's share of the total.
13
What is a break-even point?
Show answer
The sales volume where total revenue equals total cost. It equals fixed cost divided by contribution margin per unit.
14
How do you build a forecast in Excel?
Show answer
Use historical data with FORECAST.ETS or trend lines, state assumptions, compare against actuals and show best, base and worst scenarios.
15
Write a user story with acceptance criteria for password reset.
Show answer
As a customer, I want to reset my password by email so that I can get back into my account.
Acceptance criteria:
• Reset link expires in 15 minutes
• Password rules are shown while typing
• A success message appears after reset
16
What is a data table in Excel?
Show answer
A what-if tool that recalculates a formula for different inputs, for example loan payments across different rates and tenures.
17
How do you evaluate a marketing campaign's ROI?
Show answer
ROI = (incremental profit - campaign cost) / campaign cost. Measure incremental sales using a control group or before-after comparison.
18
SQL: total revenue per month.
Show answer
SELECT DATE_TRUNC('month', order_date) AS month, SUM(amount) AS revenue
FROM orders GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY 1;
-- MySQL: DATE_FORMAT(order_date, '%Y-%m')
19
How would you estimate the market size for an electric scooter in India?
Show answer
Top-down: two-wheeler market x EV share x addressable segment. Bottom-up: target households x adoption rate x price. Compare both for a sanity check.
20
How would you analyse the declining sales of a retail store?
Show answer
Break sales into footfall, conversion and average basket, compare with last year and competitors, and check stock, pricing, staffing and local events.
21
A bank wants to reduce customer churn. What would you do?
Show answer
Define churn, analyse who leaves and why, segment customers, find drivers through data and surveys, design retention offers and measure uplift with a control group.
22
SQL: top 5 customers by spend.
Show answer
SELECT customer_id, SUM(amount) AS spend
FROM orders
GROUP BY customer_id
ORDER BY spend DESC
LIMIT 5;
23
What is a stakeholder and who are the typical stakeholders in a project?
Show answer
Anyone affected by or influencing the project: sponsors, product owners, end users, developers, testers, operations and customers.
24
What is a BRD review and who signs it off?
Show answer
Stakeholders and the sponsor review the Business Requirements Document for completeness and accuracy, and the business owner gives formal sign-off before design begins.
25
How do you compute CAGR in Excel?
Show answer
CAGR = (End value / Start value)^(1/years) - 1, entered as =(B2/A2)^(1/n)-1.
26
Guesstimate: how many pizzas are sold in Mumbai on a weekend?
Show answer
About 20 million people, roughly 10% order pizza on a weekend, about 1 pizza per 2 people in an order. This gives roughly 1 million pizzas, adjusted for outlets and delivery capacity.
27
A food delivery company's orders fell 15%. How do you investigate?
Show answer
Check data accuracy, then segment by city, restaurant, time and user type; look at supply, delivery time, pricing, competitors and seasonality before proposing fixes.
28
What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?
Show answer
The smallest version of a product with enough features to deliver value and gather real user feedback before investing more.
29
What is gap analysis?
Show answer
Compare the current state (as-is) with the desired state (to-be), list the gaps in process, people or technology, and plan actions to close them.
30
How do you analyse variance between budget and actual?
Show answer
Variance = Actual - Budget, shown as amount and percentage, with conditional formatting to flag large gaps and comments on the drivers.
31
What is Power Pivot?
Show answer
An Excel add-in for building data models with relationships and DAX measures over millions of rows, beyond normal worksheet limits.
32
How would you size the market for IT courses in Delhi NCR?
Show answer
Top-down: NCR population aged 18–30 × share of graduates × share wanting paid upskilling × average fee. Cross-check bottom-up with institutes × batches × students × fees. State your assumptions.
33
Guesstimate: how many cups of tea are sold in Delhi per day?
Show answer
Population about 20 million, adult tea drinkers about 50%, cups bought outside per person around 1 on average. This gives roughly 10 million cups, then adjust for offices and stalls.
34
How do you write a query to find users active in consecutive months?
Show answer
Get distinct user-month pairs, self-join or use LAG on month per user, and keep rows where the previous month is exactly one month earlier.
35
How do you find duplicate customers?
Show answer
SELECT email, COUNT(*) FROM customers GROUP BY email HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;
36
What are aggregate functions?
Show answer
Functions that summarise rows into a value, such as COUNT, SUM, AVG, MIN and MAX.
37
What is the difference between XLOOKUP and INDEX-MATCH?
Show answer
Both look up values flexibly; XLOOKUP is simpler with built-in not-found handling, while INDEX-MATCH works in older Excel versions.
38
Revenue grew but profit fell. Why could that happen?
Show answer
Look at the cost side: heavier discounts, higher CAC, logistics costs, product mix shifting to low-margin items, one-time expenses or pricing changes. Break contribution margin down by segment.
39
What is a KPI tree?
Show answer
It breaks a top metric into drivers: Revenue = Users × Conversion × AOV; Users = New + Returning, and so on. It shows which lever to pull and where a drop came from.
40
Which what-if analysis tools does Excel have?
Show answer
Goal Seek (find the input for a target output), Data Tables (see outputs for many inputs) and Scenario Manager (save best, base and worst cases).
41
How would you prioritise 10 features with a limited budget?
Show answer
Score them with RICE or value-vs-effort, align with goals, consider dependencies and risks, validate with stakeholders, then use MoSCoW for the release plan.
42
How would you measure the success of a new feature?
Show answer
Define a goal metric, a baseline and guardrail metrics, run an experiment or before-after comparison and review adoption, retention and revenue impact.
43
How would you build a simple financial model in Excel?
Show answer
Separate inputs, calculations and outputs, link all formulas to input cells, add scenarios and checks, and avoid hard-coded numbers inside formulas.
44
A client's profits are falling. How do you structure the problem?
Show answer
Split into revenue and cost, then revenue into price, volume and mix, and cost into fixed and variable; check internal factors and external market factors.
45
Stakeholders give conflicting requirements. What do you do?
Show answer
Clarify the goal behind each request, map them to business objectives, prioritise with MoSCoW, run a joint session, then document the decision and get sign-off.
46
What does a Business Analyst do?
Show answer
A BA bridges business and technology: gathers requirements, analyses data and processes, documents BRD/FRD and makes sure the final solution actually solves the business problem.
47
What is a feasibility study?
Show answer
An early assessment of whether a proposed solution is technically, economically, operationally and legally viable before committing budget.
48
Which Excel functions do business analysts use daily?
Show answer
VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP, INDEX-MATCH, SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, IF, text functions, PivotTables and charts.
49
How do you approach a guesstimate question?
Show answer
Clarify the scope, break the problem into logical parts, state assumptions with round numbers, compute step by step and sanity-check the answer.
50
Build a break-even analysis in Excel.
Show answer
Break-even units = Fixed costs ÷ (Price − Variable cost per unit).
Add a data table to test different price and volume scenarios.
51
What is customer lifetime value?
Show answer
The total profit expected from a customer over the relationship, roughly average margin x purchase frequency x lifespan, compared with acquisition cost.
52
What is the profit equation and how do you use it in cases?
Show answer
Profit = Revenue minus Cost, where revenue = price x volume and cost = fixed + variable. Split each part to find which one explains a change.
53
How do you handle NULL values when calculating averages?
Show answer
AVG ignores NULLs; use COALESCE(col, 0) if NULLs should count as zero, depending on the business meaning.
54
How would you forecast next quarter's sales in Excel?
Show answer
Use FORECAST.ETS or a trendline on monthly history, check seasonality, compare with a simple moving average and present a range, not a single number.
55
What is the difference between revenue and profit?
Show answer
Revenue is total money from sales; profit is what remains after subtracting all costs and expenses.
56
How would you price a new subscription product?
Show answer
Combine cost-plus, competitor benchmarks and willingness to pay from research, test tiers with experiments and check margin and churn impact.
57
How do you validate that a report's numbers are correct?
Show answer
Reconcile totals with source tables using SQL, check filters and joins for duplication, compare with prior periods and verify with business owners.
58
What techniques do you use to elicit requirements?
Show answer
Interviews, workshops, surveys, observation, document analysis, prototyping and brainstorming, chosen according to stakeholders and project stage.
59
What is a stakeholder analysis?
Show answer
Identifying everyone affected by the project and mapping their influence and interest to decide how to communicate with and involve each group.
60
What is a process flow and which tools do you use?
Show answer
A diagram of steps, decisions and owners in a process, made using BPMN or flowcharts in tools like Visio, Lucidchart or draw.io.
61
What is a use case diagram?
Show answer
A UML diagram showing actors and the actions (use cases) they perform with the system, giving a quick view of scope.
62
How do you build a PivotTable to analyse sales by region and product?
Show answer
Create a table, insert a PivotTable, drag region to rows, product to columns, sales to values, and add slicers for month or channel.
63
How do you create a dashboard in Excel?
Show answer
Prepare clean data, build PivotTables and PivotCharts, add KPI cards and slicers, and arrange everything on one sheet with a clear layout.
64
What is the role of a BA in Scrum?
Show answer
They help the Product Owner refine the backlog, write stories and acceptance criteria, clarify details with developers and support testing and demos.
65
What is scope creep and how do you control it?
Show answer
Uncontrolled growth of requirements. Control it with a clear scope statement, change control process, impact analysis and sponsor approval for additions.
66
What are the 4 Ps of marketing?
Show answer
Product, Price, Place and Promotion, the levers a business uses to bring an offering to market.
67
Use case vs user story?
Show answer
A use case describes the full interaction between an actor and the system (main and alternate flows). A user story is a short statement of need from the user's point of view, refined with acceptance criteria.
68
How do you estimate the annual revenue of a coffee shop chain?
Show answer
Number of outlets x daily customers x average bill x operating days, then validate using footfall, peak hours and similar chains.
69
What is a user story and what makes it good?
Show answer
A short requirement written as 'As a user, I want X so that Y', backed by acceptance criteria. Good stories follow INVEST: independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, small and testable.
70
BRD vs FRD?
Show answer
A BRD states what the business needs and why. An FRD details how the system should behave to meet those needs (functional specifications).
71
XLOOKUP vs VLOOKUP?
Show answer
XLOOKUP can look left or right, uses exact match by default, returns a custom value if nothing is found and doesn't break when columns move. VLOOKUP only looks right and needs a column number.
72
What is a KPI and give examples for an e-commerce business?
Show answer
A measurable value showing progress to a goal, such as conversion rate, average order value, cart abandonment rate and customer retention.
73
What is SQL and why do business analysts need it?
Show answer
A language for querying databases. BAs use it to pull data themselves, validate numbers, check reports and answer questions without waiting for engineers.
74
What is the difference between OLTP and OLAP systems?
Show answer
OLTP handles many small day-to-day transactions; OLAP supports analysis over large historical data with aggregates and reporting.
75
What are fixed costs and variable costs?
Show answer
Fixed costs stay constant regardless of volume, such as rent; variable costs change with volume, such as raw materials.
76
What are acceptance criteria?
Show answer
Clear, testable conditions a story must meet to be accepted, often written as Given-When-Then scenarios.