News

London here I come!

(Virtually…)

As a subscriber you’ll know, I enthusiastically believe in the magic that good business analysis makes, and that I love writing, speaking and teaching on the topic.

Which is why I’m stoked to announce that I’ll be speaking at this year’s Business Analysis Conference Europe.

If you’re keen to reinvigorate your business analyst career for 2020 (and beyond), then I’d be delighted to help you ‘Mind the Competency Gap‘.

In a nutshell, we’ll make a plan to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

Conferences always feature way-up in my list of highlights each year. As a cauldron bubbling with ideas they never disappoint. Plus, of course, they’re a wonderful place to meet friends (old and new) and exchange ideas (new and old). And by going virtual it means that you can now join from anywhere in the world, and I’m excited to network with people from all corners of the earth.

The conference is happening from 21–23 September 2020, and you can see the full programme here.

I’m a little bleak that I won’t be stepping onto home soil to present in person, but I am properly excited to see you online at #BA2020.

Business is being interrupted. Influenced by expected and unforeseen digital, health, social, and economic forces, causing everyone to reimagine what is possible.

The world is shifting, setting a new course which intersects customer, business, product and change. Bringing together the expertise of Business Owners, Project Managers, Product Managers, UX Designers, Data Scientists and Change Managers in collaboration with the Business Analysis Professional.

Together we’re weaving words, pictures and stories while balancing logic and creativity. But what’s working? And what’s next?

Do the structures need to change? What roles will we see emerge? How will our skills evolve? What techniques will we use? And how will our tools fit this future?

You have ideas worth hearing. Consider sharing them at BA Summit 2020.

You may remember that it wasn’t the plan to speak at the BA Summit Southern Africa this year.

Yet…

While putting the conference programme together the IIBA®-SA board asked if I’d perhaps deliver a keynote talk. And of course, I said yes without thinking too much about it.

But I was then, pretty much immediately, asked for a presentation synopsis.

Cue speakers block.

What did I have to talk about? I’d nothing in particular at the front of my mind. And I felt that in many ways I’d already said all that needs to be said.

The block was brief, and after some searching about what the audience would like to hear about I began to find my voice.

This year’s conference theme is ‘Repositioning Business Analysis to Go One Step Beyond’ and that is exactly what the talk will focus on. I’ll be taking an in-depth look at the profession, looking around for clues to our future and sharing ideas for this next shift in business analysis.

It’ll be a mash-up of fact and fun.

So make sure to join me and the other thought leaders at Business Analysis Summit 2019, the official conference of IIBA® South African chapter.

You really don’t want to miss out on this one (that would be just wrong) – http://bit.ly/29goLlQ

So that coffee with Drew resulted in the opportunity to speak at July’s DAMA SA Cape Town User Group Meeting.

Drew: “Would you be interested in presenting something at our next DAMA meeting, Joe?”

Joe: “Sure I’d love to, Drew. What would you like to hear about?”

Drew: “A session on interviewing techniques would be handy.”

Joe: “Good idea. How about we open it up a little and frame it as ‘Elicitation Techniques’, which would be much more valuable for the group I suspect?

Drew: “Great!”

Done. (And all in the context of data, of course.)

Here’s the invite: Requirements Elicitation Techniques for Data Management

Please come along, it’s a free event open to all.

When Jéan Raath asked me to present a workshop at the IIBA-SA Professional Development Day in Cape Town I jumped at the chance. I’m always keen to help out with events like these.

And there’s nothing more inspiring than an open and trusting invitation:

“Joe, you have creative freedom to do something fit for purpose, fresh & true to your style – bascially do what you like as long as it’s amazing.”

But ‘with great freedom comes great responsibility’…

At the core of a PDD is giving people tangible takeaways they can leave with on the day – building knowledge and enhancing skillsets as a Business Analyst.  

We hemmed and hawed over a few topics:

• Smarter analyst careers
• Mobilising stakeholders
• Proper process analysis

Building your business analyst career the smarter way won out – because we felt it would give people the utmost value.

At the heart of this workshop is my contention that template-driven analysis is bad and that technique-driven analysis is good. And this session will explore business analysis techniques to help you own the template rather than letting the template own you.

You can find out more about Building Your Business Analyst Career the Smarter Way and sign-up here: https://iibasa.wildapricot.org/event-3433930 #CapeTownPDD.

I’m looking forward to it and I hope to see you there…