BBC 2024 Agenda

Imagine the scene: You’re parachuted into a change initiative and everyone is arguing. There’s no agreement on scope, yet somehow over a thousand user stories have been written. Alongside those user stories, there are countless Business Requirements Documents (BRDs), diagrams and other artifacts… but nobody seems to be able to agree on the overall direction being pursued.  

This is an example of an initiative that has lost sight of its “why”. Luckily, it’s a fictional example, but perhaps you’ve experienced something similar. If you have, then this session is for you.

In this practical and hands-on session, you’ll hear about the importance of defining, refining and keeping the “why” firmly in mind throughout the business change or product lifecycle. You’ll hear how strategic business analysis starts at the beginning of an initiative, but continues throughout.

During this session you’ll hear techniques for:

• Analyzing the strategic context/environment
• Understanding different stakeholders’ perspectives, finding out where perspectives conflict and considering how to gain agreement
• Analyzing and defining problems, understanding root causes and desired outcomes
• Crystallizing all of this into a clear “why” that can be used to help ensure there is a shared understanding
• During this hands-on workshop, you’ll have the chance to practice relevant techniques. You’ll walk away with a practical and applicable toolkit that you can apply in your day job.

In an age of increasing complexity where time is precious, building meaningful connections with stakeholders is becoming more challenging. Business Analysts must find new innovative ways to engage their audience. In recent years the concepts of ‘Visual Thinking’ and ‘Sketchnoting’ have grown in popularity with many companies now starting to recognise the power of visualisation as a means of exploring complex problems, making information easier to retain and recall, generating ideas, creating engagement and so much more…

This hands-on workshop aims to provide BA’s with a practical introduction to Visual Thinking and Sketchnoting. It will explain what visual thinking is and why it is such a powerful tool for BA’s to capture the attention of their teams and stakeholders. Delegates will get a firm grounding in the building blocks of visual thinking with practical exercises that will help to build confidence and overcome ICD (“I can’t draw”) syndrome!

Business Architecture provides a strong foundation for business-wide transformation, digitization and optimization and is the basis for having an agile business. Given the inherent complexities, making the right choices in what to change is not simple. Avoiding duplication and sub-optimization means that all of the moving parts must be classified, well understood and inter-connected before change can confidently begin. Business Architecture subject areas are numerous. Processes and capabilities and other important domains are complex enough. Being able to find the interconnections among them is even more so. A well-formed Business Architecture can help untangle the confusion and deliver inherently adaptable solutions.

This session will introduce some of the critical elements needed:

• Stakeholder Value Orientation
• Business Concepts / Information models
• Business Processes
• Business Capabilities
• Business Measurement
• Change Prioritization
• Process / Capability Alignment

First we’re in person.  Then we’re completely digital.  And now we’re somewhere in the in-between.  Learn the lost art of facilitation in this new frontier where the same principles and results still apply, and even are expected, yet can easily be navigated with a tailoring of your approach.

Who (and where) do you look at?  Can you do group activities when only one person is online?  Or what about when only two people are in person?  And the technology isn’t cooperating and your boss expects results at two times the speed with greater results than you did in person just because you’re using technology!

Let’s walk through all of this by practicing how to be a successful facilitator in a safe environment collaborating WITH your teams for successful outcomes.  Learn how to make others feel engaged by participating in this hands-on, immersive workshop to help you be successful wherever your analysis work takes you!

Something must be wrong! A lot of organizations invested in Agile frameworks, trainings, and practices (sprints, scrums, retros!) and are still unable to deliver the speed and flexibility they desire. When they talk about Agile they usually struggle to differentiate DOING agile (by using methods and frameworks) from BEING agile (acting according to the agile mindset and achieving measurable results).

To avoid this ambiguity we prefer to use the term “NIMBLE”. Nimble was defined by IIBA in a Global Research for Business Leadership as “the scalable capability for organizations to sense and respond to change”. This study presents that the key to being nimble is not specific methods or frameworks, but the organization’s business analysis capability. Yes, you can play a key role in your organization’s nimbleness.

In this tutorial, Fabrício and Filip dive into the details of this IIBA report connecting its eight practices with tangible business analysis capabilities and related approaches

This interactive hands-on tutorial will allow participants to experience a strategic planning approach to develop a roadmap for an imaginary corporation. The methodology will demonstrate that in order to solve a business problem, many disciplines and techniques need to come together to create a cohesive story. Roll up your sleeves and join me on a journey to enable strategy through analysis, ideation and prioritization steps leveraging Business Architecture, Business Analysis and User Experience Design techniques. Connect all the pieces together through open-source enterprise design graphical language EDGY to create a compelling and well-rounded business cases for the recommended plan of action.

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, change is inevitable. The quality of planning and execution impacts the success of any change initiative. Road maps serve as strategic blueprints that outline the steps, milestones, and resources needed to move from the current state to the desired future state. They clarify the path forward for all stakeholders, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and objectives.

Transition planning complements road mapping by focusing on the tactical aspects of change. Transition planning involves identifying potential risks, allocating resources, and engaging stakeholders to ensure a smooth transition from one state to another. Transition Planning is crucial for risk management, as it allows us to anticipate challenges and implement mitigative measures before they escalate.

As a business analyst, architect, or change manager, discover how to leverage architecture to craft road maps and transition plans that surpass conventional PowerPoint or Visio diagrams and briefings.

In this session, you will learn how to:

• Apply architecture to Road Mapping and transition planning fundamentals to develop actionable decision insight.
• Conduct project dependency analysis to proactively identify and mitigate potential hidden risks in your project lifecycle.
• Link project and change initiatives to strategic outcomes.

Participants will receive access to roadmap and transition planning architecture patterns.

You’ve probably used Visio to create flow charts, swimlane diagrams, or organization charts, but are you still doing those things by hand? Did you know that Visio can build process maps and org charts automatically based on data you enter in Excel? Or that Visio can create timeline diagrams if you point it at a Microsoft Project plan or Excel data?

In this workshop, you’ll also learn how to create really effective business intelligence dashboards with nothing more than Visio and a data source. And we’ll explore ways you can share diagrams with anyone – even if they don’t have a Visio license. Attend this workshop to discover features and capabilities in Visio that will save you time and put new tools in your BA toolkit.

This is a hands-on workshop so be sure to bring your laptop – either a PC or a Mac – even if you don’t have Visio installed. Microsoft has graciously provided licenses for Visio Plan 2 that will run in any browser on any device.

Hear directly from Scott about the workshop.

This workshop illustrates hands-on, best-of-breed analysis techniques that can work together seamlessly to produce superior business solutions. Watch how a process model transforms when business rules and decisions are added. Work through a case study iteratively to demonstrate how business rules, decisions and vocabulary can dramatically improve your business requirements.

Do you have data quality problems? This workshop shows how business concepts and business rules can help you get out of the perpetual problem of creating complex logic to compensate for your data issues. Make your models come to life. Prepare your designers to develop intelligent screen designs, work out smart usage scenarios, and create test scripts. Enable your business to achieve true business agility, pinpoint customization, and world-class quality in customer service.

Learn How To …

• Simplify business process models by an order of magnitude or more.
• Be a true partner in business innovation.
• Use a Why Button to put business knowledge at workers’ fingertips.
• Understand how business vocabulary and business rules can fix data quality problems

Effective communication and leadership skills are key to all positive outcomes, especially in our Business Analysis world with diverse stakeholders. This tutorial aims to empower individuals to unlock their potential by honing their communication and leadership skills. We will begin by exploring the fundamental principles of effective communication, delving into various communication styles, and the art of active listening. Participants will learn to navigate complex interpersonal relationships and articulate their ideas with clarity. With these foundational skills, they can build trust and rapport, both crucial for effective leadership. In line with this years’ theme “Igniting Your Potential” this tutorial is designed to equip individuals with the means to transform their personal and professional lives. It is not merely a tutorial but a catalyst for personal growth and development. By harnessing the power of effective communication and dynamic leadership, participants will unlock their true potential and embark on a journey toward achieving their loftiest aspirations.

You’ve been asked to “pull together some data” to help your organization make a decision.  Where do you start?  How do you present your findings in a compelling, persuasive way?

Attendees will be invited to participate in hands-on activities where they will:

·       Discuss the importance of data and the various forms of data analysis

·       Practice five steps to create a compelling visualization of data

o   Understand the context

o   Choose the visual display

o   Apply key design principles

o   Avoid misleading visualizations

o   Create and deliver a “data story”

Small groups will have the opportunity to create a data story using a case study.  Groups can volunteer to pitch their recommendation in a “Shark Tank” style format at the end of the session.  Feedback and improvement tips will be shared with the volunteers.

So…will your “investors” be in or out?

Participants may choose to use a laptop with Excel and Powerpoint for their presentations, but it is not required. 

Many organizations use digital transformation as a strategy to succeed in today’s complex environment. People skilled in business analysis can play a key role in applying digital technologies to create and improve business processes.

Some organizations don’t value effective business analysis in digital transformation, while others do.

To ignite your potential, you can use your business analysis skills to help any digital transformation succeed.

Attend this workshop to learn how business analysis contributes to successful digital transformations. You’ll also find out how to tell if you’re in a digital transformation in name only and find out how you can make the best of that situation.

You’ll also learn about techniques that are helpful in both circumstances.

• Discover the problem you’re trying to solve with story-based interviews
• Make informed decisions guided by decision filters and a well-formed problem statement
• Help your team deliver an effective solution with a structured, collaborative refinement process
• Understand context to properly select and adjust your approach
• Collaborate effectively to get the most out of your team.

Join this workshop to practice these techniques and gain access to helpful resources. The knowledge you gain will make you a crucial part of your organization’s digital transformation.

Angela will lead you through the process of defining a project, scope, and requirements in such a focused and efficient way that you can start developing same day! Great for AI dev, Agile, or any approach, but will be especially valuable as we lean into AI development.

Tik Tok.  YouTube.  Instagram.  Facebook.  Twitter.  iPhone.  iPad.  Android. These distractions have led to an audience with a short attention span. Studies have shown that most people will skim through the first paragraph and move on, unless they are “grabbed” by something that matters to them.

The situation is even worse with executives.  They simply have no time at all.  How do you get your central points across to them fast?
In this workshop, you will learn tips and practices to say more with less. You’ll be able to apply these techniques to create impactful elevator pitches and presentations that will grab and maintain the scarce attention of your audience.

Your organization wants to become more data focused. Leadership is asking for “data-driven decisions” and may even be interested in adding a Data Scientist or two. But where do you start? How do you know if you’re doing the right thing?

This tutorial will provide a framework for assessing the health of your data organization holistically. This includes not only the technical and analytical data capabilities, but also the human side of data – resourcing, culture, governance, community, and more. We will also provide tips, tricks, and anecdotes from our experiences to help you improve your data organization.

Come prepared to reflect upon these questions for your own organization and bring discussion questions to the group. This tutorial will provide you with practical questions and templates that you can use to assess your organization’s data capabilities and address the essential capabilities required for a thriving data organization.

For every automation, there is a hidden service cost. In online transactions, customers still want the opportunity to receive explanations, advice and support, but current solutions (helpdesk support, FAQs, simple chatbots, …) are expensive or do not meet customer demands.

Knowledge-intensive processes incorporate lots of decisions and decision knowledge. In analogy with the BPMN standard, the Decision Model & Notation standard (DMN) was developed, that allows modeling decisions and processes separately. Decision table models offer unique features to capture the business logic of those decisions effectively and correctly by the business, and can be made explainable using plain natural language.

This tutorial takes you from the secrets behind knowledge-based decision intelligence to decision table methodology and explainable decision services, including best practices, examples and experiences, for modeling decision rules by domain experts in real business situations.

Generative AI presents tremendous opportunities, but most companies are trapped in the research cycle. Jim draws on lessons from the computer revolution, digital transformation, the mobile revolution, and Robotic Process Automation, to deliver a rational roadmap for the adoption of generative AI capabilities. In addition to this blueprint from executive alignment to measuring the impact of new projects, Jim cracks open the door to a new, step-change type of computing that goes way beyond productivity and automation. Get ready for the shift from computation and automation to inspiration and innovation. This is a tool for improving your imagination, creativity, and analytical thinking.

              How Large Language Models really work

              A formal, step-by-step plan for GenAI adoption

              Managing organizational fears and mitigating risk

              Thinking outside the content generation and automation box

              Elevating your strategic, innovative, and intellectual capacity

A strategic inflection point is that moment when a combination of technological innovation, market evolution and customer perception requires the company to make a radical shift or die”. There is no gainsaying that we are at that strategic inflection point. We are in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world and increasingly, organisations are coming to the harsh realization that their current organisational structure and management frameworks are not sufficient to succeed in the VUCA  (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous)  world. We have seen radical changes in the current world. How then do organizations ensure they remain competitive and successful in the wave of global technological, cultural and market shift? Just implementing an Agile framework is not enough. To succeed in the new age of disruption, organizations require a more product-centric approach, a different operating model. In this presentation, we will explore the WHY, WHAT and HOW of a product-centric organisation, leveraging research and  case studies and experience from the field.

Business analysts have always been at the heart of business change and process improvement in their organizations. As data becomes a more prominent part of organizations, business analysts need to play that same role in improving the processes that ensure healthy and efficient data use. Discussions of data can easily become technical, but this presentation focuses on the human side of data. Business analysts have the opportunity to affect many human-led processes that affect data, including data collection, handling, and analysis. This presentation provides a framework for thinking about how you can positively impact data, including questions to ask, processes to assess, and analyses to perform. Hear about real-world data process changes, learn question and assessment templates, and understand the effects of data improvements on the organization as a whole.

Discover how a top-performing venture capital firm is using AI to gain unique, predictive insights into disruptive startups and private markets across the globe. Explore the broader implications and counterintuitive implications for innovation, business analysis, strategy and decision making in businesses of all sizes. Experience a candid, first-hand account of promises, perils, breakthroughs and setbacks from an executive on the front lines of where AI and high-stakes management decision making intersect.

From our earliest memories, play has been the fundamental mechanism by which we’ve engaged with the world. As children, we used play as an intuitive tool to learn, experiment, and form bonds with those around us. It was through the sandbox experiments and playground adventures that we tested boundaries, understood societal cues, and built enduring relationships. However, as we transitioned to adulthood, many of us began to perceive play as frivolous, relegating it to the sidelines in the name of productivity and professionalism.

This perspective overlooks an essential truth: the foundational benefits of play don’t diminish with age. In fact, when integrated into our professional lives, play can be the catalyst for increased creativity, deeper connections, and enhanced collaboration. By allowing ourselves the freedom to play, we unlock innovative pathways in problem-solving, foster trust among team members, and cultivate a culture of experimentation and learning.
 
In this talk, I will delve into the core aspects of play, including the elements of play and fun archetypes in how play comes to life in adulthood.  One highlight is the exploration of LEGO Serious Play, a methodology that harnesses the power of tactile creativity to address and overcome even the most complex challenges. Let’s rediscover the transformative power of play and embrace it as a cornerstone of collaborative success.

We all know that the product ownership analysis discipline requires a clear understanding of where product development intersects with agile practices but how clear is that understanding?  Over the past few years, we have met with and discussed product ownership with practitioners from around the globe and have a series of tips and tricks that they believe take their product ownership analysis practices to the next level. Come join Jas and Jared as we share and discuss these tips to allow you to take your analysis to the next level! 

In today’s fast-paced business landscape, harnessing the power of data is essential to ignite your organization’s potential and drive success. This three-part presentation will begin by addressing the pivotal question: ‘What is the win?’ Setting a clear and concise winning strategy is a fundamental step for any organization, division, or department. The second part will delve into the vital aspect of determining if you are winning. We will introduce Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) as a powerful framework for aligning your strategic goals and measuring success. In the final segment, we will guide you through the practical implementation of data-driven strategies within your organization, accounting for various maturity levels. Whether you are embarking on your data journey or seeking to optimize existing processes, we will provide insights and tips for establishing a reference model within your department or division.

The case study focuses on how to implement knowledge management capabilities from scratch for long term sustainable results (taking the staircases instead of the lift). Attendees will learn the practical steps in implementing a robust knowledge management capability starting from a well defined business glossary to a Google-like search capability for knowledge assets. They will also learn how to manage and balance the people, process, data and technology aspects focusing on what matters.

Interviewing is a key technique to elicit information from stakeholders. Whether a single stakeholder or a group, knowing how to conduct a professional interview will get us the information and data we need to create requirements, develop processes, and do our other work. The more our stakeholders can trust in our skills, the more information they will contribute. We all know of excellent interviewers, but how do we do it ourselves? What kinds of questions do we ask and when, and for which stakeholder and scenario? Are there some question types that are better used with individuals than with groups? At the same time, how do we document responses accurately and efficiently? Join us to learn the answers from Pamela Paterson, an IT business analyst and best-selling author.

Are you leadership material? If you are finding yourself questioning why you have been overlooked for promotions or job offers, it has likely nothing to do with your talent, accomplishments or skillsets. Executive presence is the bridge that takes you from talented to triumphant. Executive presence is the telegraph that signals to people that you are in charge or deserve to be perceived as a person of influence. In this presentation, we consider the 3 components of executive presence that make you leadership material. We present ideas that will help you advance in your careers and exude qualities of a true leader. This presentation is grounded in reality and based on corporate research, nation wide surveys and real data from technology companies who have performed extensive work in this field.

SAFe is one of the agile frameworks that helps guide organizations to achieve business agility, a shorter time to market and readiness to respond to competitive threats. But often organizations perceive business agility to be measured by the quantity and frequency of features added to a product. Without business analysis and a BA role on SAFe initiatives, product features might not satisfy customer needs and might not achieve the expected business value. Remember, people buy a solution to their problem, they don’t necessarily buy a product. This presentation will illustrate real life examples of the challenges and impacts associated with working on Scaled Agile initiatives where product and solution context are not always understood in their entirety by the agile teams and how the BA can make a difference. The presenter will share practical examples on how to overcome these challenges and position the BA and business analysis back at the core of business agility in SAFe.

Business Analysis is a dynamic, continuously changing discipline that requires practitioners who can not only adapt to change; but who have to capabilities to lead it, keeping two steps ahead of their stakeholders, the industry they support, and the clients they serve. However, it is also a role where practitioners can get (or at least feel) stuck, and may find themselves at a career standstill, often confined to working within familiar domains, and following persistent methodologies, approaches, and practices. This not only hampers personal growth but also diminishes the innovative spark essential in our field. While we as BAs may be critically involved in the conceptualization, definition, and specification of products and services we support, we rarely apply this same analysis to self-examine our practices and competencies that drive our own maturity. 

If you find yourself pondering over questions like ‘Which certification should I pursue next?’, ‘How can I enhance my or my team’s BA practices?’, or ‘What steps should I take for a successful transition to a new role or sector?’, this session is tailored for you. 

This presentation will explore those core elements that foster individual and team growth in Business Analysis. It will propose a practical, actionable roadmap tailored to enhance BA practices and performance. This roadmap not only covers traditional aspects of BA development but also integrates contemporary trends such as digital transformation, the significance of data analytics and AI in BA decision-making, and the incorporation of agile and lean methodologies. It will provide real examples and stories from BA practitioners and managers, demonstrating what maturity can look like for BAs, as well as the teams and organizations they support. 

Moving technology investments from a cost-driven conversation to a value-driven conversation is critical in gaining the required buy-in to support the business needs of today and the future. After all, the cost of running IT continues to increase.  From subscriptions to all things “as a service”, it is becoming increasingly important to be able to explain why purchases are made and subscriptions are kept.

Join us for a conversation on understanding and aligning business and IT capabilities strategically to be able to explain IT spend. We’re shifting the dialogue on IT investments. In this presentation, we will discuss the importance of demonstrating how investments bring value to the organization and how capabilities can bridge that gap in conversation and understanding.

Conclusion:
The ability to explain the IT budget from the value that it provides to the organization vs. what it’s costing the organization is a critical shift for IT organizations.  We will demonstrate our use of capabilities to drive that conversation.

In a landscape continually shaped by advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially with the popularization of Generative AI, this engaging presentation will offer a timely insight into the technology strategies and technologies that help steer digital product development in 2024.

We will debunk myths about AI stealing jobs, how AI can be leveraged to become more agile and help address customers’ painpoints. We will also go through a real life case study on how the team at Hootsuite launched its first Generative AI capabilities through a spirit of innovation. We will offer attendees a glimpse into successful AI applications, lessons learned, and insights that can be leveraged in their day to day work to introduce delightful products to their customers.

We will also discuss ethical considerations and challenges that are inherent to AI, providing a balanced view of the responsibilities and pitfalls that product management and product development teams must navigate through.

Data modeling is the process of identifying and documenting the data within our initiatives. As our architectures get more complex, data modeling becomes more important. Our traditional data modeling approach, however, falls short of modeling the full range of data solutions. Without a standard approach, many organizations take extreme positions from avoiding modeling altogether to spending way too much time on modeling.

Instead, what is needed is an approach that gracefully accommodates data modeling principles and goals when applied to any initiative. I call this the Align > Refine > Design approach. That is, the proven principles of modeling applied to our complex data architecture.  
No data modeling experience necessary. It will be educational and yes, even fun!

Business as usual is no longer an option for business analysts. To be successful, business analysts need to be constantly looking for ways to uncover value to the organization and ensure any change initiatives align with the organization’s strategic direction. To do this, strategic thinking skills are a critical skill needed to achieve these efforts. This presentation will provide participants with an understanding of strategic thinking, as well as applying a few simple tools that will enhance their strategic thinking skills and to identify common strategic thinking traps.

Strap in for a wild ride through the digital cosmos as we uncover the quirky dance between Large Language Models (LLMs) and the art of product ownership. We’ll be decoding the secret language of AI, revealing how these language wizards are sprinkling magic dust on brainstorming, communication, and strategy. Get ready to ride the AI rollercoaster of innovation, where LLMs and product ownership tango their way through challenges, leaving a trail of emoji-filled success stories. Don’t miss this hilarious and enlightening journey into a future where AI and product ownership waltz to the rhythm of success!

This presentation discusses a case study for leveraging AI-based knowledge engagement techniques for development and use of Immunization Information Systems (IIS) guidelines. The knowledge base developed by the IIS community is voluminous and growing rapidly, resulting in a valuable yet difficult to navigate resource. Initial results of employing a generative AI tool (ChatGPT) at the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) are promising and indicate increased accessibility and discoverability of information. By making all guidance documents searchable at once, discoverability and presentation of content are enhanced. The AI tool uses a limited set of trusted in-house sources: guidance manuals, community standards, emails, and meeting notes. This ensures accuracy of responses and guarantees information is only from verified sources. Additional capabilities include support for new content development with information synthesis across multiple resources.

“I have an idea!” Great to hear when you’re brainstorming but not so great when those raw ideas make their way into your backlog to be implemented. 

Innovation-driven organizations understand that ideas, which seem to come from everywhere, are fuel for their success. Ideas represent intellectual capital that can result in increased costs but also great benefits. Therefore, management of these valuable assets in their earliest form is essential. Unmanaged, they can delay delivery of value and suppress truly transformative concepts. 
 
In this talk, participants will learn about ISO’s standard for Idea Management, ISO/DIS 56007:2022(E), from its family of innovation standards (ISO 56000). Idea management offers a practical shift from traditional methods of idea development by resolving uncertainties rather than pursuing solutions for initial ideas.

This presentation will feature several case studies showcasing the enhanced outcomes achieved through idea management activities.

As Business Analysts, we work day and night to ensure that our organisations realise the benefits of change, but the shift towards digitalisation brings many risks.  The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency reports that organisations regularly experience a 50% decrease in productivity following a major breach, and even though 43% of attacks are aimed at SMBs, only 14% have a strategy for responding to them.

Ransomware is on the rise, generative AI is now being used to craft unique attacks and these bad actors are regularly targeting partners in our supply chain to bypass our security controls and compromise our organisation undetected.

In this session, the speaker will take you on a wild adventure through the world of cybersecurity where you will hear about some of the most incredible hacks in recent years, what we have learned from them and what you, as business analysts, can do to allow your organization to realise the benefits of digital transformation without regret.

Have you ever felt professionally misunderstood? Ever had stakeholders that don’t want to engage with business analysis work, or that involved BAs too late? If so, then this is the session for you!

The harsh truth is that business analysis is misunderstood sometimes. Yet, it is our role as practitioners to cut through that misunderstanding and show stakeholders the value that we can add. In this session, you’ll hear tips and techniques from the world of sales that can be used to ‘sell’ the BA role internally. 

During the session you will hear:

• A range of techniques and ideas from the world of sales that are directly relevant for BAs
• Tips and tricks for getting skeptical stakeholders interested and engaged with business analysis
• The importance of understanding stakeholder perspectives, and deepening relationships

Whether you are an experienced or newer BA, you’ll walk away with techniques that you can apply in your day job.

Do you know how to make pigs fly? Because if you don’t, your organization is at risk! At risk of falling behind, not meeting your stakeholder’s needs, losing your best employees, poor collaboration, not being agile enough to thrive in today’s changing environment, and even becoming obsolete. Innovation is no longer an option, it is a requirement. And making pigs fly is all about embracing curiosity and imagination, because without creativity – innovation falls flat. But when you embrace creativity, you embrace the future! In this fun and engaging session, you will be introduced to the Six Pillars of Creative Organizations that will help you drive and sustain innovation. Whether you’re looking to grow, engage employees, establish new partnerships, embrace a digital transformation, explore new revenue sources or have greater impact with your work, creativity is the foundational piece that can help you think differently and soar. 

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, companies are increasingly recognizing the transformative power of Generative AI in achieving enterprise-scale innovation and efficiency. 

To harness the full potential of Gen AI, companies are realizing that they must adopt a novel approach: Think LLM Ops, or “Language Model Management Operations.” This presentation will explore how LLM Ops involves not only deploying Gen AI but also managing, optimizing, and integrating language models into every facet of their organization’s operations. This holistic strategy encompasses data governance, security, compliance, and scalability, ensuring that Gen AI becomes a seamless and invaluable asset to the enterprise.

Scaled Agile ways of working are taking the Tech industry by storm. Product Owner, Product Manager, Release Train Engineer, Scrum Master, Architect… But where is the Business Analyst in the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)? At first glance, Business Analysts are out of the picture (literally) when we look at the framework, but does that mean there is no Business Analysis in SAFe? Of course not!

Many BAs see the SAFe framework as a threat to their career, but we should see this as an opportunity to leverage our BA skills set and deliver even more value to our organizations. Being a Business Analyst is doing Business Analysis tasks. That’s why I say that Scaled Agile is a multi-opportunity playing field for actual Business Analyst who are ready to learn and jump on the train toward agility at scale.

We use the ‘transformation’ word a lot! But what does it really mean to be ‘doing’ transformation? And how does business analysis fit in? Join Delvin and some experienced transformation leaders from around the world as they discuss their real world experience, the key skills they’ve found critical to success, and how you can contribute effectively as a professional.

You or your team have a great, innovative idea. Everyone’s thrilled! Management will love it! Only, they don’t. Your pitch raises so many questions and concerns. “Did you actually think this through very well?” Of course not! It’s only a rough idea. Why don’t they ‘get’ it? Maybe we should have prepared better, but that takes time. Doesn’t it? Not with Ritual Dissent!

Ritual Dissent is a workshop method designed to rapidly test and enhance proposals, stories, ideas or whatever by subjecting them to ritualised dissent (challenge) or assent (positive alternatives). Your idea is being discussed and challenged by a group of peers while you are facing away from the group, thereby depersonalising feedback, forcing you to listen and preventing you from participating in the discussion to defend your idea.

It’s an engaging and energising technique to ignite your and your idea’s potential in no time.

Product capability and knowledge capability are essential for businesses that want to succeed in the digital age. When businesses invest in building both product and knowledge capabilities, they can create a powerful synergy that leads to significant competitive advantage. For example, businesses with strong product capability can use their knowledge of customer needs to develop innovative products. And businesses with strong knowledge capability can use their knowledge of their products and the market to make better decisions about product development and experience.

In this presentation, we will discuss the importance of both product capability and knowledge capability for business success. We will also share strategies for building both capabilities based on real world examples.
Conclusion: Building product and knowledge capability is an essential investment for businesses that want to succeed in the digital age. By developing both capabilities, businesses can create a powerful synergy that can lead to significant competitive advantage.

Join us for an exciting session on how ChatGPT can be your AI (Artificial Intelligence) business analyst BFF (Best Friend Forever)! AI Technology and its advancements will have an impact on all organizations. So, what does that mean for business analysts and the work they do on organizational initiatives?  In this presentation, we will explore the capabilities of ChatGPT and share practical guidance on how you can incorporate it into your existing business analysis workflows. This presentation will also provide real-world examples of ChatGPT’s application in business analysis along with specific chat prompts for business analysts to get desired answers that will highlight its benefits such as increased efficiency, accuracy, and consistency. The session is designed for business analysts and project management related practitioners, who are interested in exploring the potential of AI tools in their work.

In the ever-evolving business landscape, mastering the art of navigating organizational politics is a vital key to success for business analysts. Join us for an engaging session that will unravel the complexities of organizational politics and empower business analysts to thrive amidst these dynamics.

Through an engaging blend of thought-provoking insights, captivating stories, and real-world examples, we will equip business analysts with the essential skills and strategies to navigate organizational politics successfully. By embracing and understanding these dynamics, business analysts will catalyze organizational outcomes, foster robust stakeholder relationships, and drive overall business success.

Imagine yourself as the CEO of a company in 2018 and armed with the knowledge of how a pandemic can upturn the world … how would you create your 2019 strategy?  Fast forward to 2023, and the onslaught of change and disruption are not slowing down. How might you reformulate your company strategy? In this session, you will get behind the curtain to understand how leaders challenge their own assumptions about creating enterprise strategies and the organizational alignment needs to occur in order for the enterprise to pull in one direction. You will take away tips on how to influence strategic decisions and help make execution realistic and nimble.

As more and more organization seek true Business Agility, it is crucial that they understand they key success factors in the transformation journey. Agile transformation is a highly complex endeavor, and the key factors are difficult to conceptualize and sequence for successful transformation, so… let’s make a game of it to help learn and discuss the patterns and pitfalls. In this session, we will play an abbreviated version of a simulation game we have developed for our clients to start their journey by broadening their perspective and discussing the factors that really matter.

In today’s AI-driven landscape, knowledge is power. This session delves into the practical aspects of utilizing AI and building with it, even without developer experience. We will begin by investigating the concept of creating Virtual SMEs. This is where AI-driven agents can assist Business Analysts in the elicitation process.  Next, we will unveil how to revolutionize your meetings with AI. We will showcase the potential of internally developed AI tools to promote collaboration, focus on deliverables, and keep stakeholders in alignment.  Lastly, we will guide attendees through the art of crafting a personalized experience by harnessing internal data to construct bespoke AI tools that elevate internal communication, supercharge training, and enhance decision-making processes.  

Drawing from real-world success stories, attendees will leave with actionable insights to ignite their potential and drive value in their organizations.

A picture is worth more than 1,000 words. Yet sometimes we’re intimidated by notation standards and/or the very topic which we’re trying to depict. The result? The potential to spend way too much time doing something that should be super-simple in order to come to shared understanding with our business partners. Let me show you how to abandon the fear and plunge unapologetically into creating powerful diagrams to drive your projects forward fast!

In this session you will:

• Learn why pictures can make all the difference in a project.
• Eliminate fear of notation standards
• Work with a familiar scenario to develop a set of highly-usable and reusable diagrams; for example: create a Data Flow Diagram in 5 minutes flat!
• Bring your own real-life scenario to develop one or more diagrams.
• Take home a set of usable templates you can use to amaze your friends and coworkers!

How do you achieve different results – by thinking differently of course! But how do you think differently? Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we created them”. As business analysts, consultants, team leads, product owners, and managers, we all have a need to effectively problem solve. Lean and Design Thinking methodologies can enable you and your teams to thinking differently. Buzzwords like “Lean UX” or “Lean Start-Up” are commonly found on a google search ; what about “Agile UX”? All of these methodologies have common tenet’s that are essential  to thinking differently. This session will cover how to think differently using those tenets and we will review a case study of how they were applied to achieve success. We will also leave time for Q&A to cover specific questions related to high-impact techniques.

Nedbank will share their case study in maturing their award winning Business Analysis COE and the role metrics have played in shaping value delivery and continuous improvement.

We will discuss the critical components and steps to establish a COE. We will equip audience members to focus and align resources and expertise around a specific discipline and capability to accomplish a well-formed and executed COE. When applying the leaning, the audience can expect to provide best practices, leadership, research, training, effective metrics and support to their specific disciplines. Establishing a COE will lead to increased efficiency within the organization, drive innovation and continuous improvement, and creating consistent experiences that would delight their customers. We will share our COE blueprint and how it was used to create the Product Owner COE so that delegates can apply these learnings to establish or improve a COE in any domain and for any discipline.

Technologies of the Digital Era, from big data analytics to citizen programming to AI, have a profound impact on work. Successfully applied, these technologies can replace human input (automation) or improve the productivity of humans (augmentation), both in business processes and organizational decision-making. As a result, economists predict that new jobs will emerge, existing jobs will change, and some jobs will fade away. This presentation will discuss the impact of emerging technologies on tasks, processes, and decisions and provide examples of AI applications in different domains, such as finance and education. We will offer recommendations and best practices for managing the skill requirements of the digital era and how organizations can build digital capabilities for incumbents and new hires alike. Our findings draw from a multi-year research project with over 100 global universities and corporations.

In a world of ever-increasing data, seemingly infinite tech options, rapid AI advancements, and constant change, how do we maximize ROI and stay focused on what matters? Drawing from Dora’s  on a successful 29-year career in IT across multiple industries, this session offers invaluable insights to unlock the full potential of your data, tech, and AI investments. By combining proven strategies with real-world experiences and lessons learned along the way, this is a treasure trove of proven practices to ensure that you implement successful and resilient solutions.

Participants will be equipped with the understanding needed to drive transformative business initiatives within their organizations, ultimately unlocking greater value from their data, tech, and AI solutions.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the common data, tech, and AI solution implementation pitfalls
• Arm yourself with the knowledge to avoid those pitfalls
• Learn actionable innovative practices to ensure successful implementation
• Explore when and how to integrate these into the implementation journey to drive resilient success, past deploymen

Business Analysis is the people business. People are the most complex thing that you need to understand in any project. Each of us brings past experiences, beliefs, memories, assumptions, fears, and much more into every conversation. To effectively navigate people and elicit needs and requirements, we need excellent communication, empathy and analysis skills. There are tools and techniques we should use to understand people and inspire them to accomplish their goals, have accountability and see their potential.

Do YOU have the tools you need to understand and inspire the people you work with? Join us to build yourself up and your tools!

Join us as we discuss how business analysis supports the goal of delivering measurable outcomes across the entire organization. With information sourced from our global community, we’ll discuss how business analysis helps organizations: achieve strategic objectives, enable tactical solutions, and drive operational excellence.

Tailored for leaders, practitioners, and enthusiasts, this session offers pragmatic insights into the power of effective business analysis deployed across the entire organization.

Business Process Management and Organizational Change Management are mature disciplines.  Too often process practitioners, fail to recognize the value and power of combining the two.  Process improvement failures too often get blamed on people and/or technology.  The real failure is lack of proper planning and equipping for the inevitable change that come with process improvement.  The best process designs, enabled by the coolest technologies fail to ‘stick’. See how a structured, disciplined and combined approach to BPM and OCM can greatly mitigate the risk of failure, and why both disciplines should be core components of any process improvement initiative.

Wonder what it’s like to implement business architecture for your company? Come learn what the first year was like for Kampgrounds of America (KOA). After 60 years in the outdoor hospitality business, KOA was continuing to grow at an unprecedented rate, but with growth came growing pains. Business architecture promises better business agility, efficiency, and alignment, but what does that journey look like? During this 10:00 – 10:20 am Break Transforming Strategy Development and Implementation Planning at a Government Agency Through Enterprise Architecture 10:20 – 11:05 am 11:15 am – Noon Business Architecture: A First Year Journey session you’ll hear what implementation looked like, and the incredible value business architecture brought to KOA in its first year. The discussion will include highs and lows, journey of acceptance, initial deliverables, providing value while building the architecture baseline, and the mindset needed to succeed. Buckle up! It’s a fun ride, but can get bumpy at times.

Working with people is often the most difficult part of our jobs. Securing stakeholder time and attention, making decisions, and obtaining buy-in are all harder than they should be. Is it because everyone (else) just does things wrong? Or could it be that if we understood more about how the brain works and the different ways people think, that we could engage more effectively? That’s the basis for this session: by embracing the principles of neuroscience, we can become better communicators. We will talk about Ned Herrmann’s Whole Brain theory and discuss specific ways to use David Rock’s SCARF model to work with people more effectively. We are all leaders, followers, and teammates at various times; this session will increase your potential to be better at all three.

Tired of a chaotic work environment? Struggling with cross-dependencies and unsure how to overcome them? Look no further.

In this fast-paced world, speed, quality, and consistency are essential for staying ahead. Unfortunately, many organizations are at risk of becoming obsolete. They suffer from misalignment and lack of transparency, resulting in missed deadlines, overtime hours, low quality work, and demotivated teams.

This session will uncover the journey of a fintech company that successfully transformed their operations as a grassroots operation. Discover how they identified the need for change and leveraged both internal and external expertise to develop a model for success. Hear about their challenges, triumphs, and ongoing commitment to growth.

Don’t let obstacles hold you back. Learn from the best and pave your way to continuous improvement and success.

Processes – the heart of getting work done. But how do you access them? They aren’t always clearly visible or understandable. We have created a process knowledge base, accessible across the organization. This knowledge base shows processes in many ways, including by business life cycle. Starting a new project or program? Peruse the knowledge base for inspiration from others. Just curious about how another organization works? Search the knowledge base for answers. Never hired before, but need to? Find hiring-related processes in the knowledge base.

We have empowered people to document their processes using a common notation, an easy and low-cost tool for modeling, and a smart modeling approach. Model metadata and a hyperlink to the model are stored in the process knowledge base. This has transformed the communication of processes, enabling stakeholders to see and understand process logic and responsibilities.

The past year has seen a reimagining of work – generative AI, digital labor, event automation, and data fabric are changing how we capture process decide and derive insights. How will these revolutions change Business Automation? What does a business professional need to know? Join us to explore the brave new world of Business Automation – where the traditional elements of automation including document processing, content services, workflows and decision management become smarter and more efficient. Where self-organizing digital workers use generative AI and operational intelligence to become smart personal assistants. Using a real-life retail setting and a collection of use cases, we describe how these new technologies can be combined with traditional automation, what improvements can be expected, and what can be potential pitfalls.

Effectively leveraging collaboration across multiple business units and different levels of the organization can be difficult due to traditional silo’s which are barriers to change. Communication styles combined with behavioral tendencies can make it difficult to break down these barriers. We will discuss communication strategies to bring the organization together to work towards a common vision. We will also discuss how individual behaviors change the impact and reception of communication strategies. The goal is to integrate business units by offering a clear view of what each level of the organization needs to effectively diminish silos. This will not only increase the organization’s success in transformation but help to make the organization more agile in times of change.

This is your chance to get out of your comfort zone and prove that you are serious about meeting your peers. Sign up for a Dutch-treat dinner and we’ll tell you at which (very nearby) restaurant to meet for a meal. Get to know your colleagues in a relaxed setting over good food and favorite beverages. You might just meet somebody who can solve that burning issue you’ve been working on or whom you can help with your experience. “This was a little awkward for the first few minutes and then we had a great time!”

Welcome to the Women in Technology track for Building Business Capability 2024! We have 3 great sessions addressing topics of importance to women in the technology field, but we welcome men to join us as well.

This is an open invitation to EVERYONE and will be a candid discussion facilitated by the Women in Tech mentors.  Our dialog will unpack what Inclusion and Diversity mean to us, how we see it in action (or not) in our organizations, and how we personally benefit from or struggle with engaging in our work and life.  Bring your breakfast into the room and join us.

How do you know when you have made progress? Is it when you document a set of rules or model the end state of a new system enhancement? Is it when you have validated a prototype with business stakeholders? Is it when the product is released to a set of pilot users? This presentation will look at a definition of success in a product-centric environment. It will touch on what the future of product practitioners and leaders will look like and how their roles will change.   It will also look at key skills and the mindsets needed to not only survive but to thrive in the future. The speaker will draw on practical experience gained as a Business Analysis Lead and product professional on a large multi-team digital transformation project.

Transforming a large organization might seem like a unique experience but there are some “truths” about tradeoffs, behavioral patterns and politics that seem to repeat themselves. Based on personal experience and years of networking and interchange between different companies and organizations this presentation will give an abstracted view of what these are, how they can support or hamper your ambitions and how you maximize chances of succeeding. The ambition is to make the session interactive so please bring your insights, reflections and questions!

Welcome to the Women in Technology track for Building Business Capability 2024! We have 3 great sessions addressing topics of importance to women in the technology field, but we welcome men to join us as well.

Join us for an engaging presentation featuring three dynamic female leaders, including Danelkis Serra from IIBA, as they delve into the transformative realm of mentorship for women in IT. This session will provide invaluable insights into finding the right mentor and nurturing mentor/mentee relationships that drive career success.

Learning Outcomes:

• Discover the Art of Mentorship Matching: Learn how to identify and connect with the ideal mentor, harnessing the power of tailored guidance and support to elevate your IT career.

• Nurturing Meaningful Mentor/Mentee Bonds: Explore the secrets to fostering strong and enduring mentor/mentee relationships, including communication strategies and shared goal setting.

• Unleash Your Potential: Through real-life stories and expert guidance, find out how mentorship can be the catalyst for unlocking your full potential and thriving in the competitive landscape of the IT industry.

This thought-provoking session is not only designed to inspire and educate but also to equip you with actionable insights and strategies that will empower women in IT to break barriers, shatter glass ceilings, and rise to new heights in their professional journeys. Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of a transformative discussion that promises to accelerate your career growth in the world of technology.

Software delivery often comes to continuous output fatigue with little to none observable impact. Outputs are easy to plan, easy to assign, relatively easy to produce, definitely easy to see. They give a sense of completion. In practice, teams are “doing agile” while not being able to bring a working product to their customers. Without a working product adoption there is no behavior change, and without a behavior change there are no long term outcomes for the business.Get to know what pragmatic product approach is and elevate your BA tactics. Learn about the three areas of product thinking: customer centricity, time to value and elimination of waste.

Does your organization have difficulty with fragmented data? Do you have too many variables that don’t speak directly to one another? This is a common occurrence that leads folks to mistrust data and question the utility of data in decision making.

In this session, Devin Barney will introduce data integrity strategies focused on survey design and data collection based on a Values-Driven framework. He will discuss how key tenets of an organization’s mission, vision, values, and goals can be transformed and/or leveraged into creating aligned metrics that matter.

Business Rules mapped with processes, requirements and information concepts are very powerful for building superior business solutions.  Business Rules alone are a very powerful tool that contains their own benefits for any business. In this session, I will show the unexpected benefits KOA (Kampgrounds of America) is experiencing from having Business Rules elicited, defined, analyzed, and documented. I will discuss the challenges that existed before having rules documented, scope of eliciting rules, critical conversations had, making them transparent, and the continued measured benefits found from Support all the way through the Business Architecture.

Business Architecture remains an emerging field that some seasoned business leaders may be unfamiliar with despite the value the practice brings to designing, operating, and improving businesses and teams. In this session, we discuss how the Business Architecture Team at a Fortune 150 company positioned our practice leveraging collaboration with parallel teams, harnessing internal champions, and positioning our competitive advantage against external competitors. This approach ultimately led to a better understanding of Business Architecture that expanded our reach and impact in the business and elevated the unique perspective our field brings.

How do we structure information in our products so it is intuitive to the user? When the user says they want something “exciting,” “fun,” or “different” – what exactly do they mean? What type of content is most relevant for users? Cultural domain analysis (CDA) includes a variety of techniques used to gather and analyze data to reveal the intricate dimensions that influence user perceptions, behaviors, and preferences. Through hands-on activities, this tutorial will introduce the CDA techniques of free listing and pile sorting cultural data. Participants will receive pre-collected data and “play” with two analysis software packages, Anthropac and FLARES, to identify salient cultural themes, conduct clustering analysis, and create a multi-dimensional model. To truly be “human-centric,” we have to understand the culture and language of our users; CDA offers a rigorous quantitative approach to doing so.

What do Machine Learning (ML), chatbots, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and deep insights have in common? Data, and lots of it. But having lots of data isn’t sufficient, and the data must be mastered, cleaned, curated, secured, and made available. Regulators are increasing their demands on companies to ensure the ethical use of data, especially customer and client data, and determining all the compulsory requirements is becoming an increasingly complex set of tasks that requires analysis. Business analysts can play a significant role in supporting data analytics projects and programs by applying the tools and techniques of our trade tailored to the new digital landscape surrounding big data.

As a Business Analyst, take a look in your toolkit and you will find you already have what you need to make sense of AI’s almost overwhelming offerings. In this conversation, we will share our journey to bringing value to our organizations using AI from both the provider and client perspectives. We will do so by recounting the surprising ease and familiarity we experienced when making sense of the AI landscape.To get us started, here are three questions that helped us on this journey:What are we talking about when we talk about AI?Where do we want to go?How do we get there?

Join the conference Program Committee as they pose some of the burning questions of the day (AI anyone?) and engage with the audience to surface how we’re all dealing with them.