Session Previews 2023
Your Career Journey – the Myths, the Mystery and the Magic
Susan Moore
There was a billboard in downtown Toronto we once spotted “In every career there are 1,645 Mondays. Enjoy more of them” Perhaps it is a mindset shift to be more positive. That must be it – a positive mindset ! Say the words and it is done. Oh, if only it were that simple.
We are often reminded to take ownership of our own career. The paradox is we often join organisations on the promise the employer develops our career. We are often reminded to take time out to focus on career. The contradiction is we are assigned demanding deadlines. Afterall if you want a job done, give it to a busy person – right? We are often reminded to challenge ourselves and try new things. The irony is we are often ‘rewarded’ for getting a good outcome by being asked to replicate it again and again and again…
What is the role of our managers and leaders? What is our role? What does the literature say? What is your experience?
Join the Myth Busters – Susan and Michael – as they debunk the Myths, explore the Mysteries and unleash the Magic of Your Career Journey
Communication, Engagement & Influence: Honing Three Key Skills
Adrian Reed
BAs tend to be natural communicators, but we’ve probably all experienced situations where stakeholders just don’t seem to listen. Meetings are held, decisions are made, but a week later the same issues are raised yet again. Why is this? Is it possible that sometimes we don’t make enough of an impact?
Communication, engagement and influence are key antidotes to this problem. In this practical presentation you’ll hear:
- How the trio of communication, engagement and influence are crucial
- The importance of understanding people, perspectives and outcomes
- How communicating facts alone isn’t enough: It’s all about the story…
- How engagement starts by being engaging
You’ll pick up a range of techniques and approaches that you can put straight into use.
Situational Leadership Styles for Managing Stakeholders Relationships
Priyanka Agrawal
A Business Analyst, by nature of work, is often placed in a leadership role in a group or project team managing stakeholders; whether or not there are people formally reporting to them.
But what kind of leaders are Business Analysts? And does the Business Analyst work with stakeholders of the same kind of personalities, skill sets and backgrounds? So then is leadership a one size fits all approach or are there myriad flavors of leadership styles suited to specific category of stakeholders? What kinds of leadership styles are there and in which situations should Business Analysts exercise those leadership styles?
In this presentation we consider two leadership models that could suit a specific type of Business Analysis task and/or stakeholder. We revisit models that teach leaders to diagnose the needs of a situation, individual or a team and then use the appropriate leadership style to respond to the needs of the person and the situation.
The Backlog is Broken – Here’s How We Can Fix It
Steve Adolph
The backlog is a beautiful, powerful, and delightfully simple tool for managing variability and uncertainty in modern agile organizations. Unfortunately, the backlog can also be a major impediment to flow and break the value stream with substantial economic loss. This happens because our traditional model of backlog management presents the backlog as a stack of plates reservoir for the development team.
Agile grew up, and now so does our model of the backlog. This tutorial introduces the Rock Crusher, a flow based model for backlog management.
Participants will explore the Rock Crusher and design their own implementation of the model for use in their own context.