BCS Foundation Certificate in Business Change

AssistKD and BCS present an intensive workshop covering the syllabus for the BCS Foundation Certificate in Business Change qualification. Delegates will be able to sit the examination at the end of the workshop and get their results on the same day. Pre-workshop personal study, is strongly recommended.

Pre-registration is required for this workshop and examination.

The BCS Foundation Certificate in Business Change covers the landscape of concepts, life cycle and techniques relevant to Business Change. It provides a foundation for the range of modular certificates provided by BCS in the areas of Business Analysis and Consultancy. In addition, it provides foundation–level Business Change knowledge for specialists in other disciplines. Topics covered include:

• Overview of Business Change
• Business Change Techniques
• Business and IT Alignment
• Business Improvement Definition
• Business Change Design
• Business Change Implementation
• Benefits Realisation

BCS will be providing and running the examinations. The exam takes 1 hour and will take place at 16:30 on the workshops day.

Please note only delegates who have signed up for all 3 days of this event will be entitled to attend this workshop and be certified. A fee of £100 will be added to your invoice for the certification. Places are limited to 20.

BCS Foundation Certificate in Business Analysis

AssistKD and BCS present an intensive workshop covering the syllabus for the BCS Foundation Certificate in Business Analysis qualification. Delegates will be able to sit the examination at the end of the workshop and get their results on the same day. Pre-workshop personal study, is strongly recommended. Pre-registration is required for this workshop and examination.

The Foundation Certificate in Business Analysis covers the breadth of concepts, approaches and techniques relevant to Business Analysis. It provides a foundation for the range of modular certificates provided by BCS in the areas of Business Analysis, Consultancy and Business Change. In addition, it provides foundation–level Business Analysis knowledge for specialists in other disciplines. Topics covered include:

• The role and competencies of a Business Analyst
• Strategy analysis
• Business system and business process modelling
• Stakeholder analysis
• Investigation and modelling techniques
• Requirements engineering
• Business case development
• Implementation of business change

BCS will be providing and running the examinations.  The exam takes 1 hour and will take place at 16:30 on the workshops day.

Please note only delegates who have signed up for all 3 days of this event will be entitled to attend this workshop and be certified. A fee of £100 will be added to your invoice for the certification. Places are limited to 20.

Tools for BPMN and UML Modelling

You know you should be using a tool, but where do you start? They all have so many features it can be overwhelming.

How do I structure my model? Which diagrams do I create and when? How do I automatically generate reports? It’s not all about diagrams, where do I put my text? How do I create traceability to allow me to facilitate impact analysis? How do I create the detail needed for the developers? What about screen designs?

Learn how and more in this interactive live demonstration of Modelling with Enterprise Architect. Why not challenge your presenter with an analysis question and see it answered using the tool?

• See a BPMN / UML tool in action
• See real life UML
• See answers to your questions demonstrated in a tool

Business Value Realization

This workshop provides business analysts with an insight into the use of core techniques for developing models of the value to be realised through business change programmes.

• How to create heatmapped Business Capability Models to identify where to focus for change initiatives
• Using Benefit Dependency Networks to align strategic goals through to technology change via well defined benefits and business capability changes
• Creating Value Realization models to illustrate the planned change over time
• A review of how Business Value Realization has changed in the last 5 years with the adoption of cloud technologies and lean startup style business change programmes

Lean Strategy Execution for BAs

Business stakeholders often come to the project team with a clear solution in mind, expecting quick results. After all, Agile delivery = quick delivery!

This mindset carries an important risk: blindly building the proposed solution, even when iteratively reviewing progress with your stakeholders, does not guarantee business value. While Agile project execution allows for course corrections during the project, you still need to determine when a correction is needed and how to adjust. BAs are well positioned to tackle these challenges.

In this interactive workshop, we will bring lean and Agile principles from project execution to project definition and portfolio level, in a three step approach:

• Pin down goals: How do you shift focus from project output to business outcome?
• Expose enablers: What are the key enablers for achieving this outcome?
• Identify, prioritise and validate hypotheses: How do you minimise wasted investments through continuous validation?

Multiple case examples will show you the above steps in practice.

Agile By Stealth – A Step By Step Guide

As a freelance Agile Business Analyst, Tony is always looking for opportunities to introduce Agile practices to clients where he thinks they will be beneficial. But everywhere he goes he meets resistance – Agile is hard to understand until you’ve actually done it, which makes it very difficult to sell. So over the years Tony has learned how to introduce Agile by stealth – one step at a time.

In this workshop he will explain this step-by-step strategy and show how the Agile Business Analyst is perfectly placed to implement it. He’ll bring the approach to life by using it on an example project, from inception right through to delivery.

• Why Agile transformation is so hard
• Why, really, you would want to do it anyway
• Resistance to change and the Overton Window
• How (and when) to introduce various Agile techniques and practices
• How to bring third party suppliers on the journey with you
• The Agile organisation – how to bring the managers on the journey too

Agile Transformation Surgery: Delegates are encouraged to come armed with their own Agile transformation challenges and if time allows we’ll see whether we can offer any suggestions as to how to overcome them.

The Human Side of Virtual Working: Succeeding Across Distance as a BA

Business analysts rely heavily on their personal attributes and interpersonal skills as they deliver value, working closely with a wide range of people. But what happens when barriers of distance, culture, language and time zones get in the way? How on earth is a BA supposed to negotiate/influence/facilitate/communicate/resolve conflict/solve problems or even present engagingly, from afar?

The good news is that there are inspiring, creative BAs who are doing great things virtually. This session will touch on:

• Why personal attributes matter far more than technology
• Using aspects of identity to build common ground from afar
• Developing virtual trust, the basis for everything else
• How to overcome distance (plus culture, language and time differences) both in live meetings and beyond
• The inspirational stories of several BAs delivering massive value virtually, both from the UK and India

You’ll leave the session inspired, with a range of practical ideas to apply immediately to your own virtual work.

Visual Storytelling for Change Agents

The evidence proves that stories trump data when it comes to persuasion. Stories are easier to understand and relate to. Even so, many people are reticent to tell stories because they believe “the facts” will speak for themselves. Hear about the power of storytelling and ensure your content stands above the rest.

The CAST process and Visual Story template used in this seminar has been developed and refined over a 10 year period with project teams and change agents in many large organisations.  It uses a powerful combination of techniques from many different disciplines. This unique integrated approach provides a path from initial analysis through to effective delivery.  In this workshop you will learn how to:

• Use the Visual Story template and CAST process for creating effective stories
• Structure complex information into compelling change stories
• Use story frameworks and characters to engage decision makers
• Build design skills to create effective visuals that make the story stick
• Incorporate influencing and commitment–gaining steps into the delivery process

Business Analysis as a Service: Join us on the Exploration

Business Analysis as a service. What does that mean to us as a community and how can we develop and strengthen our BA service offering within our organisations? In this interactive workshop, run by members of the BA Conference Advisory Board, delegates will share views and best practice to formulate the BA service offering. Participants will:

• Have the opportunity to network with delegates across a wide range of industries on key discussion points relating to Business Analysis as a service e.g. role, activities & value

• Discuss and formulate ideas around a number of themes associated to Business Analysis as a service

• Help formulate a business model canvas outlining the BA service in terms of value proposition, key activities and customer relationships. Photographs of our work developed during the session will be made available post event for download

Concept Modelling for Business Analysts – Making Data Modelling a Vital Technique

Whether you call it concept modelling, conceptual data modelling, domain modelling, business object modelling, or something else, the technique is seeing an amazing resurgence. Business Analysts worldwide are realizing that it is a powerful addition to the BA toolkit. The key is to see that a concept model is a description of a business, not a technical description of a database schema. Based on 35 years of experience, on projects of every type and size, this presentation provides practical techniques for a business-friendly approach to data modelling, and proven approaches for using it as a foundation for Business Analysis. Repeatable methods and patterns will be emphasised, and many real-world examples will be shared. Topics include:

• The essence of concept modelling and essential guidelines for avoiding common pitfalls
• Methods for engaging our business clients in conceptual data modelling without them realizing it
• Critical distinctions among conceptual, logical, and physical models
• Using concept models to discover use cases, business events, and other requirements
• Using the technique in package implementations, process change, and Agile development

Putting the Business into Business Architecture

There is a lot of attention being paid to Business Architecture today. Some advocates are focused on defining technological capability. Others are striving to improve how the business operates in order to deliver value and optimal outcomes operationally every day. Business Architects strive to enhance the performance of business operations for customers and other stakeholders. Then, and only then, can we define what capabilities must be built to assure the resources of all types are the right ones. For Business Analysts this business–first approach provides incredible opportunity for growth. It will raise their perspective up the organisation and out to external stakeholders. This session will articulate what has been proven to work and give delegates the chance to practice some key methods and techniques to develop the right Business Architecture deliverables that will make a business difference.

• Business Architecture Traditions
• Outside Pressures and External Stakeholder Analysis
• End-to-End Business Process Architecture as the Glue
• Business Performance and Measurement Systems
• Semantics, Information, Decisions and Rules
• Prioritizing Business Change
• Developing Capabilities

Good Listening & Language Skills: Essential Tools for the Successful BA

When running workshops and holding meetings with your stakeholders you can be bombarded with information about their needs and challenges. How can you be sure that what you have heard and discussed is what they actually meant? How often have you needed to go back and seek clarification on some aspects of a previous conversation?

Listening and good use of language are probably some of the most under-rated yet important skills for a Business Analyst to master. Through developing expertise in listening and use of language, you gain better insights into what your stakeholders are thinking and close the gap on missing project requirements.

In this practical, engaging and highly interactive workshop you will learn to:

• Understand levels of listening and when to use them
• Observe language patterns and filters being used to gain insights into your stakeholder’s thinking
• Create clever questions to discover the missing details of a conversation whilst maintaining rapport

Keynote: Lessons from the Top: How Successful Leaders Tell Stories to Get Ahead – And Stay There

Award-winning broadcaster, author and journalist Gavin Esler is the BBC News Channel anchor and the former presenter of BBC Two’s Newsnight. In this opening keynote session, he will share how to become a successful leader in business through the art of story-telling. Incorporating first-hand ‘Lessons from the Top: How Successful Leaders Tell Stories to Get Ahead – And Stay There’ (the subject of his best-selling book). He will explain why this is a powerful means to educate, persuade, and incite change. Drawing on his thirty years’ experience of interviewing leading figures in their field—from Bill Clinton to Angelina Jolie—he will explore the role of stories in the most significant examples of leadership in recent times, translating their eerily similar elements into tools that can be applied to your own professional and personal trajectory.

Delegates will learn:

• The importance of storytelling for leaders
• How leaders tell stories to increase trust
• How to construct their own stories

Processes are Different – People are Too: The Influence of Personality Traits on Business Process Optimisation

Processes are managed as the breakdown of human and machine activities, controlled by rules. For decades “activity optimisation” has been the core focus of BPM projects, using LEAN and other techniques to reduce waste and increase efficiency.  The presentation intends to address three areas on how Personality Traits affect optimisation results. Eye tracking as a User Experience (UX) technique was used in a health care project to increase the quality and reliability of doctors’ decisions, measuring the time to perform the activity and the corresponding proportion of incorrect or incomplete decisions. Based on the findings, personalized UX components were proposed in key activities. Customer Behaviour Prediction Analyses was the main focus in optimisation of recovery procedures in a Bank. Based on more than 50 variables and 10,000+ business rules we predict individual Customer Behaviour and “on-line” optimize process activities. Anxieties have enormous influence on employee behaviour, usually resulting in strong defences and looking for opportunities to protect their positions. During the step-by-step process re-engineering, employee performance deviations were followed and the corresponding level of automation was incorporated into processes at each step (to final level of 98% automatization).  Key takeaways from this session:

• Do not underestimate People’s Personality influence in optimisation techniques
• Real examples of process adjustments based on Personality Traits
• The business value of different BA techniques

Share Knowledge, Perform Stronger, Better Together – Evolving a BA Practice

The BA Practice within Virgin Media was first established in 2006, an initial 20 BA’s from different operational areas were merged to form a practice. Faced with a range of obstacles Andrew & Gemma will share the highs and lows which has seen the BA practice establish itself as a team adding value, with a capability to evolve with the company without sacrificing its core BA values.  Their presentation will provide delegates with:

• The Early Years – Sharing highs, lows, and the difference our practice has made to the company over the last 10 years

• New Horizons – Share how our BA Practice adapted when Liberty Global acquired Virgin Media

• Rapid Expansion – An insight to the obstacles and challenges faced to expand our practice from 50 to 100+ Business Analysts

• Lesson Learnt – A summary of the lesson learned which hopefully delegates can take with them

The Role of a BA in Strategic Sourcing

Is strategic sourcing for business and IT just an institutional procurement process or is there a flavour of business analysis required at this stage that should be understood and acknowledged? Be it procurement of IT systems, business assets, tools to support business process or consultancy services, there is a role for BA in the Strategic Sourcing process. In National Grid, business analysts work closely with the procurement team to strategize and identify the key differentiating factors breaking the conventional stereotypes. If usability is the key criteria for end users, scenario-based evaluation criteria are designed and executed by BAs during the sourcing process.  If strategic alignment is the differentiating criterion, the request for proposal questionnaire and the requirements are devised with reference to the overall business and IT strategy. This presentation will share success stories where BAs have contributed to the strategic sourcing process to make a difference in product selection focusing on the end-user strategy be it user experience, strategic alignment, safety, reliability or low cost . Key takeaways for the audience will be:

• Understanding the role of business analysis in the Strategic Sourcing process
• Tools and tips for product selection aligned to stakeholder strategy
• Success stories and best practices from National Grid
• Ideas for identifying key differentiators using business analysis tools and techniques
• User Experience vs. Costs vs. Reputation vs. Strategic Alignment – What is important when it comes to Strategic Sourcing?

Delegates will learn the approach, tools and techniques used for business analysis right at the start of project journey, plus tips and lessons learned from National Grid case studies, and the value proposition that a BA can bring to Strategic Sourcing process.

Using Capabilities to Deliver Organisational Agility

Organisations aspire to respond rapidly to change so that they can adapt to meet the constant challenges thrown at them.  In many cases the organisations end up re-inventing the wheel or not making use of their existing resources in terms of services, systems and people. This talk will explore the value of business architecture, and more specifically, the business capabilities, and how the BA of the future can be instrumental in understanding the architecture of the business in order to achieve organisational agility.

• The nature of capabilities
• How capabilities help business transformation
• Using capabilities to build a modular organisation

In a Rut? Well Why Don't You Change? That can't be too Hard or..?

Sara, and many like her, are writing lists of lessons learned after each project or sprint they participate in. Sara has done this for many years, and not too long ago she went back and looked through her old lists and lo and behold some things were recurring. How come? Why didn’t she improve? Why did she continually make the same mistakes over and over again? Why did she let these “bad” habits stop her from achieving the “perfect project”? Sara set out to find out why and what she could do to change her behaviour. This is a story about her journey so far, and what she has learned about habits, motivation, and behavioural change. It is a story about Sara’s ongoing struggle towards a “better me” and that perfect project. The presentation will:

• Cover some theories about motivation and behavioural change
• Share some of the speaker’s change successes and pitfalls
• Give you an idea what is needed to facilitate your own change management as well as others

Using BPMN as a Communication Tool Between the Business and Technology

Business process modelling is a key part of understanding and restructuring the activities and information an enterprise uses to achieve its business goals more effectively.

To increase user productivity and promote process consistency across the firm, a technology initiative to digitise these business processes and consolidate human tasks by onboarding onto a single firm wide workflow platform has been ongoing for several years. This required substantial interaction between business users and technology, with BPMN serving as an important tool in iterating through requirements for business process enhancements. In addition, BA skills have played an essential role in defining an impactful onboarding process at a firmwide scale and the governance around it, promoting standardised tooling and notations, and the training of people. Learning objectives:

• Overview of process modelling and digitisation
• Value of modelling to business users and the BA role
• Use cases and impact of key BA techniques

How Well Does Your Organisation's Performance Management System Work for Your Business Analysts?

As a BA Practice Lead, are you measuring the real indicators of BA performance?
As a BA, is your performance being assessed on your true contribution?
To what extent is project success an indicator of good BA performance?

This session aims to answer these questions.

With so many factors influencing Business Analysis, it can be a challenge to identify the true indicators of good BA performance.  This subject is one that is frequently raised by both practicing BAs and their managers, who face the challenge of assessing BA performance, often working with organisational processes that were designed for operational staff.

Disgruntled with the dearth of published advice, a group of practicing BA Managers conducted empirical research to establish the true state of play in measuring BA performance, using the findings to design a best practice framework. Their research will be presented, along with case studies from organisations using the framework.

The Life and Times of an International BA

From divestment projects in three continents to implementing new products closer to home in Germany and the Netherlands, trying to combine the challenging analysis requirements of a large financial business driven by formal governance with the smaller, delivery focussed off-shore offices can often be the life of an International BA.

The presentation provides an overview of John’s professional life over the last five years, showing how he managed the many faceted deliveries whilst keeping stakeholders on board across diverse locations, cultures and expectations, often working with colleagues whose jobs were being transferred to other organisations or ending.

He will show how to achieve this successfully with a combination of:

• Stakeholder Management
• Collaborative Working
• Pragmatism

Delivering a Large Programme Using an Agile Approach

This presentation provides the case study of how a multi-million pound Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) Programme was delivered using an Agile approach.

It provides detail of how due to a combination of factors including; a lack of clarity over business requirements, changes to the operating model and teams still understanding their role in the new organisation resulted in a failing programme changing their approach to an Agile methodology  to create acceleration and momentum and re-engage the business. Delegates will learn:

• Ways of applying and adapting Agile methodologies to large programmes
• Outcomes of the Retrospectives – What did we start doing, stop doing and what will we continue to do?

Think Like an Analyst, Act Like a Consultant

Business Analysts are often labelled as the internal consultant, yet their influence seems to be over-shadowed by the external consultant. Why is that? Why are internal ideas often ignored in favour of external advice? The difference lies in HOW consultants think and HOW consultants deliver. We live in a complicated world, where business problems are inherently complex. Throw in market pressures, demanding stakeholders and organisational politics and even the most straightforward of desired outcomes require intricate solutions. Despite technology solutions being readily accessible, services being easily customizable and a growing pool of talented people readily available to deliver them, projects are still strained and the majority still failing! Having a solid foundation of Business Analysis and its associated deliverables, tools and techniques may land you on the next enterprise project, but having the right blend of soft skills and corporate street smarts is what is going to get the job done successfully. This session shares ‘9 Secrets To Deliver Like a Consultant’. Packed with observations, insight and ideas, Mohamed suggests the behaviours and traits that make up a successful consultant and shape their delivery.

• What does it mean to be a Consultant and how that is different to being a project BA
• Establishing a Consulting Delivery framework on a project to set up for successful delivery
• How to manage multiple stakeholders and get them to work towards a common goal

PERSPECITVE SESSIONS: Building BA Capability: How to Collaboratively Develop your BA Practice

Ever wonder how your BA Practice stands with its peers in the wider BA community? Do you wonder how your stakeholders view your BAs? Great ideas on how to fine-tune your BA Practice but not sure where to focus your efforts? Chloe and Ross from North Highland introduce North Highland’s three step approach, utilising the unique BA Capability Model & Assessment process for building BA Capability. By following this, we believe you can make the rather daunting task of building BA Capability much easier….come and find out for yourself!

Sustainable Business Analysis - Successful Business Analysis as a Service

This presentation will help you understand the components of a successful Business Analysis as a Service Model from the perspectives of customers, clients and suppliers compared to more traditional BA models. This will be brought to life by exploring what needs to be considered in order to set up a successful service model and leave a sustainable Business Analysis capability within an organisation, through sharing our experience and real life examples.

KEYNOTE: KEYNOTE: My Journey through 30 Years of Business Analysis

30 years in Business Analysis has provided Kim with a great rewarding career and opportunities to influence, drive and make a difference to People, Processes and Business Strategy.  Kim will share her career story in a way that demonstrates the differing roles of an analyst, the skills of an analyst and the difference an analyst can make in both a business and change environment.

• Analysis skills can be used in many roles providing rich career opportunities
• The role of the Business Analyst continues to evolve
• Having a passion for analysis gains credibility and confidence in stakeholders

Who Knows Best– Analysis, UX, Designers and the Stakeholder

More and more in this age of responsive and adaptive design the Agile BA needs to collaborate, bring together and mediate between parties with sometimes diametrically opposed opinions to help shape and define requirements. Where previously we had the stakeholder give us requirements, we now have UX experts and designers and a variety of well-meaning stakeholder ‘experts’ all feeding in to give their ‘considered’  and often contradictory views to derail all our best plans to understand what’s really needed.

This presentation is a slightly tongue in cheek look at the pitfalls and some simple ways of avoiding them using a case study from a previous company including:

• If it can go wrong it will go wrong
• User Journeys
• Managing scope
• A suggested approach

When Functional Requirements and Business Rules Meet: A UAT Success Story

Imagine being responsible for maintaining blood stocks in hospitals.  Now imagine automating that process for the first time in the UK. You find out that every hospital has slightly different rules about what they want in stock and that you need to cater for differing demand at different dates and times. How do you test that the system being implemented will do what it’s supposed to, every day, for every single hospital?
This presentation will take the audience through a specific real-life case study where the BA was pivotal to ensuring the success of complicated UAT. It will describe: how a set of business rules were mapped to functional requirements; how these rationalised into a minimum set of mutually exclusive test scenarios taking a risk-based approach; how test data was constructed to give specific, repeatable and reproducible results; and lessons learned. Key learning:
•    How requirements can be tracked against multiple test scenarios
•    How UAT can cover functional requirements and business rules efficiently
•    How the BA role can overlap that of a Data Analyst

The BA as a Business Partner in a Medium Sized Company

Business Analysis is critical in modern change initiatives, in the introduction of both technical and business change, but often the ways of working are heavily geared to large organisations. As BAs in a medium sized company, where you are often the only analyst on a project, Alex and Andy will show you how to become more than just a BA, providing a veritable business partnering service to help customers through the lifecycle of change: cradle to grave.

They will show you how they guide stakeholders through the development of departmental and product roadmaps, to investment appraisals, right through to Agile software delivery. They will talk you through two examples of the critical value chains where we take “good ideas” into tangible outcomes:

1. Publishing, Production to Content Delivery: refocusing planning and delivery on strategic value
2. Lead to Cash: making change matter when it isn’t a differentiator

Key Takeaways:

• How to take your role as a Business Analyst a lot further and become a true business partner for your organisation

• Adding value as a Business Analyst with a thorough understanding of the full context of (a part of) your business – going from long term roadmaps through to delivery of change

• What is life as a BA like in a “medium” sized company where just enough is good enough

Business Analysis in the Agile Landscape

usiness Analysis and Agile software development is still seen by many as contradictory, why is that? Patrik’s experience is that Agile projects certainly benefit from the Business Analyst’s toolbox yet he finds that it is seldom applied or even available, what is the hindrance? We see the success stories of Business Analysis but in many places little change, how can that be? As a long-time practitioner of Agile Patrik will in this session let you in on a few secrets because you see; he also is a Business Analyst.

Delegates will learn:

• Why the traditional stereotype of the Business Analyst role should not exist in Agile projects
• What benefits Business Analysis can offer Agile projects
• How to incorporate Business Analysis successfully in Agile projects

Mapping Customer Emotions – Requirements for a Modern Metro

This was the challenge in the work of building Sydney Metro, Sydney’s newest and largest public transport project. The design of Sydney Metro needed to address not just the delivery of the Metro but make a compelling transportation solution that delivered a product from before people left home to the time they returned, and convince 3-car households this was a good idea. Getting the right requirements is key to this activity and understanding customer emotions is critical in designing a system for 2019, 2024 and beyond. Andrew will cover:

• How customer emotions can be mapped
• The relationship between these emotions and the take-up of the product
• Examples of how this challenges traditional requirements thinking and how this can be overcome

The Shoe's on the Other Foot – Stepping Towards Knowing Your Customer

The Sheffield Hallam University BA team has, over the last 2 years, developed a Continuous Improvement Service which has been received extremely positively.  Part of their success has been their ability to recognise and understand what tools work and how to apply them, to provide the most beneficial outcome for all involved.

In this session Claire and Joanna will share how they have adapted the Customer Journey Mapping and Persona tools to provide a simple and effective way to support the business in viewing their processes from their customers’ eyes (something which the University has often struggled with).

The session is interactive to demonstrate our approach to the tools. Participants will:

• Understand how they use personas and will create their own
• Visualise a customer experience and understand the touch-points
• See practical examples of how these techniques have been used effectively
• Understand how to link customer expectations to process improvement

Building a Practice Communication Strategy

As Business Analysts communication is at the heart of everything we do.  We regularly contribute to customer and employee communication strategies within our projects.  It is fitting then that we should apply our best practice methods to our communication with each other.  This session will survey thought leadership in Internal Communications, explore the components of an effective Communication Strategy and provide a case study of how these have been applied in Nationwide Building Society’s Business Analysis Practice – building a community among the 350 Practitioners who are deployed across nine varied portfolios of work in four localities.  Attendees will learn:

• The role of communication in maximising employee engagement
• How to embed Practitioner Centricity into an effective Communication Strategy
• How to mature the communication infrastructure with Continuous Improvement

Creating the Perfect BA Mix

What do organisations need from Business Analysts in the 21st Century? And what skills do BAs now need to possess to demonstrate their value to the organisation?

Nationwide’s BA Practice has significantly developed away from its traditional, requirements-focused service offering. Now offering a full ‘playbook’ of services, underpinned by a first-class ‘mix’ of BA professional roles and skillsets, BAs are more in demand than ever before.

This presentation covers:

• The approach that BA Practice leaders have taken to create, promote and grow a new BA ‘mix’
• How BA skillsets have diversified, resulting in increased value and visibility to senior stakeholders
• How Senior BAs are being seen in the organisation as lead innovators, influencers and visionaries.

In this session you will learn:

• How to create a popular BA ‘mix’
• How to sell a new brand to the business
• How to grow the BA brand

Business Analysis in a (FR)Agile Environment

Most companies work with Onshore / Offshore IT development where the team are distributed across different countries and cultures. This means that todays Business Analyst has greater responsibility in order to deal day to day with people from those different cultures who are also stretched geographically to facilitate change. Add Agile development to this environment and the successful delivery of software and business change can feel more (FR) Agile, than Agile. This presentation will identify the key challenges faced by Aviva in running Agile projects in a distributed team and identify some creative strategies that demonstrate how the BAs at Aviva have added value to the mix to make it work.

The key messages to be taken away:

• Collaboration – how can we work as one team and ensure everyone maintains focus on delivering the customer outcome?
• Communication – How can we communicate effectively in a distributed environment?
• Cultural – How can we empower our offshore colleagues to be part of an evolving & self managing team and not ‘report to us’?

Leading Analysis

Research clearly indicates that a major cause of project failure is because the business needs have not been fully understood and therefore cannot be delivered. The responsibility for eliciting and effectively conveying these needs to the project falls to the Business Analyst, a role which often sits low in the project hierarchy with little authority or control. Business Analysts typically go unheeded since they are dependent on influence or formal escalation to make their voices heard. This session will examine Informal Leadership and how this approach can help the Business Analyst overcome issues of organisational hierarchy. It will challenge commonly held perceptions linking leadership with positional authority, and will look at leaders through the eyes of followers. Finally it will introduce techniques which Business Analysts can use to create followers that will enable them to deliver. Delegates will learn:

• How Business Analysts can act as leaders in their role
• The importance of followers
• Techniques that can generate and influence followers

KEYNOTE: Beyond Budgeting – an Agile Management Model for New Business and People Realities – the Statoil Implementation Journey

Bjarte will discuss the problems with traditional management, including budgeting

He will cover the Beyond Budgeting principles and companies on the journey.  Statoil’s “Ambition to Action” model will be discussed:

• Redefining performance – dynamic and relative with a holistic performance evaluation
• Dynamic forecasting and resource allocation and no traditional budgets
• From calendar-driven to event-driven; a more self-regulating management model

Bjarte will share his Implementation experiences and advice on how to effectively implement this.

Delegate takeaways:

• Understand the systemic problems with traditional management, including budgeting
• Understand how Beyond Budgeting addresses these problems
• Case study insights from ten years of Beyond Budgeting experience at Statoil

"And then the Magic Happens": What BAs can Learn from the World of Magic

On projects, it often feels like our stakeholders expect us to be magicians.  They expect us to carry out high quality work with far less time and resources than we really need.  We have a broad and varied toolkit, but sometimes it feels like we need some real magic to make our projects work.

But what if we really could use magic?  Or at least the techniques from a magician’s toolbox?

In this interactive session Adrian Reed explains how a chance meeting with a Magician challenged the way he thought about Business Analysis.   You’ll hear:

• A range of techniques from magic, conjuring and mentalism that have parallel applications in the world of business analysis
• The importance of audience management, and what this means for BAs
• How to avoid “magic for magicians” (or “analysis for analysts”)

You’ll take away practical tips and techniques, whilst seeing some magic tricks too.

Sharing Our Experience: The Key Components to a Successful BA Practice

Establish a best practice tool kit – Sharing our experience and demonstrate how to establish a best practice toolkit and how we’ve become an incubator for wider Business Analysis throughout our organisation.

It pays to advertise – How we have shared BA knowledge to underpin the value of BA’s with the business but be aware that publicity drives increased demand for your finite BA resources!

Early engagement – How our BA practice has evolved and developed to encompass Pre-project capabilities and pre-business case engagement and the benefits delivered to the business.

The 3 key messages from our presentation will be;

• Establish a best practice tool kit as your first foundation
• It pays to advertise, share your knowledge and aspire to trusted status within your business
• Strive for early BA engagement opportunities, saving your organisation time and money

Learning to Love Regulatory Change

Regulatory change projects are often seen as the unsexy side of business change. Projects forced onto the business by external factors which deliver no business benefit being driven by stakeholders who would rather be working on something else. That was certainly Wybren’s view of things a few years ago.

Over the years his view has changed. Working with regulators in all industries provides the BA a combination of challenges and opportunities which can make working on these projects a rewarding prospect.

Regulatory projects redefine how you view and handle your project stakeholders and artifacts. Dealing with that colleague on the 2nd floor might be difficult, but have you tried speaking to the Inland Revenue Service recently?

In this session Wybren will share his experience and the experience of others in delivering regulatory change. You will take away an understanding of:

• Unique skills BAs bring to regulatory change
• New abilities you can learn
• How to have fun while doing it

Think It, Say It, Do It

Learn how a leading international insurance company has embraced innovation in soliciting ideas from employees across 21 countries, towards improving the overall customer experience. The IT department at AXA Partners – Credit & Lifestyle Protection Business, experienced in solution delivery have overcome the challenges of gaining business insights, encouraging a culture of innovation and taking concepts through the requirements gathering methods; while at the same time leaving behind the traditional waterfall development model for a new Agile delivery process. Key discussion points include:

• The Tools for building a Culture of Innovation
• A new approach to BA methods in an Innovative & Agile work environment
• Stronger engagement in business lead in requirements gathering process

BA Happiness Project

Being happy is good for you, for the people around you, your employer and society as a whole. Happy people are more likely to secure job interviews, to be evaluated more positively by their manager once in a job, to show superior performance and productivity, and to handle managerial jobs better. The benefits to individuals and organisations are well documented – but few organisations really understand the value of a happy workforce.

This session will cover current theories and research on happiness, the benefits of happiness and the personal stories of two BAs who used their Business Analysis skills and techniques to undertake self-reflection and self-improvement to move towards a happier life. Key learning points:

• Benefits of happiness
• Link between happiness and professional success
• Using BA techniques to understand ourselves

Interactive Wireframes – a Powerful Tool for Requirements Elicitation

Why interactive wireframes? Because an interactive picture is worth 1,000 words.

In order to discover the requirements a Business Analyst will use a number of tools and techniques depending on the context, experience and personal choice.

During the presentation Oana and Adina will look at the situations when using wireframes facilitates requirements gathering, key features of wireframing tools and what business value they bring to the table. There are a number of questions and misconceptions you may be running into when working with wireframes, such as: how many interactions should be implemented in your wireframes; when to trade off high fidelity for low fidelity or vice versa, and which skills are needed as a Business Analyst to create interactive wireframes that serve the purpose of requirements elicitation.

No matter how complex the wireframes are, they do not replace other deliverables. Based on experience, we will share with you how wireframes fit alongside other analysis artefacts.

Key takeaways:

• Why, when and how to use interactive wireframes to elicit requirements
• Pitfalls of using interactive wireframes
• Interactive wireframes constitute a powerful tool ensuring users, business and project team are on the same page

Case Study – Analysing the Business from the Customer "Touchpoints": A New Point of View for an Optical Goods and Services Retailer

As a market leader, Optica Caroni enjoys a privileged position in crafting and selling prescription glasses, and other eyewear products and related services in Venezuela, through its network of 81 stores. To maintain their leadership, the company decided to improve around the customer experience, realigning its core values and capabilities. A fresh approach to envision and deliver changes.
The presentation will explore their journey:

• Applying ideas from “The Value Proposition Canvas” framework from the Strategyzer Series, as a method to understand Optica Caroni’s customers

• Identifying touchpoints in each of the customer buying stages

• Visioning a customer experience

• Defining business capabilities to deliver the customer experience, identifying changes in terms of people, process, information technology and infrastructure

• Identifying quick wins and major initiatives

• Crafting the roadmap to deliver the desired customer experience

IT BA and Business BA; Gaps and Overlaps or Sharing the Load?

In a world where Agile, continuous improvement and efficiency are central to the delivery of successful projects, the role of the Business Analyst is continually changing and being challenged.  The term ‘Business Analysis’ covers many areas of expertise, but can we really be a master of all or should we align to a specialism?  Is it inefficient to have a Business Analyst focused on the business requirements for software development and a Business Analyst focused on requirements for process and change aspects of a project, or does this ensure the risk of gaps emerging is reduced?  If you have two areas of focus; where do the responsibilities start and finish? How do you avoid an overlap?

With the importance of efficient and effective system development becoming more and more integral to change projects and to business success, two of Allianz’s Lead Business Analysts explore these questions and share their experiences.

• Discussion of whether a Business Analyst needs to have a particular area of expertise
• How to determine whether a project would benefit from a technically focused Business Analyst
• Working together; how to avoid operating in silos

Exploring Agile - A Business Analyst Perspective: Case Study of the Mastek-Morrisons Synergy

Agile Methodology has a rich history dating back to 1957, well before the published Agile Manifesto of 2001, although not without some myths and misconceptions. This session establishes how Agile continues to be extremely useful in Business Improvement, while avoiding the pitfalls. Agile is explored both as a methodology and as a mind-set, ’The Agile Philosophy’ – how Agile enlightens the subconscious mind

Key Takeaways:

• Enabling Agile Teams with Coaching and Mentoring
• Leveraging on Servant – Leadership
• The warning signs; when Agile teams fall behind
• The Virtues of an Agile mind-set; Change your mind-set
• Agile Continuous Improvement
• New Horizons for Agile
• World Class Agile Thinking

Intercultural Literacy: a Vital BA Competence?

The ability to operate in a multi-cultural environment and work on international projects has become a necessity in today’s world. But do we truly understand what this means for us Business Analysts? Do we consider it when we are planning Business Analysis activities or selecting communication methods? Do we think of it when we are eliciting and analysing requirements? Do we take it into account when we are assessing and validating a solution? This session will explore the impact and effects of cross-cultural differences on various Business Analysis knowledge areas and present the concept of Intercultural Literacy as one of the vital underlying competences of a modern Business Analyst. Some of the basic elements of known intercultural management theories will be discussed and practical examples from international projects will be given. The way in which this matter is covered in some mainstream Business Analysis frameworks will also be touched upon. Delegates will:

• Learn the importance of adapting to cross-cultural environments in a typical Business Analysis effort on an international project
• Be given concrete examples from projects undertaken in highly diverse cultural environments
• Become familiar with some concrete challenges that a Business Analyst working in a cross-cultural environment and/or international projects may face

PERSPECTIVE SESSIONS: IIBA UK - The First Ten Years

On 20 June 2006, a group of volunteers formed IIBA’s UK Chapter.  Focusing initially on running events in London, the organisation soon gained momentum. Over the ten years, the BA profession has matured and grown — and IIBA UK now numbers nearly a thousand members.  In this brief session, Nick de Voil (Member Experience Director, IIBA UK) will outline some of the key developments at IIBA and IIBA UK, and will explain how IIBA UK works to support the BA community.  You’ll also hear more about IIBA UK’s direction over the coming years.  During this session, you’ll hear about:

• IIBA’s New & Improved Certification framework
• How IIBA UK collaborates with other organisations to further the BA profession
• How you can get involved!

PERSPECTIVE SESSIONS: STRONGER TOGETHER - A fireside chat with BCS & IIBA (Global)

Business Analysis is a global growing discipline, there’s never been a better time to get certified.

• Recognition of the role, the discipline and the practice for greater benefit of the BA community
• Resources and education opportunities for the BA professional
• Aligning BCS/IIBA certifications to create complimentary learning pathways and global recognition

KEYNOTE: How to Create Massive IMPACT and be an Effective Zoo Keeper

In an ever changing world and with pressures that come from a global source how do we make sure our teams are “in the room” and making an IMPACT.  Nigel will share his 6-stage approach for keeping people energised, focused and most importantly achieving results.

He will also include a fun inter-active communication session that will have delegates talking about it for days, weeks and months to follow.

In his unique style he will identify everyone in the room and share with them how to manage the animals in their workplace by being an effective zoo keeper.

• The power of focus
• The cost of internal terrorists
• The importance of communication

The Indispensable BA: Becoming a Compass for Change

In a fast-paced modern business landscape companies are continually reviewing their value proposition for their chosen market to ensure that their products and services remain relevant.  In this constant cycle we find many external drivers of change that push the boundaries of how those products and services are delivered. As a consumer we are constantly reminded of the ‘innovations’ that have been added to our products and services.  The question that this presentation focusses on is do we really need these innovations? Do they add value to consumers? What problem is actually being solved? The above questions highlight the opportunity for Business Analysts to become indispensable to organisations by ensuring that solutions and the business needs they meet ultimately add real measurable business value. The presentation will show how the Business Analyst can ensure that real problems are solved for real issues through the exploration of the following questions:

• What does ‘value’ actually mean?
• What are we solving vs. who are we solving it for?
• Does the solution fix the problem?
• Becoming the voice of the end user/customer?

Main takeaways:

• Learn what ‘value’ really means and how to ensure that value is ultimately achieved
• Understand how to look at the same problem from different perspectives
• Understand the role a Business Analyst plays in managing conflicting stated stakeholder requirements.
• Learn how to become a trusted advisor rather than a documenter
• Learn how to take steps towards being indispensable to any organisation

User Experience and Software Selection

As the technology people use every day develops and becomes more intuitive it sets the expectation of users of business systems. If software is not easy to understand and use; the risk of the business not engaging increases, which may lead to the business case not being realised. National Grid faced this challenge when updating its procurement and payment system.   With a potential user base of 10,000 handling over £7 billion per annum the stakes were high, with substantial tangible benefits available.  The Sponsors demanded a National Grid system that was intuitive, user friendly and provided flexibility for users out in the field.. literally.  The bar was set high with E-bay and Amazon consistently being used as reference points.

The National Grid Project team took up this challenge and this presentation will share that rollercoaster journey with the audience.

• The importance of detailed planning and scheduling which then provides a baseline to flex against
• The exercise doesn’t have to be extensive to be effective and even a small exercise will require considerable investment
• Sponsor and stakeholder buy in to evaluating User Experience grows when they get hands on
• Business Analysis and Procurement complement each other, this relationship is vital

Whose Test is it Anyway?

We are not Test Analysts, so how do we make testing work for us? At Sheffield Hallam University, the approach to testing, specifically during UAT, varies from project to project.   As a consequence the role of the BA also varies.
In this interactive session we will identify where we feel BA involvement adds value. Using examples of past projects we have worked on, we will evaluate scenarios where delegating test responsibilities to other members of the organisation is more beneficial.  Where this is the case, we will be exploring approaches to ensure that the effectiveness of involving others is maximised.  This presentation considers:

• Examples of different approaches we have taken to testing (UAT) including what works and what doesn’t
• Where BAs add value
• Approaches to ensure those involved with UAT are “good enough”

Creating Agility Within Business Analysis at Virgin Atlantic

Two years ago, the Virgin Atlantic Airways Business Analysis (BA) teams were segmented, which in turn created a ‘silo’ mentality for PMs and BAs completing work with stakeholders. Each BA team following their own standards, tools and techniques.

An organisational change broke down these barriers creating an enabler to implement an overarching practice that promoted universal tools and techniques that are applied to any technology related project. Staff were engaged with the change and also contributed to the creation of a new innovative Iterative (Agile) Delivery framework. The framework is able to adjust to different methodologies and our BAs are able to adapt and provide a better service to their stakeholders.

• Training: Centralised training, interactive learning and development
• Tools: VAA Delivery Tooling, a central repository for collaborating (Agile JIRA, Confluence, JIRA Balsamiq etc)
• Techniques: Impact Mapping, Process Mapping, Business Requirements (Agile Requirements, Wireframes, Data Mapping, Daily Stand up Meetings etc.)

How to Sell Your Creative Talents

In an effort to standardise our work, have we lost focus of the importance of Creativity and Innovation? In an industry that promotes uniformity and standardisation through methodologies, templates and tools, it is often difficult to find opportunities to be creative. This presentation uses thought-provoking topics to encourage Business Analysts to adopt a creative approach to solving their everyday client problems. Through introducing a range of techniques, this session will help Business Analysts understand the importance of developing and selling the creative soft skills that are increasingly expected as an enhancement to their technical BA tool-kit.

Delegates will be taken on an engaging journey that encourages them to reflect on the legacy of creativity they have left in their wake and encourages them to stand out from the crowd by promoting a creative culture within their teams and amongst their clients. By the end of the session delegates will:

• Understand the difference between creativity and innovation and the increasing importance of demonstrating both as a Business Analyst
• Take away techniques to generate creative thinking ideas and to filter creative ideas into a practical offering
• Have ideas on how to sell their creative talents to their clients and promote a culture of creativity and innovation in the workplace

Impact Mapping – the New Way Through 'Why' and not 'What'

Often the temptation is to start with a vision and dive straight into the detailed requirements, without knowing the true value these requirements will add. This presentation will provide an oversight into the role of Impact Mapping in the creation and prioritisation of requirements in the early stages of a project or programme, where the focus is on the ‘why’, ‘who’ and ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’.  The key messages to be taken away:

• The role of impact mapping in the early stages of requirements gathering – how the process focuses on the ‘why’ you’re delivering an initiative, avoiding jumping straight to the ‘what’

• The Business Analyst’s role in the creation of an Impact Map – how long is needed? Who needs to be there? What does the output look like?

• How the Impact Map links back to the delivery of benefits

BA Success from a Horror Story Chainsaw Massacre

Sometimes the best learnings come from the worst of times, and successes can be there even if it’s a little hard to see amongst the clouds and debris of project battle.  This is a case study, a musing and a retrospective on the successes that were had in a horror story of a project.  The speaker’s first real taste of (apparent/attempted) Agile and it had everything: Fixed scope deadlines on sales promises, unreasonable client, in-fighting and politics.  All on an international digital project with mobile apps, responsive websites, fintech integration and an ignored (critical) data warehouse.  But a stronger more learned BA emerged who is here to share.

• Real-world application of Agile BA and Product Ownership/Governance skills from courses and text book learning

• Self-retrospective learning of what I did well and am proud of as a BA, and what I could have definitely done better

• The guilty-pleasure of a Project Horror Story to keep the audience enthralled with how bad it can get, and how to survive!

Press RED for 10 more years: Adding Value to a Major Technical Migration

The BBC’s much-loved Red Button is undergoing a massive transformation and most of its users probably won’t even notice! Supported on five TV platforms and used by up to 17 million people a week, the Red Button has grown organically over more than a decade.  A programme of work is underway to refactor back-end components, replace internal editorial tools and move key parts of the service to the cloud. All this while delivering massive events such as the Olympics, Glastonbury and Wimbledon.  It can be difficult to see where BAs can add value when undertaking technical migrations, but with over 16 years of technical debt, numerous editorial teams managing legacy tooling and the changing landscape of media-consumption – we found a lot of things to take up our time.

Jonathan and Matt would like to tell you the story of their programme, from inception to where they are today. How they have tackled dealing with a huge backlog, managed stakeholders and driven business change – they will also imagine what might have happened without BA involvement.

Key topic areas:

• The changing role of the BA throughout our programme
• Re-evaluating business needs as part of the migration
• How the BA can work as part of the Product Team
• Challenging programme direction under hard-deadlines
• The role of the BA on Agile projects

Don't go Chasing Waterfall – the BA in the Agile World

With more and more companies increasingly turning to Agile for their project delivery, more and more BAs are left fretting about their role.  “Agile methodologies don’t specifically call out BA as a role, will I lose my job?”  Don’t panic and don’t go chasing waterfall – there is a valuable place for the BA and their specific skillset in Agile, and the shift into this arena is easier than you think.  This session will explore:

• The continued importance of the BA role within the Agile landscape as the ‘liaison among stakeholders’
• How BA skills, competencies and experience can add value to any Agile team
• How a BA can transfer to the Agile arena
• Examples of Agile projects where BAs have supported its success

BA Jedi Mind–Tricks – Stakeholder Influencing for the Business Analyst

Without the ability to influence customers, colleagues and outcomes the Business Analyst is deprived of an integral element of attaining success in their assignments. This seminar will examine what influence actually is; what are its components, why influence is important for Business Analysts and most importantly how you can get it. Through personal experience and anecdotes David will convey some of the lessons he has learned in a twenty year career as a Business Analyst and examine some of the techniques you can employ in situations ranging from first encountering a customer to spotting potential influencing challenges in a workshop. David also provides some simple hints and tips to allow you to grow your influence as a professional Business Analyst. During this session you will learn amongst other things:

• The components of influence
• How to build rapport and as a result increase your influence
• How to spot key influences within stakeholder groups

The session will appeal to BAs of any level of experience who wish to explore this behavioural aspect more closely.