BCS Foundation Certificate in Business Analysis

AssistKD and BCS present an intensive workshop covering the syllabus for the BCS Foundation Certificate in Business Analysis. 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 engineeringBusiness case developmentImplementation of business change

BCS will be providing and running the examinations. The exam takes 1 hour and will take place at 17:00 on the workshop 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 Change

AssistKD and BCS present an intensive workshop covering the syllabus for the BCS Foundation Certificate in Business Change. 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, Consultancy and Business Change. 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 17:00 on the workshop 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.

Pre-Project Problem Analysis: Techniques for Early BA Engagement

Effective change starts with a thorough understanding of the problem or opportunity that is being addressed.  It can be tricky to get a quick, concise and precise view of a potential project, and it is all too easy to get lost in the detail too early.  Sound familiar? This workshop is for you!

This practical, hands-on workshop focusses on a range of complementary techniques that can be used early in the project lifecycle to define a high-level “project concept summary” — a succinct and extremely high level document that can help shape the project.

This session will cover:

• How to define a problem or opportunity statement
• Eliciting and documenting the likely scope of a problem
• Defining expected outcomes using an adapted version of the balanced scorecard
• Creating a precise, concise 1-page “Project Concept Summary” which can be used to drive further work

Gamestorming

Are you interested in learning more about gamestorming and how you can use it in your everyday work environment? Then this highly interactive workshop is for you.

This session covers why Business Analysts should know about gamestorming and the tools and techniques that are available in this space.  As Business Analysts it is important that we get the most out of our users and we do it in a creative and fun way. By using gamestorming tools you will be able to challenge your users to view and explore problems in a different way, this can result in innovate solutions being developed for your company.

In the session, Amy and Rohela will go through different tools that are available within gamestorming. The attendees will be given plenty of opportunities in the workshop to try these tools, first hand.

By the end of the session, the attendees will gain:

• Insight to how they can view a problem through the gamestorming lense
• Knowledge of the different tools and techniques that they can use when they return back to work
• Opportunity to try out gamestorming and discuss with other attendees ways to apply back at work

Options Engineering

There are always options. But when making business and IT change we often forget to consider them properly, to the detriment of the overall outcome. The reason for this is the way the human mind processes ideas, and dates back to the cognitive revolution around 70,000 years ago.

In this session you will learn:

• How humans have ideas and make decisions
• Why considering options is so important, and yet so hard
• How to overcome these difficulties – a structured, yet lightweight, approach that I like so much I decided to give it a name

Are You Thinking What You Think You Are Thinking

Have you ever been on a project where even though you are objective about your stakeholders’ needs, understand the project scope and determine the cost benefit, things still don’t turn out as expected? Could you have been affected by cognitive biases?

• Why aren’t people coming up with new ideas in your workshops? It’s the status-quo bias, compounded by bandwagon bias.
• Are your problem-solving sessions reaching the right solutions? If not, maybe it’s the conjunction fallacy or loss aversion bias
• Why is estimating seen as a black art? Blame the planning fallacy and optimism bias.

Join me in this workshop and we will explore these problems and others, drawing on the fields of psychology, neuroscience and behavioural economics and applying them to Business Analysis. We’ll also investigate ways to overcome biases and help counter the natural tendencies of our brains.

You will take away from this session

• What Cognitive Biases are
• How they affect both you, as a Business Analyst, and your stakeholders
• How to spot common Cognitive Biases in others and help them see them too.
• How to spot them in yourself
• Approaches for overcoming them, or using them to your advantage

Initiation in Holistic Business Analysis

‘Holism’ originates from the Greek word ‘holos’ (= ‘all’, ‘whole’, ‘entire’), and is the concept that systems (physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, etc.) should be viewed as wholes, not just as a collection of its parts.

Business Analysts are very often absorbed by their work on solutions, customer journeys, business process improvements, and so on … whereas each of those initiatives are very likely to have an impact on the whole organisation. As such, the Holistic Business Analyst looks at an organisation as a whole and not only as a collection of employees, business domain(s), customers, processes, systems, change initiatives, etc.

In this workshop, Stefan initiates you into the world of Holistic Business Analysis, including the different levels on which the Holistic BA can contribute, the different levels of requirements, the different types of scope, the different types of stakeholders, and how all of these are connected.

The workshop will:

• Invite you to see the BA profession beyond the tasks and techniques
• Invite you to see your organisation as a whole as well as a collection of its parts
• Introduce you to concepts & techniques essential to Holistic Business Analysis

The Innovation Game

Innovation is a real buzzword. But what actions really make a difference?

With The Innovation Game you can experience how to make the right, evidence-based decisions for innovation. During the game your team starts a new company. Your team is the management team and you want your company to become more innovative. In 4 rounds your team will be confronted with several decisions you have to make to stimulate innovation. If you make the right decisions, you’ll see your company grow. What do you think about a new coffee corner, a power nap room or a jacuzzi at the office? After each challenge you’ll receive feedback on why your decision was good or bad for innovation. Everything in the game is backed up by scientific literature.

• Evidence-based insights on innovation in a fun way
• Factors that predict innovation culture and team innovation
• How to tackle an innovation process

Initiating and Leading Collaborative Projects

Making significant change and launching innovation projects requires collaboration. However, initiating those connections and projects, as well as making sure things get done, is challenging. Getting new teams to find common ground and move from ideas to action can be difficult – there’s a delicate balance between encouraging creativity and being productive.

You will learn specific skills, tools and practical techniques to help you facilitate collaboration with confidence, enabling you to complete your innovation projects successfully.

Participants will be able to:

• Confidently build and lead teams for innovation projects
• Design and facilitate collaborative workshops, keeping teams focused and motivated
• Run more productive meetings, saving time and producing better outcomes
• Use project management methods which support, rather than stifle, creativity
• Synthesise content to move from vague idea to focused action

Business Agility Manifesto

Ronald G. Ross, Roger T. Burlton and John A. Zachman have published the “Business Agility Manifesto.”  It is a comprehensive survey of issues that must be considered by management as well as operations in any undertaking to make a business agile.

Warning:  this is an infusion of honesty.  If you are looking for a “silver bullet,” this presentation is not for you because there are no “silver bullets.”  Actual work is going to have to take place and the nature of the work is engineering work, engineering design work.

Having said this, business agility is NOT optional.  Any business that wants to stay in business is going to have to roll up their sleeves and start working on it.  It is going to have to become a way of life, not simply a project.

• Definition of Business Agility
• A sense of urgency to act
• The nature of the engineering work required.

Make It Real - Alternative Future Worlds

Getting from a business need to a designed solution is a creative process that can require a “leap of faith”. Part of the answer is to use an iterative development approach where stakeholders can see the solution gradually emerging. But how can we help stakeholders to think about, and experiment with, different “future worlds” before getting into software development mode? Requirements documents and UML/BPMN diagrams don’t always engage people fully.

Using a case study, this session will give you intensive hands-on practice with three tools for meeting this challenge: journey maps, storyboards and paper prototyping. These concrete, practical and fun techniques are easy to use but have a dramatic effect on the project team’s ability to develop shared understanding while staying open to new ideas.

Delegates will learn how to:

• Use journey maps to ensure the solution is focused on the customer’s needs
• Sketch out the key elements of alternative “to be” worlds using storyboards
• Get immediate high-quality feedback on solution options by prototyping them with paper

Digital Customer Journeys

Many companies in diverse industries are struggling to design perfect cross-channel experiences for their customers – solutions that incorporate the advantages of digital technology to provide their customers with invaluable personalised, up-to-date and on-time service. Improving customer experience is a key priority for enterprises today – and numerous competitors have already adjusted their customers’ journeys to capture big data information, IoT signals and other insights obtained from journey touch points. But to improve the customer experience, you must have the ability to measure it. By effectively analysing these types of insights, you can offer innovative online and off-line solutions to provide your own customers with an exciting offer of new products and services that are accessible 24/7. This workshop takes us through an example of one such journey from customer and company Needs to customer Value and Experience. We investigate important Decisions in the processes that serve to build customer value on the one hand, while measuring companies’ required KPIs to create a 360-degree view of the customers who buy their products and services, on the other. As an example, we measure the performance of marketing activities (in the context of the entire cross-channel customer decision journey) to encourage “next-best-offer” conversion. Customer Experience KPIs focus on improvement in terms of quality, efficiency and customer equity.

Keynote: The DNA of the Champion

Sir Clive’s talk will focus on the three characteristics that he believes all true champion leaders exhibit in both sport and business which he defines as The DNA of a Champion.  Using examples from his career in business, rugby and the Olympics, Sir Clive will explain, what each of these characteristics are but also importantly how he coaches people to act in each area to create Champions.  Successful people and businesses need to have a huge amount of talent, but that alone would never be enough to ensure success.  It’s the base you start from, but “Talent alone is not enough” – so how do you leverage this talent….

Teachability: The ability to change and be open to new experiences is crucial…. Individuals have to become students.  Their willingness to learn and accumulate knowledge around their role and in particular how they can continually improve on what they already have.  New people become students easily.  It’s maintaining that thirst for knowledge as you go higher up in organisations that can often become more difficult.

Pressure:  People aren’t born able to perform under pressure, but it can be taught or coached and it’s a vital skill if you’re going to become a champion in business or sport.  Champions have to systematically work through every eventuality so that the team has already gone through the thought processes needed to overcome them.  This reduces the chances of coming up against something unexpected in the real world, allowing the team to use the little time they may have to think through the problem.

Mindset: Winning cultures must have the commitment to win.  It’s about being empowered and accountable and the attitude they display.  Sir Clive believes that you need an obsession for your work in order to become a champion, but that this obsession is more about having a passion for your subject and attention to detail than working crazy hours or sending emails at midnight.

Business Analyst of the Year Award 2018

The search for 2018’s Business Analyst of the Year is now underway. The Award is sponsored by AssistKD and IIBA UK and recognises excellence in business analysis.

This year the Award will be given to the person who demonstrates the most significant contribution under three key areas:

Putting new skills into practice:

• which new business analysis skills have you learnt and how have you applied them for business benefit?

Exploring options:

• when have you identified and evaluated different options to meet business needs?

Analysing requirements:

• how have you elicited and analysed requirements to uncover tacit knowledge or clarify business rules?

The Award ceremony will take place at the BA Conference Europe, organised by IRM UK and held in London on 24-26 September 2018. The winner will be selected from five finalists, who will all be given free entry to the Conference; each place at the Conference is worth over £1400. The finalists, and the eventual winner, will be selected by a panel of BA Experts.

The Digital BA

Business and IT have traditionally been different organisational entities with the challenge of aligning them as best as possible. With the emergence of the digital enterprise, we now see the convergence of strategic IT and the business into a single organisational “digital” entity where it’s hard to distinguish between “business” and “IT”. What does the BA capability look like in the digital environment? Given these findings, the digital movement embraces BA capability that involves design-thinking, emotional intelligence, behaviour-consciousness (ethics), business-savviness, and collaboration; all of which set the stage for BA professionals being thought of as trusted advisors who help pin-point and develop digital business opportunities and foster productive business-IT relationships. In this interactive presentation, delegates will explore this converged setting and pinpoint effective behaviour between business people and IT behaviour people. Key takeaways include:

• Understanding of the digital enterprise
• Key digital capabilities for the BA
• Effective business-IT behaviour

Keeping the Focus

Working agile in large programs brings issues, for the business stakeholders and the scrum teams. Business stakeholders lose grip on the progress of the program. At the same time the teams struggle to keep their focus on the right priorities. Geertje believes this is caused by the pitfall of working in short sprints, and therefor focusing on the short term, while the program requires a focus on the longer term as well. In several programs Geertje has learned that by defining clear goals, first for the program, but then decomposing the goals for the medium and short term  you can help the stakeholders as well as the teams. In her presentation, Geertje combines the use of roadmaps, visualisations and goal decomposition as techniques to engage her business stakeholders and to help teams to prioritise their backlogs better.

Don't Get Cross, Be Curious!

Being a Business Analyst is often a frustrating and stressful role. Change programmes can be hard; BAs must understand the real problem the organisation is seeking to solve, handle challenging and difficult stakeholders, and get everyone to understand the benefits of good Business Analysis. It’s not surprising then that they regularly feel burned out and lacking in motivation. This session will explore how to turn work frustrations into positives, get better project outcomes and look after personal well-being. It will take attendees through strategies to re-frame challenging situations and use tools from both the BA tool kit and coaching to enable them to get the best from every situation faced and stay balanced within themselves.

Delegates will leave this presentation knowing more about:

• How to recognise personal patterns of behaviour when under pressure and stay in control of their emotional state.
• Strategies for managing their well-being when faced with conflict and challenge.
• Practical tips on how to be at their best, be adaptable and work well with different personalities.

Innovation for Everyone - Powered by You!

In many organisations, idea generation is the preserve of senior strategists, product managers and marketers. Sometimes it’s even outsourced or supported by ‘creative geniuses’ from external creative agencies. But, brilliant, innovative ideas can come from all areas of your organisation. With remarkably little effort and expense you can create an environment to tap into the minds that are already in your organisation which you might have overlooked. Using some of the innovation techniques such as Jobs-To-Be-Done and Design Thinking you can bring diverse groups of people together to discover ways to improve, expand and differentiate your products and services. And while doing this you’ll create culture in which people feel valued, supported, and part of the mission! Business Analysts are perfectly placed to help drive innovation.  Come and learn:

• How to start an innovation drive in your organisation
• How easy-to-learn approaches like Design Thinking and Jobs-To-Be-Done can create the structure you need to facilitate Ideation workshops
• How others have done this and the results they achieved

Implementing Agile in a Waterfall Company

Nationwide’s Guy Hudson and Simon Hancock share their experiences as BAs engaging with Agile methodology, despite their practice predominantly operating in projects using Waterfall.

Through Agile methodology, their team have successfully built a functioning Remortgaging app in a fraction of the time it would have taken using a Waterfall approach. While this achievement owes much to the Agile practices used by their team, Guy and Simon highlight the importance of mindset in the implementation of this approach, as their successes have not been shared by other teams attempting to adopt Agile methodology. They also share their realisation that Agile and Waterfall BA roles are far from opposites, and can be reconciled with a collaborative approach.

From this presentation you will learn:

• The perceived differences between Agile and Waterfall BAs
• The issues / opportunities faced when implementing Agile in a Waterfall practice
• The importance of Mindset over Methodology

Business Analysis – the Third Wave: Revisited

Business Analysis has developed over more than two decades and, during this time, there have been notable step changes that have extended the discipline’s scope and focus. In her Keynote presentation in 2013, Dr Debra Paul reviewed progress within the Business Analysis discipline and suggested that three ‘waves’ of Business Analysis practice could be identified, one of which was in its early, if not aspirational, stage. In this presentation, Dr Debra Paul considers Business Analysis practice through the lens of the third wave concept, discusses whether or not the potential offered by the third wave has been achieved, and highlights the challenges Business Analysts face in 2018.

Delegates attending this session will learn about:

• The rationale for the emergence and development of Business Analysis
• The nature of the first, second and third waves of Business Analysis
• The potential offered by Business Analysis and the challenges facing Business Analysis

Designing our Analysis Family

The Royal London Group, like many organisations, has grown through mergers and acquisitions. This growth has obvious benefits for customers and members but also many challenges.  The integration of the systems, the data and the processes are obvious obstacles to spot, but the legacy of that growth is also felt in the alignment of roles and the organisational design. In late 2017, the Group began a journey of a radical redesign of all the roles across the group. Within the 650 strong Group Technology and Change team, this redesign was done using the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA).

This presentation will examine the drivers for the redesign, the process followed and the key lessons other organisations should consider.  Attendees will take away:

• The benefits of clear relationships between roles and role families
• Identify some of the potential pitfalls during the design process
• A summary of the key lessons learnt from the project

The 14 Habits of Highly Effective Data Modellers

“14 Habits?” That is a lot!  Normally people talk about the seven habits of highly effective [insert whatever profession you want to consider].

In this presentation Keith Gordon will draw on his experience over 30 years of modelling information and data to discuss good practice at both the strategic and tactical levels, introducing seven habits at each level. These habits should enable Business Analysts to develop models that ensure that the analyst:

• Understands the information requirements for the business under consideration
• Can successfully communicate those requirements back to the business
• Can also successfully communicate those requirements to the developers of the potential solution.

When BAs Go BAD!

With collaboration being key to project delivery and organisational success, how we behave as BAs is more important than ever.

It’s time to hold up a mirror up to the BA profession and ask if we like what we see. There are some behaviours and attitudes that we as BAs commonly fall into, and we don’t always consider how these are perceived by others. By considering our behaviours, becoming more self-aware and being genuinely open to giving and getting feedback we can ensure that our behaviours reflect well on the profession and keep the BA role in demand for future generations.

In this session we will discuss:

• Common BAD BA Behaviours
• Improving our self-awareness
• Feedback models and approaches.

Come along and share which BAD BA behaviours you have witnessed or perpetrated!

The Zen of Customers - How to Be an Analyst in the Land of No Requirements

What happens when you don’t know why there is a problem? How do we ensure we deliver what the customer actually wants? How do we know it’s the right thing?  More importantly how do you ensure you keep building the right thing?  When the problem is uncertain and the solution even more so where do you start? Building on some of the concepts behind Lean Startup, this talk will look at how you can create a culture of sustainable, customer focussed innovation and development.

The takeaways form this session will be:

• An intro to Lean Startup
• Customer jobs and expectations
• Creating a sustainable innovation culture
• The dark art of data
• Creating breadth and depth in the BA Role

Playing the Same Formation

The 5Ps resonate with Michael’s experience since joining the British Council as Head of Business Analysis (September 2016). He moved from a comfortable role as a senior BA with HSBC, where he had worked since 2001, to pursue a challenge and work for a company with a rewarding purpose.

As keen football fans Michael and Mike like to use the analogy of a team playing the same formation. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but everyone needs to know what their role is and how they contribute to the team. They joined a BA practice that had lost its way, working to standards left over from another time or brought along from previous assignments. Not focussed or communicating and certainly not winning any fans.  This is the story of how they (and you can) pull together to instil some consistent practice and raise the standards, value add, engagement and spirit.

Learn how Business Analysts across all functions can benefit from Michael and Mike’s well established Community of Practice, by:

• Understanding how a BA can add value to an initiative or project within a public sector organisation
• Sharing tips, tricks, and templates with each other to broaden your BA toolkit
• Having objective reviews carried out on your BA deliverables, and knowledge sharing to ensure you have cover on high-priority work

The Power of Change – a Personal Journey

Change is a force that acts on all aspects of life and business and those of us who work in Change Professions are continually assisting people through transformation, whether it be what the customer does, how they do it or even whether they do it in the future. Whilst in most cases the need for change is a positive one it can be an unsettling and even frightening experience. David was diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease in 2010 and in this session he will explain the personal impact this had on him and how it has deepened his understanding of the way change works. In his own uniquely humorous way David will explore the nature of change, the effects it has on people and the lessons he has learnt from his journey. He will share his own thoughts and philosophy on what motivates him, the inspirational figures who have guided him and how he has applied this to his work and personal life.

He will discuss:

• Parkinson’s disease and the personal impact it has had on him
• What is change and why do we fear it?
• Two change models; the Change Curve and The Hero’s Journey
• How to discover your own motivation to make change
• How to discover what really motivates you

Oh No I'm Being Outsourced

The concept of outsourcing is not new, but when it happens in the organisation you work for and your role is being outsourced what would you do?  Your being forced to join a different organisation and being told the BA role is going to be obsolete.  The outlook is outsourcing, a role change with the prospect of redundancy.

Does being a Business Analysis provide you with a level of resilience, would your analysis skills help if you found yourself in this situation?

This conference session, based on a real example, shows how Catherine lent on her analysis skills to work through this change. In addition, it will provide attendees with an opportunity to explore how they might approach this situation themselves.

Delegates will learn:

• How to deal with an enforced job change
• The importance of:

o    maintaining a profile

o    building a network

o    evaluating career aspirations

o    exploring opportunities

PFB Diagrams: How to Innovate Your Way Through a Bad Agile Project

Even though agile has established itself as the customer-preferred approach for developing software, organisations still make traditional mistakes even when using agile – they neglect the customer and their requirements, they try to deliver quickly at the expense of quality, and they use outdated and inefficient tools and delivery models. In this presentation, you will learn how good Business Analysis can deliver great value for the customer in the face of bad project management.

You will walk away having learned:

• How to use the newly-invented PFB (Process, Frontend, Backend) Swimlane Diagrams to rally customers, designers and developers around a unified vision for the product;
• How to spot customer pain points in the agile process and how to fix them using innovative BA techniques;
• How to use good Business Analysis to re-engineer a distributed project’s workflow and raise it to another level of trust and efficiency.

Influencing With Assertiveness

Imagine you are in a meeting you are chairing, people are talking over you and not answering key questions you need answered, time goes by and the meeting has finished. You haven’t got any of the questions you wanted. As a Business Analyst we need to get our information from key stakeholders. However, sometimes this means we have to be direct and assertive without being aggressive to get the information that we need. The ultimate BA knows how to build up trust whilst keeping authority when communicating, chairing meetings and delivering workshops. This talk will focus on three areas to teach you how to build up your assertiveness to enable you to influence participants in your meetings so that no one talks over you again, you get your key questions answered and you are in control of the meeting.

• How to use assertive body language
• How to use assertive verbal language
• How to apply assertive techniques in meetings

Innovation Through Simplication

Is Innovation all about adding new ideas, creating new processes and changing the current processes? In today’s digital age, Innovation in business change is about untangling the complicated stuff and making things simple. Innovation can be Innovation, only if you simplify things. In this presentation, Menaka will be discussing driving business innovation through technology innovation using real-life examples of “Simplified Innovation(s)” that Aviva have adopted/implemented as an organisation and the key enablers to making this work.

Key Enablers:

• Make it simple and easy for your customers and employees
• Let your employees wear the thinking Hat!:
• 3C’s to simplification: Communicate, Collaborate and Change

How to Form a BA Community

AO.com has been on a journey for the past few years as a business and as a Business Analysis function. As a BA function they’ve grown from a team of 2 to 14 across retail and logistics. This has been a massive change and they have been able to support the different business areas more effectively at a greater breadth. Their BAs are domain aligned and have influenced a large amount of change in the business. This presentation will take you on their journey; how they’ve formed a community and their takeaways since they did their first BA retro back in Feb 2017. In this session, Darren and Marc will explain:

• Their journey as a BA function
• What they’ve learnt (good and bad)
• How you can improve your own BA community
• What’s next for them

Founders Panel Discussion

Moderator: Ian Richards

This year, we celebrate the 10^th anniversary of the IRM UK Business Analysis Conference Europe, but how did it all begin?

This is your chance to meet the 5 founder members of this conference that started from humble beginnings into the extremely successful event that it is today. During this panel discussion we’ll be unearthing the founders’ early hopes, aspirations and fears, the challenges they had to overcome, initiatives that worked well and those that maybe didn’t work quite as well, their most memorable Keynotes and presenters and the moments that have lasted long in their memories.

This conference has adapted over the last decade to reflect the changes in Business Analysis, and who better to tell the story than those who had the foresight and vision to see the need to bring likeminded BAs together to share their knowledge, experiences and aspirations through the wider BA community. So be sure to bring your questions to what should be a lively and entertaining discussion that will bring insight into the past, present and future of this highly popular event in the BA calendar.

2018: A Skills Odyssey

Continuous learning may be more commonly associated with programmers and software developers, but never more than now has it been so important for Business Analysts.

With the technological and competitive landscape enabling ever-more innovative business models and increasingly unique customer journeys, defining a common skillset would be almost futile. Because of this, continuous learning is one of two core tech skills at John Lewis.

This talk will share real examples of how expectations on a BA have exploded of late, and how the freedom to explore, choose and develop one’s own skills is at the heart of improved tech delivery at John Lewis.

You will hear…

• How continually specialising tech roles is not effective in many organisations
• How this explosion of demand opens up new career paths and opportunities for Business Analysts
• The skill trends right now at John Lewis, what they once were, and what they will be

Top Tasks Management Approach

Many organisations focus their websites on internal structures rather than their users’ needs.  This leads to a negative experience as users can’t find or do what they want to, with the organisation unaware of the problem.  A user-centred design approach can change this.

The “Top Task Management” approach prioritises tasks that users want to perform and ensures digital projects are created around users’ actual needs. The outcomes are then applied to:

• Measure website effectiveness,
• Create a new Information Architecture
• Develop designs around the users’ core tasks.

User Vision will explain the Top Task approach and how to apply its outputs during the user-centred design process. The Scottish Parliament will explain how they applied this approach alongside other user research methods and how the outcomes led to a clear information structure for the beta parliament site which has been iteratively tested and revised based on user feedback prior to launch.

Delegates will learn:

• Why managing top tasks is especially important as the volume of content online increases
• The role of the Top Tasks approach alongside other user needs research methods
• How the Scottish Parliament, a large organisation with a wide range of tasks and user types, applied the Top Task approach as part of their user-centred approach to designing a new website

The Jason Bourne Academy of Facilitation: Assassinating Bad Behaviours in Workshops without People Noticing

Ever been part of meetings where the agenda is packed with items twice as much as is humanly possible to accomplish in the time provided? Or where people get into wandering debates that often lead nowhere? What about dominant characters who most likely have a PHD for being disruptive?

Do you want to know how to minimise and eradicate these shocking traits that waste so much potential productive time? Do you want to have the attendees of your meetings and workshops leave with a feeling of delight and accomplishment, not quite understanding why that was?

Then please join the Bourne Academy of Facilitation.

In this session, we will give you a crash course in assassinating bad behaviours by the following:

• The Client Supremacy, Assessing the interest, ideas and influence of the client
• The Problem Identity, Introducing the difference between ‘tame’ and ‘wicked’ problem types and how to find them
• The Process Ultimatum, Knowing that you are the process

Creative BA: How to Foster Innovation Not Play the Innovator

Positive user experience has proven to be the core success factor for modern interactive systems.  However, looking at the average IT project in large organisations, the outcomes are rather “infancy” from the perspective of the users of the system. Unveiling true user needs upfront the project and turning them into relevant user requirements leading to positive user experience becomes more and more a popular approach. The “disciplined agile delivery” (DAD) now promotes this approach as part of the “get going in the right direction” phase. This approach is rather analytical than creative but leads to creative solutions. It is the role of the Business Analyst to facilitate this early discovery phase in large projects.

Delegates will learn how to:

• Identify and state user needs leading to innovation in a systematic style in a very early phase of a project
• How to engage stakeholders in true user requirements analysis rather than flat feature requests
• How to link analytical approaches to agile development
• How to gain visibility by fostering innovation rather than trying to be one of those “creative people”

The Mistakes Peter Made…..or the Value of BA Standards

In this session, Mark will:

First – tell a story. A story about a young developer who thinks that he “has what it takes” to be a Business Analyst. He is put on his first project. It fails because of his shortcomings as a BA.

Second – identify the problems that caused the project to fail.

Third – look at possible solutions. These range from having standard methodologies (processes, templates, techniques, etc.), standard knowledge (including a look at certification), standard tools to considering communities of practice and centres of excellence. Mark will desribe the business value that all these things have.

Fourth – this last part is interactive where Mark will ask the audience for their input and ideas.

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.

Can I Train an Apprentice BA?

2017 saw the long awaited introduction of the Business Analysis apprenticeship scheme offering people from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to become apprentice BA’s. Whilst a fantastic opportunity for a ‘would be BA’ this probably raises questions for the ‘would be’ employers: What is involved? Do I have the time to invest in training someone? What are the challenges and benefits?

Aviva Digital have taken up the challenge with 5 apprentices beginning their learning in October 2017.  In this session Karen and Tiffany share the experiences of an internal mentor and an apprentice BA; talking about the challenges they’ve overcome and discussing the pro’s and cons of the scheme. The presentation will cover:

• Background to the government backed scheme – (how it all works)
• The employer pre-work involved
• The input required from an internal mentor
• The challenges faced and commitment level required of the apprentice
• The benefits to the employer
• The benefits to the apprentice and the wider BA profession

Key Take-Aways:

• Session attendees will gain a practical insight to one of the first BA Apprentice schemes to run in the UK. Aviva will be sharing their ‘Top Tips’ to make the scheme work for you.
• Attendees will gain a close understanding of what is involved in training apprentice BA’s and will be in a position to decide whether this is something their organisation may be interested in undertaking.

Story Writing Best Practices

With over 10 years working as a Business Analyst, Rosanna will share some tips and tricks of moving from traditional business requirement documents to writing user stories.  This interactive session will explain the benefits of the lightweight approach of user stories and explain the structure and value that a user story brings. Rosanna will talk about tips and tricks on how to effectively write compelling user stories.  She will also talk about right levels and sizes of stories, vertical slicing, and story backbone.  In the end, she will cap it off with an interactive quiz!

• User stories vs requirements
• User story format
• Story depth
• User stories best practices
• Vertical slicing – different ways to slice and dice the requirements
• The walking skeleton
• Quiz!

The Four Beautiful B's

It is so easy to get trapped in the busyness of life. It often feels like we are running harder and faster just to keep up with the changing nature of work. With life becoming less structured and more stressful we often feel like we’re fighting a loosing battle to keep all the balls in the air.

But all is not lost! This humorous and inspirational talk will take you through just 4 simple rules to gain clarity, simplify your life and at the same time make a profound, positive impact on your career.

For us veterans of the battle, this talk offers a reminder of how it feels to be more effective and efficient. For our newest recruits, this talk offers a series of practical tips to manage and prosper in our increasingly complex world.

• The 4 B’s are conceptually very easy to understand, but they require constant commitment to really make a difference.
• It is seductive to get pulled into the busyness of life, almost like an addiction. Learn how to recognise and fight the addiction.
• Our ability to perform Business Analysis with a high level of professionalism is partly based in our ability to convince others that we are able to manage the chaotic world of change.
• Learn simple ‘self hacks’ that you can develop that will start you on the journey to be more effective.

Business Analysis and Neurodiversity

This presentation will look at neurodiversity, how it is relevant to Business Analysis and why it is important to your organisation. Glynn will explain how an inclusive approach can deliver better outcomes for the individuals involved, the organisations they are working within and their customers.

Inclusive design is about understanding customer diversity and applying this to the design of mainstream products. This way, we can better satisfy people’s needs and deliver commercial success. Glynn will describe current UK consumer trends and why inclusivity is so important.

The presentation will provide an overview of the common challenges that Business Analysts and customers face, and give an insight into how market leaders have used alternative thinking to their advantage.

• An understanding of neurodiversity and how people work differently
• How to leverage this understanding to get the most value out of people involved in the analysis process
• Inclusive BA techniques and the value of inclusive design to the organisation and its customers
• Examples of alternative thinking that has added value to organisations

Building an Effective Community of Practice

Is your community of practice really a community, or is it just a meeting?

Community of practice meetings fulfil an important role in today’s work-place, but can fail to impact individual performance or deliver measurable results to the organisation.

Drawing on experience of running Business Analysis practices in a range of different organisations, this presentation will share tried and tested techniques that ensure community of practice meetings have a lasting impact on the performance of Business Analysts.  From tips to improve collaboration between Business Analysts, to identifying which areas to focus on, and how to build collaboration between virtual teams, this presentation will help you build a true community and deliver community of practice meetings that make a difference.

Attendees will learn how to:

• Leverage the combined skills of the BA team to improve Business Analysis performance
• Have a lasting impact after the community of practice meeting
• Ensure BA communities of practice address the needs of the business as well as the needs of the Bas

Discovering the Essence of the Problem: the Route to the Best, Most Innovative, Solution

Instead of telling you the real problem that they want you to solve, people are much more likely to tell you a solution. A Business Analyst needs to be able to make the necessary abstractions to discover what the real problem is. Then, and only then, the analyst can compare alternative solutions and come up with innovative ways of satisfying the real need.

This is an interactive session where the audience experiments with techniques for looking at problems from both essential and solution-oriented points of view.

• How to find the real problem
• Separating essence and implementation
• Techniques for improving abstraction skills
• Multiple viewpoints of the same problem
• Searching for the most innovative solution

Keynote: The BA Bucket List: 5 Things to Do in your BA Career

Organisations are under increasing pressure to change and evolve to meet customer needs, stay ahead of competition and exploit new business models, technologies and tools. The BA role is beautifully positioned in organisations to help them meet the new challenges. But it’s not easy – the role can be seen as a more junior role to other professionals (e.g. project management), and this means a leap is still needed to become more influential. BAs need to ensure they continue to develop their skills and position in organisations.

The BA bucket list introduces 5 areas that BAs should focus on to develop as a professional to develop their career and meet the new challenges. Craig shares his perspectives as a former BA, building a BA practice and as a senior manager in National Grid.

• Learn how to survive and thrive in your organisation
• Understand the BA skills needed in today’s workplace
• How to grow as a professional

From Analyst to Strategist: A BA Journey

Business Analysis is a well established and trusted service within the IT department at Nottingham Trent University. The potential for the service to add wider value has been recently recognised, with the BAs now at the heart of the University’s strategy implementation. In this presentation, NTU will share how Strategic BAs in their organisation are embarking on this exciting voyage of discovery, joining a newly established strategic change team and bringing a unique set of skills and experiences to shape the University of the future. Working with the University’s senior leaders and other partners, NTU have defined what Business Analysis looks like as a strategic enabler. NTU will share how the Strategic BA capability is evolving and maturing, how they have established credibility at the most senior levels in the organisation and reflect on the personal journey from analyst to strategist.

In this presentation, you will understand:

• The evolution and enablers of the Strategic BA career journey at NTU
• The nature of work and how Strategic BAs have added value on specific strategic initiatives
• Opportunities and challenges in growing the Strategic BA capability
• Personal reflections on moving outside of IT into a more strategic role
• How to access your organisations readiness for strategic analysis

The Psychic Business Analyst

They are found throughout history, throughout the world and seem to defy explanation. They are readings performed by psychic entertainers.

But what do these entertainers and BAs have in common? Very little you may think, but you’d be wrong!

Surprisingly these two seemingly diverse professions share a number of similarities and techniques that they utilise to reach their audiences and stakeholders, and achieve a successful outcome.

Developing good working relationships and adapting techniques such as data analysis or user personas is key to both. The difference being that a Business Analyst must take all the information gathered one step further to remove ambiguity and achieve a common understanding to achieve their successful outcome.

The intention of the presentation is to demonstrate the alignment between the two seemingly extreme professions and understand how these diverse techniques can be used day-to-day by the BA.

Take away points:

• How is it that two diverse professions can share commonalities and insights
• What the BA can learn from the approaches and techniques of a psychic entertainer
• Whilst a BA may sometimes feel that they need to be “psychic” when dealing with stakeholders this may not be as advantageous as it first seems.

How to Free Yourself from the Pressures of BA Life

Do you love your work but suffer from the pressures of BA life? Are you straining under the weight of too much information, mounds of data, difficult stakeholder relationships or a lack of time to think, plan, analyse and create quality outputs? Perhaps you take on too much and don’t deliver to deadlines. Maybe you feel that your lack of technical knowledge puts you at a disadvantage to your peers, or maybe you’re frustrated that you don’t have enough time to fully understand your industry or subject matter? If this sounds all too familiar, this presentation offers a number of simple, easy to apply suggestions that can help you to overcome these challenges and enhance your BA career! Learn how to:

• Prioritise and manage your time well, don’t procrastinate!
• Work with people more effectively.
• Improve your technical knowledge.
• Look after you first.
• Establish yourself as a solid BA professional.

Driving Innovation with 20 Questions

When you get right down to it, the process of innovation is not a difficult task. And yet, for so many of us, innovation scares us, almost to the point of avoidance. Simply put, it is much easier, and in our minds, safer, to stick with “that’s the way we’ve always done it”. And yet, we know that usually, in business, fortune favours the bold; those companies and people who have the courage and vision to push the proverbial envelope, are usually rewarded for that behaviour. So, what does that mean for you? How can you ensure you’re bringing value to your projects, generating new, high quality ideas, and moving away from “Business as Usual”? In “Driving Innovation with 20 Questions”, participants will learn a simple, but under-used technique, that ensures that you and your team are driving towards new solutions, while improving project team, and operational, performance.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the value of innovation in business, and project and change management.
• Increase the quality of decisions made within your business projects.
• Learn a simple technique to drive optimal project results…getting things done cheaper, faster or just better.

Forgiveness vs Permission: Taking Ownership of Project Decisions

What do you do when the whole team is looking to you to make a decision, and you haven’t a clear way forward? BAs bridge the worlds of product & technology. Most fundamentally, we are relied on to understand the business goals that drive a project. That often means that we facilitate, explore and influence decisions, but are not usually expected to make them. In principle, that makes sense, but in practice there are times when your team will look to you to drive delivery forward by making a call on how to proceed. Do you stick or twist?

Our presentation will help you to:

• Analyse the different scenarios where you may be faced with decision-making
• Explore different approaches to assess the risk of sticking or twisting
• Understand the behaviours required to make those decisions and ‘ask for forgiveness’ successfully

Systems Thinking and Business Agility

Most Business Analysts concentrate on processes and technology without spending enough time understanding people and organisations. When we do investigate people and organisations we often reveal different perspectives or interpretations of reality.  Systems Thinking provides us with a rich often counter intuitive set of approaches, tools and models that can help us understand the potential impact of business solutions.

This talk will draw on the theories of a wide range of systems thinkers including Russell Ackoff’s management f-laws e.g. “Improving communication between the parts of an organisation may destroy it!” Changing the culture of organisations can seem like turning the Titanic. Using examples, learnings and reflections from the last 8 years James revisits this session and will argue that the key to Business Agility change lies in understanding how potential solutions will fit into the organisation.

Three key learning points are:

• Creating virtuous circles instead of vicious circles.
• Thinking about the impact of any solution before you start creating it e.g. how people will learn to use it.
• Understanding the cultural context you are working in.

The Business Analyst - From Zero to Heroes

Without doubt, Business Analysts play a crucial part in every project. However, pursuing a successful career as Business Analyst is not always straightforward. Often trainees, graduates and junior Business Analysts suffer from a lack of structure, guidance and mentoring. In a fast-paced project environment, they feel exposed with their day-to-day deliverables and fear they cannot provide the expected level of expertise and support.

In 2017, B&CE was undergoing a period of unprecedented growth in becoming the market leader of auto-enrolment pensions, thus putting further pressure on existing and new processes and controls.

This session provides an honest account of our 12-month journey from having an under-utilised Business Analysis function to developing a confident, trusted and high performing team that the business now actively seeks out as authority of transformation. It sheds light on the good, the bad and the ugly with plenty of ‘hands-on’ pointers for managers and analysts alike.

Attendees will learn:

• Simple techniques to redefine the role of Business Analysts
• How to use an assessment matrix to determine the ‘right’ mix of structure and autonomy for career development
• Lessons learnt from B&CE’s journey to new career paths for their Business Analysts

The Good Requirements Checklist

All Business Analysts have come across various mnemonics and checklists to enable them to write quality requirements or stories.  For example – INVEST is used as criteria for a well written story.  This presentation looks at the techniques to help BAs fulfil such criteria and uses examples from projects that failed to use analysis techniques to meet the criteria of a good requirement.

However, as we move into the world of machine learning and artificial intelligence, are these checklists still relevant?  In fact, how do we even write quality requirements for something when we don’t understand the to-be; for example, when we are building experiments or testing a hypothesis.

The Importance of Diversity in Driving Innovation

Do you want to:

• Promote innovative thinking in your organisation?
• Better understand your client’s needs?
• Improve your organisation’s performance?

As Business Analysts we all know the importance of having soft skills in our toolkit; these might include stakeholder management skills, influencing skills, and creative problem-solving skills, but how much do we actively seek-out and look to leverage the skills that diversity can bring to our teams?

It has been proven that gender and ethnic diversity are clearly correlated with profitability, but women and minorities remain underrepresented (McKinsey). We will therefore look to explore the benefits that true diversity can bring to Business Analysis teams, and highlight the barriers that are still to be overcome. We will delve into how, as a BA community, we can be the drivers of much-needed change, and provide the strategic direction required by our companies to enable us to rise to the challenges faced.

You will take away from this session:

• The benefits that diversity can bring to Business Analysis teams,
• An understanding of the hurdles that are still to be overcome in achieving diversity,
• Methods for driving the improvement in diversity within your business.

Emerging Technology and the BA of the Future

We live in a period of unprecedented and accelerating change; technologies are more advanced and accessible than they ever were, and the data that is produced is increasing in volume and variety, resulting in additional complexity in its application.  With these advancements in the technological and digital revolution, the BA of today needs to consider how they can support these developments in order to become the BA of the future.  Using case studies from Allianz’ future technologies teams, we will consider what new and traditional BA methods and techniques complement our assessment and development of new technologies for Allianz, and what new skills a BA might need to gain to support the future technology state.

We will investigate:

• Geospatial initiatives; driving value from data enrichment and spatial tools
• Smart and emerging technologies
• Investigating how potential solutions can be assessed for multiple business areas
• Provision of analysis at a global and local level

Using Emotional Intelligence to Build a Successful BA Community of Practice

Business Analysts are sometimes an under-used resource in an organisation, which in our view is an incredible waste of talent! One reason for this is that Business Analysis can be perceived as a niche support function within Information Systems; existing simply to engineer requirements and give good documentation. We believe that a vibrant Community of Practice (CoP) can be key to establishing Business Analysis as a centre of mission-critical competence, which sits at the heart, rather than the periphery, of the organisation. But building a successful CoP requires more than energy, commitment and resources, it needs to have INFLUENCE – and Emotional Intelligence is the powerful tool that can help deliver that.

In this practical session you will learn:

• What do we mean by ‘Emotional Intelligence’?
• Why EI is so important for BAs looking to develop their influencing and leadership skills
• How to use EI to build a successful and respected Community of Practice, which delivers value to your organisation

Business Analysis - A Coat of Many Colours

Back in 2012 Lynda discussed whether Business Analysis, Business Process Improvement and Business Change are they the same roles but from different perspectives and whether they are unique roles requiring distinctly different skills and methods?

In 2018 Lynda again discusses the same three roles and their various methods, such as Agile, Lean and Prosci. Lynda will justify why she still believes Business Analysis contains the fundamental skill set that underpins the success of projects, demonstrating multi-faceted skills which makes Business Analysis a coat of many colours. Lynda explains how being a T’shaped Business Analyst is critical in 2018 ensuring successful outcomes including business improvements and cultural change.

By attending this session delegates will:

• Understand different methods and lifecycles underpinning Business Analysis, process improvement and business change
• Understand how BA skills have relevance in business improvement and change jobs.
• Appreciate the benefits of blended skills enabling BAs to be deployed across a broad spectrum of engagements.

Perspective Session - IIBA UK: The BA Community in Conversation

IIBA UK is all about conversations. This is your chance to engage in a discussion with some of the members and volunteers who make up the organisation, to make suggestions, ask questions and hear from a panel of board members about the current and future plans for moving the BA profession forward in the UK and representing your interests.

Keynote: Negotiation - A Process Not an Event

Hostage negotiations are high stake business deals which are usually conducted with unsavoury characters in a difficult context and against the backdrop of a life at risk.  Remarkably there are many similarities between such extreme communication and the day to day negotiations conducted in the workplace on a daily basis.

Based on real life incidents and 25 years experience, the presentation is intended to transfer the skills used by international hostage negotiation experts into the realities of the business environment.

The emphasis of the Keynote speech is on the core elements of negotiation which are strategy and methodology.  It is intended strengthen personal skills and competency with the know-how and confidence essential to achieve successful results whilst maintaining enduring relationships with diverse stakeholders.

Participants in the audience will learn:

• The significant preparation work which should be considered prior to entering into any negotiation.
• The various tactics of influence that can be deployed in order to persuade.
• How to avoid the common mistakes that prevent a satisfactory conclusion.

The Future of Business Analysis

Times are changing at a faster and faster pace and Business Analysis professionals need to understand the changes and how they affect the world around them.  The McKinsey Global Institute identified 12 disruptive technologies that will transform life, business and the global economy in the very near future.

In this interactive session, Jared will review some of the disruptors that will likely affect Business Analysts during their careers as well as discuss the future trends and core concepts in Business Analysis and the outlook on the future for the Business Analysis professional.

Bringing Allies On Board

Allies can be tricky things to bring along on the journey. When you are the Knight of Swords, who rides sword drawn into the howling gale.  How do we make such an energetic solitary figure into the general of an army of allies?  Through tales of battles as the Knight of Swords, some queer theory and practical examples, this tells how to bring the business, stakeholders, and customers into the fray as allies, and keep them connected with the battles.

This is a fun (slightly geeky) high energy talk about how to bring allies along side – using experiences from both working as a Business Analyst and in the world of diversity and inclusion

What people will take away from the session:

• How to bring allies on board
• How to change your style to make that easier
• How to lead from the front with an army behind you

The Art and Science of Lean Change

Business Analysts are often tasked with facilitating change within an organisation. Change is not just about IT systems and process, it is fundamentally about connected people and culture. This provocative presentation will detail how Business Analysts and Lean inspired Business Consultants help facilitate change at the BBC. Attendees will learn how:

• BBC applies Lean principles across IT, TV and support teams
• Data is used to inform decision making by taking opinions out of the conversation
• Individuals and culture are emphasised over processes and tools to effect sustainable change
• Value is maximised through the path of least resistance
• How the role of Business Analysis is changing and expanding outside the auspices of IT departments

The Key to Innovation is Epibration

Innovation is a real buzzword.  Everybody talks about it. But what should you actually do to be innovative? What works and what doesn’t? Well, for the past 30 years scientists all over the world have been researching exactly these questions. However, this valuable knowledge is not being translated or used in the real world. It has been lying in the basements of our universities. With this presentation we want to change that. During this interactive session you will learn some surprising, hands-on insights based on more than 30 years of scientific research on innovation around the world.

What will you learn:

• Why we like to talk about innovation, but don’t do it
• Which factors predict innovation in organisations and teams
• Tips on how to stimulate an innovative culture
• Tips on how to tackle an innovation process

Customer Interview Level 80. Upgrade Yourself

According to Harvard Management Update, 80% of companies believe they deliver superior customer experience, but only 8% of their customers agree with it. What is superior customer experience for you? Is it related to services, products, and attitude? What about a customer interview? Is it enough to make an interview pleasant and engaging for a customer? Are you sure that such an interview will capture customer pain points and deep insights? A speaker who conducted 1000+ interviews will guide you through the effective customer interview process, highlight typical mistakes and boost your confidence as an interviewer.

Learning points of the workshop:

• Discover how to be market-driven and why it is important
• Learn about techniques, best practices, tips and tricks how to build better customer experience and capture customer pain points during the interview and try to use them in practice
• Understand how to apply customer insights to your roadmap and scope

Stakeholder Skills for Drug Busts - Reflections on Dealing with Difficult People in Dangerous Situations

Have you ever had to spring a ‘surprise’ on a stakeholder and you are not entirely sure how their response is going to be? How do you catch someone off guard and still maintain the best chances for a successful outcome? This session provides insights from a former police officer who spent 2 years on a high performing proactive drugs unit. Charlie will take you through the stakeholder lessons learned from the perspective of executing a drugs warrant and cover essential skills on de-escalation in highly charged environments that make the board room battles look like child’s play.

This presentation will provide you with fresh perspectives on helping you to think through stakeholder engagements and challenge you to apply the following principles:

• All about the game plan
• Woosah works
• Use of force and tactical communications

BA Apprenticeships

Apprenticeships are an increasingly attractive option for employers looking for ways to bring fresh talent into their organisation.  There are clear benefits to both the apprentice and the business; for the Business Analysis function, it means they can build a highly motivated workforce who has been trained specifically to meet their organisations’ needs. Allianz have led the way with being the first UK based organisation to take on multiple BA apprentices and the programme has provided a growth opportunity for their entire Business Systems Analysis practice. This session will outline and discuss the benefits and learning insights they have gained from participating in this scheme.

Cecilia and Danielle will discuss how taking on apprentices has:

• Offered experience and education for those at the entry point of their BA career
• Presented growth and development opportunities to experienced analysts
• Provided a stepping stone to new leadership and line management opportunities

Hidden Pitfalls in Modelling

This session will discuss “the not-so-obvious characteristics that can make or break your modelling”. It is about the things you don’t learn in modelling class.

You learn how to model, you watch all the (technical) issues, and create correct diagrams.  And yet, they don’t seem to work, you don’t get the feedback you need.

In the talk Danny will share his experiences where he has learnt the hard way that things like company culture, targeting the right audience, and making the model “look good” play an important part in achieving your modelling goals. A lot of these things you will not learn in modelling training, as these are mostly aimed at creating technically correct models.

Hitting the Ground Running

Projects come, projects go, the only constant is change.  With project lifespans getting shorter and organisations demanding an increasing pace of change in all areas of the business, it’s not just contractors that need to adapt quickly.

Beyond the project initiation documentation, stakeholder lists & RACI matrices … because we all know they’re complete and accurate from day one.  How do you start to make a positive impact when you don’t know the organisation, business processes or people?

Spoiler alert – it’s not magic … it comes down to knowing yourself, having a range of communication styles and finding the right people.

This session will give tips on:

• How to build confidence and credibility quickly
• What to look for and where to look
• Why culture matters
• How to handle mistakes

The Business Analyst as an Innovation Enabler

We talk about innovation all the time but there is often some ambiguity around the term. Within the digital community, what does innovation really signify? Is it innovation always good? How can a BA help to drive innovation within a company?

The session explores how companies are innovating and what are the common mistakes and blockers that prevent them from succeeding.

The success of these companies will depend on how well they interrogate their data, identify and frame the issue, challenge their status quo and define a feasible path to release an innovative solution.

The Business Analyst has a critical role to play within the innovation process: from brainstorming, to inception, to the final release. Asking questions and challenging ideas will help divergent thinking to converge.

The aim of the session is to explore the following questions:

• What is innovation?
• Why is innovation important?
• Is innovation always good?
• What does it take for a company to be innovative?
• What is the role of a Business Analyst in the innovation process?

The answers to the above stated questions will help us define the Innovation Framework

Transform Your Requirements Practice

We all understand there are different flavours of BA Centres of Excellence and it is emerging practice that most organisations have adapted to introduce standardisation, one centre of truth, collaboration, best practices and support for chosen capability areas.

Recently working on implementing Requirements maturity model to benchmark an organisation’s effectiveness in requirements definition and management, Mythili will share how XL Catlin started their journey ,why they adopted Continuous improvement methodology to achieve the results and how they kept the momentum going even after realising the benefits by finding ways to improve further. So in this session we’ll explore

• What was missing in the Requirement practice?
• Benefits of CI approach
• Phases in CI model
• What CI methodology and tools were used?
• How the tools helped to derive the solution?
• Could they close all the gaps?
• Realisation of the benefits

The Iterative Business Analyst – Increasing Insight, Reducing Waste, Delivering Value

In a uncertain economy, iterative delivery is a must if organisations want to reduce the risk of expensive projects failing to grasp and address customer needs.

The iterative Business Analyst has a better understanding than most that assumptions, research and rationale can be misguided or flawed. They add real value though clarifying goals and breaking down requirements in order to release early, get feedback and refine a plan, asking ‘What’s the simplest thing we can do to meet the (perceived) customer need?’ and ‘how can we establish we are on the right track?’  This presentation discusses a number of tried and tested methods and tools that the Business Analyst can use to reduce the amount of wasted analysis and development in order to deliver value quickly, covering :

• Iterative techniques for a variety of projects
• Generating meaningful feedback from end users/customers
• Refining analysis and planning based on feedback

Conference Close

Lucy Ireland, Managing Director, BCS Learning & Development Ltd