In this special BA Conference Europe BA Brew, AssistKD CEO Debra Paul is joined by three BA Conference legends: Shane McGlynn, Rachel Levermore, and James Archer (who started the ball rolling in the first place!)

The BA Conference Europe is Europe’s foremost Business Analysis conference, which has evolved over the past 16 years to over 500 attendees and 6 streams of talks.

This BA Brew celebrates:

• the dedication and enthusiasm of the Advisory Board who tune in to the latest thinking and different perspectives

• everyone behind the scenes who helps to make this wonderful conference happen

• the bravery of new speakers, stepping up for their first ever BA Conference presentations

• and most of all, the amazing BA community

Topics discussed include: how the conference has grown, kept current and pushed boundaries; inspirational speakers over the years; memorable moments… and more.

#BA2024 #ProfessionalGrowth #BASkills #Networking #BusinessConference #BAConferenceEurope #businessanalyst #servicedesign #servicedesigner #BA

Are you an Activist, a Theorist, a Pragmatist or a Reflector? Our latest BA Brew could help you find out and get the most from your learning.

The Brew Crew are joined by former Apprentice and now BA at the Environment Agency Cat Warren to talk about some of the different learning models (Kolb, Bloom and Honey and Mumford).

They look at how the different learning approaches work with training courses, course manuals and eLearning and explore how understanding other people’s different learning styles helps with facilitation and stakeholder engagement.

The following resources are relevant to the learning models mentioned in this podcast:

Kolb’s Learning Styles

The Honey and Mumford Learning Model

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning

You can find quick overviews of how to use Mind Maps and Rich pictures in the Bitesize Videos section of the AssistKD Learning Zone.

#learningstyles #elearning #businesstrainingcourses #businessanalysis #servicedesign #kolb #honeyandmumford #bloomstaxonomy #learning #training #businesstraining

Daniel Squire and Jonathan Hunsley are passionate about business analysis… and martial arts (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Taekwondo respectively). In this fascinating BA Brew, they discuss some of the misconceptions about martial arts and the many parallels between the disciplines.  

Topics include: situational awareness; control, discipline and practice; inclusivity and respect... and much more.  

Daniel Squire is Principal Business Analyst at Just Eat. 

If you enjoyed this BA Brew you may be interested in ‘The Black Belt BA’ article in our Learning Zone, based on a talk of the same name given by Jonathan Hunsley.

And you can find Daniel Squire’s article ‘Mind Meets Mat: The Digital Dojo’ here.

In... or out? This BA Brew looks at the differences and common ground between the in-house and the external BA consultant roles.  

Our special guest is Liz Calder, highly experienced BA and IIBA UK Chapter President.  

Topics covered include: different agreements and expectations; skills sets; organisational culture and implicit rules; organisational knowledge; financial considerations; investing in your skills and knowledge... and much more. 

#BAconsultancy #internalBA #businessanalyst #businessanalysis #BA #businessconsultant #IIBA #BAskills #businessanalysisconsultancy #stakeholderengagement #organisationalculture  

When business analysts work at one organisation for a long time, they can lose sight of their value and transferable skills. They may even find it difficult to move on. This BA Brew In this BA Brew Chris Pyatt talks about how BAs can regain their professional confidence.

Topics covered include: the ‘comfort zone’ of subject matter and organisational expertise; the skills you have which you may take for granted; taking the ‘leap of faith’; engaging with the BA community; the value of training, certification and mentoring and much more.

Chris Pyatt, BA at DWP Digital, first talked about ‘The Institutionalised BA’ at the BA Conference Europe 2023.

Neurodiversity is a word we hear, but how much do we really understand it and recognise neurodivergence in ourselves and others? Only by better understanding can we support and champion people with neurodiversity and appreciate what they can offer the BA community. In this awareness-raising BA Brew, guests Nicola Pinkney and Paul Haywood share some personal insights and helpful tips.

You can find AssistKD’s recent article based on Nicola and Paul’s inspiring talk at BA Conference Europe 2023 here.

Helpful organisations:

Daisy Chain (Autism and Neurodiversity Support)

Mind (Mental Health Charity)

S4Nd (Society for Neurodiversity)

The Brain Charity (Neurological Support)

Editor Tom found this BA Brew ‘mind-blowing’ and we think you will too. If you have ever felt ‘put in your box’ as a BA, you need to hear what Enterprise Architect and Strategy Delivery Consultant Vicky Rothwell has to say.

Vicky challenges business analysts to push for a strategic role, to be bold with our BA toolkits and to build our understanding of business architecture and service design.

Topics covered in this BA Brew include:

• The overlap between the business architecture and business analysis toolkits.
• The rise of the strategic business analyst.
• Business architecture as an opportunity for BAs.
• Self-limiting beliefs and how to resist being put in the ‘BA Box’.
• Why business analysts, business architects and service designers are a powerful alliance.
• The capability lens and the value proposition.
• Responding to business events.
• Microservices and macroservices.

Vicky Rothwell works as Strategy Lead at Airelogic Limited.

You may enjoy the following BA Brews:

BA Brew 22: Business Architecture (Feat. Wouter Nieuwenburg) BA Brew 22: Business Architecture (Feat. Wouter Nieuwenburg) - YouTube

BA Brew 42 Business Analysts - Leaders or Followers? (Feat. Emily Tom) BA Brew 42 Business Analysts - Leaders or Followers? (Feat. Emily Tom) - YouTube

BA Brew 46: Business Service Design BA Brew 46: Business Service Design - YouTube

BA Brew Episode 50: Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone BA Brew 50: Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone (Feat. Producer Tom) - YouTube

For all the latest business analysis, business change and service design content, including bitesize learning videos, please like, subscribe and share this podcast.

#businessanalysis #businessanalyst #businessarchitecture #enterprisearchitecture #businessstrategy #PESTLE #VMOST #SWOT #requirements #requirementsengineering #servicedesign #designthinking #userstories #usecases #outcomesfocus #technologyarchitecture #businessoutcomes #leadership

It took Ian Richards and Filip Hendrickx five days and an entire wall of Post-It notes to create the storyline for the business novel Brainy Glue. It then took them three years to write it, around their many commitments. In this BA Brew, Filip and Ian talk about the main themes explored in the novel – business analysis, innovation and change… and how they managed to weave 25 BA techniques into the 52 chapters.

Topics discussed include: Understanding people’s drivers to inform stakeholder engagement; co-creating change; bringing the BA role to life in novel form and more.

Ian Richards is BA Director at Peregrine and a member of the BCS BA Leadership board. Filip Hendrickx is a global speaker, President of the IIBA Brussels chapter and founder of Altershape.

You can read the first sixteen chapters of Brainy Glue for FREE, on www.brainyglue.com and buy the book direct from the website. You can also order the book in paperback or Kindle form on Amazon.

Love to learn? You might enjoy our bitesize learning playlist – short videos explaining key BA tools and techniques.

Plan for success in your BA career with AssistKD’s FREE Career Planner tool.

For all the latest business analysis, business change and service design content, including bitesize learning videos, please like, subscribe and share this podcast.

This BA Brew is AssistKD’s second BA Question Time. Many of the questions focus on role clarity, a hot topic for BAs. Mike Williams is host, with expert panellists Jo Frances and Jonathan Hunsley providing the answers and insights.

This week’s questions are:

❓What is the difference between a Business Analyst and a Business Architect?

❓What is the difference between a Business Analyst and a Service Designer?

❓How can a growth mindset support change professionals in general?

❓ What are the overlaps between a Business Analyst and a Functional Analyst?

Do you have a question our the next BA Question Time? If so, please email us on BABrew@AssistKD.com or post on our wall on Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn.

The following BA Brews and articles are relevant to the topics discussed:

This article on Business Analysis and Business Architecture is based on the workshop run by Victoria Banner and Jonathan Hunsley at the BA Manager Forum in June 2024.

This is an interesting BA Brew on Business Architecture.

BA Brew 22: Business Architecture (Feat. Wouter Nieuwenburg)

This article compares the BA Service Framework and the Service Design Service Framework and addressed the ‘grey area’ between the roles.

This book review is relevant to the growth mindset.

This output from the BA Manager Forum provides some useful information on the growth mindset.

#businessanalysis #businessanalyst #baqt #growthmindset #businessarchitecture #businessarchitect #servicedesign #servicedesigner #functionalanalyst #dataarchitecture #roleclarity

In AssistKD’s 2023 BA Brew Christmas message, the Crew compare their favourite Christmas songs and share their highlights of the year.

This week we welcome two very special guests aboard the good ship BA Brew. 🏴‍☠️Novelist Julie Walker shares the incredible story of notorious female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read while facilitator, speaker and author Alex Barker encourages us to learn from the Be More Pirate’s pirate code (see below). Are you brave enough to find your inner pirate and challenge the status quo?

Topics discussed include: what motivated Ann Bonny and Mary Read to challenge the norms; the freedom and equality of the pirate life; how the Pirate Code and questioning rules applies to innovation and change; the power of collaborative rule setting and collective values; the impact of lockdown on attitudes to leadership and more.

🏴‍☠️ HOW TO BE MORE PIRATE 🏴‍☠️

1. Rebel – but not for the sake of it. 2. Rewrite – bend, break but most importantly, rewrite the rules. 3. Reorganise – collaborate to achieve scale rather than growth…small is beautiful. 4. Redistribute – fight for fairness, share power, and make an enemy of exploitation. 5. Retell – weaponize your story and ‘tell the hell’ out of it.

Further reading:

How To: Be More Pirate: Amazon.co.uk: Conniff, Sam, Barker, Alex: 9781916052345: Books

Bonny & Read: The stunning new feminist historical novel for 2022: Amazon.co.uk: Walker, Julie: 9781529395723: Books

If you’re concerned about the impact of Artificial Intelligence on your business or your job, this BA Brew is a must-watch. Debra Paul and Pete Thompson discuss the benefits, risks and opportunities with Donald Farmer – one of the foremost thinkers, researchers and presenters in the field.

Topics discussed include: automating processes; cost savings; intellectual property; caring about the human element; inherent bias in AI; the need for new requirements; mitigating for unexpected adverse effects and more.

Donald Farmer is a visionary data and analytics strategist with over 30 years’ experience designing data and analytics products. He has led teams at Microsoft and Qlik Technologies and is now the Principal of TreeHive Strategy where he advises software vendors, enterprises and investors on data and advanced analytics strategy.

FURTHER RESOURCES

This short article lists the top takeaways from Donald Farmer’s talk at the Business Change and Transformation Conference Europe: Generative AI and Business Strategy: Innovation or Imitation?

You may also be interested in the following articles and BA Brews on AI:

Articles:

AI Alchemy: Turning Change into Gold

AI and the Business Analysis Role

Book Review of Hello World by Hannah Fry

BA Brews:

Business Analysis and AI

The AI Brew

#AI #artificialintelligence #AIautomation #requirements #dataanalytics #dataanalysis #businesschange #servicedesign

How can you make your customers or end users feel real, empathise with them and better understand what they really want and need? In this Brew Kerry, Mike and Pete discuss the power of Personas, and how BAs can create and use them effectively.

The chat covers: what are Personas; avoiding stereotypes; customer research; using photos and names; how Personas link to other techniques such as User Stories and Empathy Mapping; and more.

If you’re interested in Personas you may be interested in watching AssistKD’s recent Service Design webinar on ‘Roles, personas and customer journeys: challenges and misconceptions’. You can find it on our YouTube channel here.

Our latest BA Brew guest is the wonderful Fae Marcano, Business Analyst of the Year 2022. In this episode Fae and the crew talk about how they became business analysts and their experiences of the BA of the Year awards.

Topics include: how Fae, Jonathan and Lisa became BAs; the ‘why’ of becoming a BA; the Business Analyst of the Year experience and why it’s worth entering; the joys of networking and knowledge sharing; why mentoring matters; promoting the BA role and much more.

Fae may well inspire you to apply for the BA of the Year award yourself!

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and face-to-face) and e-learning courses.

Can a book really change the way you work, or even how you look at life? The Brew Crew certainly think so. Watch this podcast to hear about the books that have made them think differently, and that they return to again and again for inspiration.

Topics discussed include: how our reading choices evolve; people taking away different messages from the same book; books on self-awareness and mindset; books about dealing with change; insights from works of fiction; books with practical tips, frameworks and methodologies; consolidating learning by watching talks by authors on YouTube;

Here is a list of the books recommended in this episode:

📖 Reengineering the Corporation by Michael Hammer and James Champy

📖 Mindset by Dr Carole S. Dweck

📖 Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Dr Julie Smith

📖 Who Moved My Cheese? by Dr Spencer Johnson

📖 Atomic Habits by James Clear

📖 Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed

📖 Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury

📖 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

You can also find a list of AssistKD publications here.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and face-to-face) and e-learning courses.

The new series of the BA Brew kicks off with a cracker of an episode. Author, life coach and business consultant Byron Morrison challenges us to learn from the CEO mindset in order to reach our full potential in life and in business. It’s inspiring stuff.

Topics covered include: the decision framework; thinking holistically; risk aversion; the value of trying and failing; maintaining momentum vs. staying in your comfort zone; energy management; reflection; self-awareness and more.

Byron Morrison is the author of bestselling business books The Effective CEO and Think Like a CEO.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and face-to-face) and e-learning courses.

#ceo #mindset #success #businessanalysis #leadership #goals

It’s our 50th BA Brew! To celebrate this momentous milestone Producer Tom finally steps out from behind the camera… but he’s not sure how comfortable he feels about it.

From taking up bee-keeping to playing music on an open mic night the Crew share how they’ve stepped out of their respective comfort zones. And they discuss some useful strategies, including some from the business analysis toolkit.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and face-to-face) and e-learning courses.

It’s the last BA Brew of 2022 and this one’s incredibly inspiring. Coach, speaker, psychotherapist and mental health consultant Petra Velzeboer shares her extraordinary story and talks to the Brew Crew about looking after our mental wellbeing and how we can ‘check in’ with friends, family and colleagues.

Topics covered include: Growing up in a religious cult; the recent rise in depression and anxiety; connection and a sense of belonging; taking small steps out of your comfort zone; setting boundaries; habit stacking; reflection vs. rumination; normalising talking about mental health; the work-life balance and much more.

Petra’s new book Begin with You: Invest in Your Mental Health and Satisfaction at Work is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Mike Williams mentions VMOST. You can find a Business Alchemist’s blog which mentions this technique here.

You can find the NHS list of emergency mental health helplines here.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and face-to-face) and e-learning courses.

Now you can get everyone on the same page… literally. Chris Ingold joins the Brew Crew all the way from Melbourne to share his passion for the ‘one pager’.

Topics covered include: The power of the one pager; A3 management; establishing the ‘why’ and the purpose; the misuse of small fonts and overcrowded PowerPoint slides; the one pager as a validation document; compatible BA techniques including Timelines, Scope, Process Mapping, Capability Maps, User Story Maps, the Value Chain and the ‘How Now Brown Cow’ technique.

Chris Ingold is a digital expert, change agent and Head of Solutions Design at ReadyTech.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and face-to-face) and e-learning courses.

What is your ‘Why?’. In this inspiring BA Brew, Joe Newbert joins the Crew to talk about how we can create purpose and meaning in our personal and professional lives.

Topics covered include: Jacob Morgan’s framework for purpose and meaning; values driven leadership; bringing our personal purpose and meaning to work; finding consensus on purpose and values; intent-based leadership and helping others to find their purpose and meaning.

The books recommended in this BA Brew are: The Future Leader by Jacob Morgan; Start with Why by Simon Sinek and The 8th Habit by Stephen R. Covey.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and face-to-face) and e-learning courses.

What is Business Service Design and is it the next big thing? If you’re curious about this powerful new human-centred approach you will be interested in this BA Brew where Jonathan, Kerry and Kate share their thoughts on the subject.

Topics covered include: Systems, Service, Design and Lean Thinking; Business Service Design tools, frameworks, techniques and more.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s Service Design courses.

This BA Brew is all about bravery, asking what bravery is and how we can develop it. Charlie Payne and Kay Hardy join the Brew Crew to try to answer these questions and more. The discussion includes: how elements of police training can also apply to business analysis; a great skiing analogy; building resilience; psychological safety; power poses; and more.

During the BA Brew, Amy Cuddy’s TED talk Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are is referenced, and also her book Presence.

#businessanalysis #businessanalyst #bravery #challenging #businesschange #bodylanguage #managingstakeholders #designthinking #BA

AssistKD’s Kate Biddle joins us for today’s BA Brew, her first as part of the Crew. It’s a good one, discussing how to break those bad habits and build positive behaviours instead.

Topics covered include: the power of habits; self awareness; the habit loop; habit stacking; planning ahead; good BA habits and the value of moral support from friends, colleagues and family.

Books recommended during the podcast are The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, Atomic Habits by James Clear and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and in house) and e-learning courses.

It just takes one person to gather people together to help each other. Today the Brew Crew chat with Lou Powell about how she set up and grew the BA Crowd, a Meet Up group for her local BA community.

Topics covered include: the value of community, how to get sponsorship, finding speakers and more.

Louise Powell is a Senior Business Analyst at BGL Insurance and Co-founder of the BA Crowd. AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and in house) and e-learning courses.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you’ve thought ‘You just could not make this up’? Today Jonathan, Mike and Lisa discuss their experiences as customers and as business analysts. They range from the sublime (luxurious upgrade, anyone?) to the ridiculous (a multi-million pound project with no agreed scope… two years in).

Hear about Jonathan’s nightmare coach journey, Lisa’s broadband switch horror and Mike’s discovery of a business process involving a rubber-stamp and a shredder. You won’t be disappointed!

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and in house) and e-learning courses.

Are BAs leaders or followers? Jonathan, Debbie and guest Emily Tom explore this challenging question in today’s BA Brew.

Topics discussed include: the importance of context; why BAs are more than scribes or translators; the new vs. the mature BA; lifelong learning; giving back to the BA community; growing your skillset and challenging stakeholders.

Regional Director of IIBA Americas Northeast region, Emily Tom is a senior consultant with over 18 years’ experience in business analysis and business change.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and in house) and e-learning courses.

Have you heard about job crafting? It’s where you make small changes to and personalise your role to make the most of your strengths, passions and experiences. Charlotte Axon is an expert on the subject and shares her wisdom in this first BA Brew of the new season.

Topics discussed include: the five types of job crafting; self-actualisation and job crafting in the face of the Great Resignation.

Charlotte is Lead People Scientist at Tailored Thinking, a positive psychology, well-being and HR consultancy. For more advice, a free downloadable guide to job crafting and other useful resources such as the job canvas for developing your role and career, visit their website.

Job crafting is discussed in Delivering Business Analysis: The BA Service handbook.

Christina also explores why job crafting for is so relevant for business analysts in her BA Times article Job Crafting for BAs.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. View AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and in house) and e-learning courses here

In this latest BA Brew, the Brew Crew debate the value of data. Jonathan plays the role of Devil’s Advocate… can Debbie and Pete convince him that data is more than simply a means to an end?

Topics discussed include: why data is fascinating; what data tells us; the difference between data and information; metadata; quantitative vs. qualitative data; data models; ethics and more.

Participants: AssistKD’s Jonathan Hunsley, Debra Paul and Pete Thompson.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and in house) and e-learning courses.

If you want to see Mike Williams wearing a very bad wig and (later on) a horse’s head, you won’t want to miss this extra entertaining BA Brew. Georgiana Mannion, known for her ‘Playful BA’ talks, very generously shares her inspirational ideas on how to bring play, fun and games into your BA practice.

Topic discussed include: how to energise a Teams meeting; branding your BA team; flipping the process-mapping process on its head; engaging exercises to generate ideas and solve problems; moving furniture around in the boardroom; using Lego and other tools for solution architecture, change management and coaching and whether it’s possible to have too much fun as a team.

Participants: AssistKD’s Mike Williams and Debra Paul with Georgiana Mannion – consultant, speaker, thought leader and an IIBA ‘BA to Watch 2022’.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and in house) and e-learning courses.

Moon, Rose, Fish is the English translation of Maan, Roos, Vis, a well known Dutch phrase connected to the early stages of learning to read and write. It’s the equivalent of ‘A, B, C’.

In this episode the Brew Crew discuss the value of having a mental checklist of the basic elements when looking at the requirements of an IT system. Moon or Maan stands for the data model, Rose or Roos stands for how things look, the User Interface and Fish or Vis stands for the activities, rules and process changes to be specified in any IT system.

Pete, Jonathan and Danny discuss the importance of getting the fundamentals right; why some BAs struggle with data; the danger of assuming a data model has been fully thought through; how to present data in an understandable way; using scenario analysis and prototyping to explore whether the data model is adaptable to the business needs; the use of tools such as the information concept model and more.

Participants: AssistKD’s Pete Thompson and Jonathan Hunsley, with Danny Kalkhoven, Business Analyst, Trainer and Consultant at VNG via Le Blanc Academy. Danny is also a keen amateur photographer with an international reputation.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and in house) and e-Learning courses.

As BAs and business change professionals, how can we make an impact in our organisations and the wider business analysis community? That’s the question the Crew tackle in today’s BA Brew, with the help of our guest Christina Tan (and freshly brewed coffee or tea of course).

Topics covered include: Leaving a legacy; making an impact on multiple levels; the purpose of the BA; giving and receiving support, ideas and learning through the wider BA community; the value of curiosity.

During the pod, the book ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen Covey is mentioned.

Participants: AssistKD’s Jonathan Hunsley and Mike Williams, with Christina Tan, Director of IIBA UK.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and in-house) and E-learning courses.

IIBA UK is the membership organisation for business analysts in the UK and is run entirely by volunteers.

This week, the Brew Crew are joined by guest Niven Postma, author of the highly acclaimed book If You Don’t Do Politics, Politics Will Do You.

“If you think your work speaks for itself… Think again.” Niven and the crew discuss how, whether we like it or not, we all have to navigate office politics. Niven shares her valuable tips, leaving the crew wishing that the book was available at the start of their careers.

Participants: AssistKD’s Mike Williams and Lisa Hudson with Niven Postma, Author and Lecturer on office politics.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and in-house) and E-learning courses.

If you are interested in Agile, you won’t want to miss this. This BA Brew is all about the second edition of ‘Agile Business Analysis: Practical guidance for IT professionals’ by Lynda Girvan and Debra Paul.

Watch as the authors discuss what readers can expect from the revised and updated edition, including:

⭐ the latest Agile developments

⭐ new techniques

⭐ new thinking

⭐ real-life case-studies where experienced practitioners share challenges and lessons learned.

The wide-ranging discussion covers organisational agility and the role of the BA; the relevance of the Agile Manifesto; how to apply Agile in an informed and relevant way; the increased focus on the customer and much more.

#agile #IT #businessanalysis #businessanalyst #businesschange #digital #agilebusinessanalysis

This week the Brew Crew are joined by guest Jamie Toyne, who explains how he has adapted the BA Service Framework to define and promote the services offered by his BA team.

Topics covered include: how the BA Service Framework was developed (Debbie’s ‘lightbulb moment’); creating a common language to define the BA role; the shift from product focus to a service level view and the importance of “setting out your stall’ and selling your BA services.

Participants: AssistKD’s Debra Paul and Mike Williams with Jamie Toyne, Digital Leader and Head of Business Analysis at the Ministry of Justice.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and in-house) and E-learning courses.

For more on the BA Service Framework, read ‘Delivering Business Analysis: The BA Service Handbook’ by Debra Paul and Christina Lovelock.

‘Creating a BA Service Definition’ summarises Chris Pyatt’s talk at the BA Conference 2021

And you can take our FREE course ‘Introducing the BA Service Framework’ on AssistKD’s Learning Zone.

Fuelled by freshly made coffee, Steve Wright and the Brew Crew discuss the difference between functional and non-functional requirements; why it pays to have non-functional requirements on the agenda from the start; the joy of checklists and more.

During the chat Pete Thompson recommends the book Software Requirements Patterns by Stephen Withall, for its useful contextual checklists.

Participants: AssistKD’s Mike Williams and Pete Thompson with Steve Wright, Business Analysis Mentor and Trainer at Reflect Ltd.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and in house) and online courses.

In today’s BA Brew, our Crew talk with Sarah Gale about developing core business analysis skills, and how to use BA tools and techniques with confidence.

Topics covered include softer skills including communication, relationship building and listening skills; business architecture; customer experience analysis and design thinking; mentoring and coaching; the need for BAs to sell their services; skills frameworks such as the Business Analysis Competency Model®; how to develop BA skills and which skills are transferable.

During the chat, Jonathan mentions the book ‘Mindset’ by Carol Dweck.

Participants: AssistKD’s Jonathan Hunsley and Kerry Adams with Sarah Gale, Software Asset Management Lead at SSE plc. Sarah was a 2018 finalist of the IIBA (UK) Business Analyst of the Year Award, was the second person to complete the BCS Advanced International Diploma in Business Analysis and is a member of the Business Analyst Manager’s Forum.  

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and in house) and online courses.

Karl Wiegers is back! In this latest BA Brew, Karl and the crew discuss his new book ‘Software Development Pearls: Lessons from Fifty Years of Software Experience’.

Topics include quality (including Karl’s experience of 9th grade woodworking, where he learnt an important lesson about taking the time to ‘do it right’); estimating the time a project will take; the user centred vs. product centred approach to requirements; the value of the peer review process (setting the ego aside) and the necessity of multiple iterations in both requirements and design.

Participants: AssistKD’s Jonathan Hunsley and Mike Williams with Karl Wiegers, software developer, requirements analyst, quality engineer, consultant, trainer and author of books including ‘The Thoughtless Design of Everyday Things’ and now ‘Software Development Pearls’

You can buy ‘Software Development Pearls’ here.

AssistKD provides training, apprenticeships and consultancy services throughout the UK and internationally. Click here to view AssistKD’s extensive choice of classroom (virtual and in house) and online courses.