Speaking
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BA Life on International Women’s Day
This weekend I was fortunate enough to spend some time in the company of these two special women… From left to right – not including the dogs! – This is Julia Newell and Sally Rogan If you have been following my blog, you will know I wrote about them on International Woman’s Day last year. Borrowing from that blog post… Sally Rogan – UX, User Researcher, Content Designer Having spent the best part of 2 years working with Sally, I’ve learned so much from her calm and perceptive nature. She has a fantastic ability to empathise with a customer and instinctively know when to say the right thing and when…
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Get ready for BALIFE2022!
Happy New Year to everyone …and what a great year it’s going to be with BALIFE2022 just five short months away. By 26th May 2022, the sun will be shinning… (well, hopefully! We do live in Scotland and in the month of May the sun is never guaranteed) …the nights will be lighter, and we’ll be full of enthusiasm for a day full of expectation, learning and innovation. The success of BALIFE 2021 Last year, 2021, saw us complete our first BALIFE event and, despite having to ‘go virtual’ thanks to Covid, it was a great success. And don’t just take my word for it, here is what some of…
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To BA or not to BA? …that is the question
In mid-September, my colleague Gary Cockburn and I will be running an interactive workshop at the European BA Conference called “Virtual Pace, Virtual Space”. Creating this talk has inevitably lead to the age-old discussion which can be best characterised by a question like ‘Is there still a place for a Business Analyst in this new seemingly more technical world of virtual development, online companies and in some cases online products?’ Naturally, as a BA my answer is going to be a resounding YES! FACT: Remote working and the new virtual world is increasing the distance between the customer (end-user) and the business. This means getting closer to your customer and…
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What have you done lately?
I think it’s fair to say, I’ve been a little busy recently… The other day I looked out at my poor old garden and thought “I must plant something, add some colour. Now spring (or summer) has finally reached Scotland, it’s time”… Well… that had to wait a little longer because if I was going to be in any fit state for the next day, I needed to rest. Having worked the previous 3 weekends, I needed to put my feet up. After all, those feet of mine were going to be important for the events of the next day… The Edinburgh Half Marathon On Sunday 30th May, I woke…
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Guest Post: Two BAs and a camera!
This week I have a guest blog from my good friend and fellow BALIFE committee member Julia Newell. This follows on from my recent blog charting our BALIFE journey together… but is a little more fun, see what you think… From Julia… How do you prepare for being interviewed and filmed? What do you wear? How do you calm the nerves? Have I practised enough? How bad will the stuttering be? What will people think when they see it? All of these questions and more were going through my head as I got ready one Saturday morning to be filmed for my interview presentation for BALIFE2021 on 3rd June. The…
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The clock is ticking down to BALIFE2021!
So here we are 43 days, 21 hours, 59 minutes and so many seconds away from launching our first-ever “Business Analysis Learning and Innovation Festival Edinburgh” …aka BALIFE. By the time you read this blog, who knows, maybe it’ll be 40 days or even 35 days and so many hours and minutes! It’s as if time has started to accelerate! As I write this a group of volunteers, with full-time jobs of our own, are currently up to our necks in extra work. To get this, our very first BA learning festival in a day, off the ground. And we couldn’t be happier, because today all our hard work starts…
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Do Business Analysts add value?
Back in July 2020, I had the great privilege of taking part in an online panel discussion hosted by BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT. At the time the discussion was ‘Is Business Analysis still relevant?’ (you can check it out for yourself here). Well, that turned out to be BCS’s most successful webinar and so along with that expert panel we were invited back on the 25th November 2020 to debate the intricacies of Business Analysis some more. Specifically, what value do BAs add – and what should they add? It was a 30-minute debate finishing with 15 minutes at the end for the panel to take questions. My fellow panellists were:…
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Webinar: Do Business Analysts add value?
Once again, very proud to be asked to join BCS for another business analysis panel webinar on Wednesday 25th November 2020. This time the subject is about how BAs add value and the esteemed panel is: Click HERE and register now for the follow-up to our last very well received expert panel discussion. See you there!
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What turns a good Business Analyst into a great BA?
On Monday night, having been asked by Adrian Reed from Blackmetrics, I was delighted to do a live interview on his monthly #BAFinge event. For those of you who haven’t seen this, it’s a monthly live stream show looking at items on the fringes of Business Analysis. Truly a wonderful source for the latest thinking and ideas in the BA community. It was great to be asked to do the show, and if I’m honest I was a bit nervous… That said, I did hear once that this is a good thing – if you feel a little nervous, do not be alarmed, it means your body is letting you know…
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The T-Shaped BA
Almost a year ago, in November 2019, I took part in a panel discussion looking at the multi-skilled BA. My mini presentation focused on a topic we are all beginning to know well, the T-Shaped BA. Mercilessly re-using (well, I am a BA!) some artifacts from my presentation on “No BA is an Island” I pulled together a few colourful slides to get the message across. You can grab a copy from the download section.
