Packaged software implementations can go extremely well, delivering excellent, even transformational, results. Other times… not so much. The speaker has seen enterprises of all types spend vast amounts of money selecting and implementing purchased software - US$3B in the most extreme case! And after all that expense, it simply doesn’t work, or works so poorly the organisation is worse off than before. When he’s called in to assist with “project recovery,” Alec finds the factors leading to these failures are surprisingly consistent, and almost always surprising. They also generally apply to bespoke solution development.

Tune in to this brief, virtual presentation to learn the reasons behind these failures, and to learn practical tips and techniques to help achieve successful implementations. Everything will be backed up by examples from the speaker’s global consulting experience, including:

• How one of the world’s most admired companies spent $1B on an implementation and achieved worse performance;
• The case of the public institution that spent $80M configuring cloud-based HR and Payroll software, had nothing to show for it, and how the situation was resolved;
• On a brighter note, how a manufacturer applied one of the techniques we’ll discuss (over the software vendor’s objections!) and became a global showcase account.

Business Analysts are notable by their absence from most writing on Agile. Scrum introduces the Product Owner and some think this a disguised BA but some think the PO is completely different. And what of the increasingly popular Product Manager role?

BAs are quite common in agile working, if anything agile increases the work BAs normally do: talking to stakeholders, analysing needs, assessing business value and evaluating post development impact. No wonder many BAs find themselves confused.

In this presentation Allan Kelly will try to make sense of this heady mix and help BAs define their place in the agile world.

• BAs with Product Owners and BAs as Product Owners
• How BAs add value in agile teams
• 4 Things every Product Owner needs

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a fly on the wall, while some of the most interesting people in our profession chat over drinks after work? If you answered yes, you'll love "Analysts After Work", a weekly live stream on YouTube. Each week, host Vincent Mirabelli welcomes business analysts, project managers, and everything in between, to trade stories and laughs over a beverage or two.

Intrigued? Then enjoy this BA & Beyond special "Analysts After Amsterdam" conference edition!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a fly on the wall, while some of the most interesting people in our profession chat over drinks after work? If you answered yes, you'll love "Analysts After Work", a weekly live stream on YouTube. Each week, host Vincent Mirabelli welcomes business analysts, project managers, and everything in between, to trade stories and laughs over a beverage or two.

Intrigued? Then enjoy this BA & Beyond special "Analysts After Brussels" conference edition!

Cybersecurity is one of the most important areas in todays corporate life. The fast-growing need to help companies mitigate their risk has created some new approaches for business analysts who possess the hard and soft skills needed to develop and maintain “built-in” security in the life of product development.

In this talk we will present one of our case studies where we combine Product-Lifecycle Management (PLM) end-to-end process with cybersecurity risks points and created a specific checklist for business analysts and security managers to identify the potential risk steps, task, environments, equipment or relations within the process. Based on that we even went further and planned the appropriate (the best possible) protection scenario and internal procedures to detect, respond and recover in case of cybersecurity breach.

This case will clearly present that BA and business analysis are playing a key role in helping organizations prevent a cyber-attack and to build in security into every single step in product design, development, production, assembly, delivery, integration, deployment, support and maintenance and finally recycling.

Key topics of this presentation:

• Introduction to Cybersecurity from PLM process point of view
• PLM Cybersecurity Concepts
• PLM risk management and controls
• How to put in place in daily operations

Business analysis professionals are excellent at collecting and analyzing large amounts of information, but executives don’t have time (or interest) in knowing it all. To better communicate with your managers, directors, executives, and consulting clients you need to determine which information they really want and how best to present it. You should make clear recommendations and be prepared to answer questions; helping your executives to make good decisions. This session will provide useful tactics and examples for communicating the right information in the best way.

Key Messages

• Figure out exactly what your leader needs to know
• Choose key messages to present and wait for questions to provide details
• Make recommendations; making decisions easy for the executive

The term ‘Cybersecurity’ is one of the buzzwords these days and equally misunderstood and sometimes not-understood due to its expansive landscape.

With the increasing horizon in the operating models and ‘internet of things,’ there is an increase in vulnerabilities and cyber-attacks. The more technology expands, the more vulnerable the ecosystem gets, and therefore making security robust is imperative. Global Market Insights reports that security breaches are up 67% over the past five years, and the Cybersecurity industry will be worth over $300bn by 2024. Who can fix this?

This is everyone’s responsibility. Irrespective of the roles and responsibilities that we have, we can help organisations better manage their Cyber risk. However, Business Analysts should initiate this as catalysts, mid-level leaders and trusted advisors. The presenter, who is also the co-author of the IIBA Cybersecurity Business Analysis Certification and exam writer, will share strategies and methodologies to address this mammoth Cyber-world issues, and you’ll take away approaches to implement today in the ever-expanding new landscape.

Bij aanvang van de transitie naar een Agile-werkwijze werd developers een omgeving in het vooruitzicht gesteld, waarin hun talenten optimaal worden ingezet om waardevolle producten te ontwikkelen en service te verlenen. Een dynamische omgeving waarin teams de ruimte krijgen om zichzelf, producten en services verder te ontwikkelen. In de praktijk blijkt dat er een aantal ontwikkelingen zijn waardoor het leren, experimenteren en innoveren wordt beperkt.

Tijdens deze sessie bespreekt Boris Schouten waarom de ruimte voor de teams om zich te ontwikkelen veelal beperkt is en wat je als Business Analist kunt doen om die ruimte te vergroten. Hij gaat daarbij in op de samenwerking met het management, stakeholders en het ontwikkelteam. In die samenwerking wordt gezocht naar de balans tussen de vereiste snelheid en voorspelbaarheid van opleveren enerzijds en de optimalisatie van de kwaliteit en waarde van de opgeleverde producten en services anderzijds.

Zijn conclusie: het is niet eenvoudig om de ruimte voor leren, experimenteren en innoveren te krijgen én te benutten. Het is hard werken om slim te kunnen werken!

In today’s ever-changing business environment, teams new tools and models to operate in a more flexible, discovery-driven world. Design Thinking has emerged as a successful methodology that organizations use to approach problem-solving and delivery of innovative solutions that delight their customers. In this interactive session, you will learn the benefits of incorporating Design Thinking methodologies on projects for increased customer alignment and business impact.

This workshop provides participants with a high-level overview of Design Thinking methods and tools. The presenter will use case studies to show how to successfully integrate design methods into projects with lessons learned and unique outcomes.

At the conclusion of the session, you will be able to:

• Identify and apply Design Thinking techniques for improving benefits realization and project success,
• Describe the benefits of incorporating design methodologies on projects for increased customer alignment and business impact, and
• Illustrate multiple design-thinking tools that could benefit current or future projects.

If you desire more information on design thinking, here is a full list of resources.

Would you like to "wow" your senior leadership with your presentation skills? If yes, this session will help you learn a proven 7-Step preparation process that will set you up for success to deliver presentations to an executive audience. This session will demonstrate how to design and deliver information more effectively at the senior level and enhance your preparedness for leadership. Leave the session with a solid understanding of the 7-Step process to craft impactful executive presentations.

At the conclusion of the session, participants should be able to:

• Describe how executive presentations are nearly opposite the ordinary experience,
• Learn a 7-Step presentation preparation process to ordinary presentations into powerful decision-making tools, and
• Identify and apply strategies for avoiding and addressing challenges during an executive briefing.

Customer experience (CX) and user experience (UX) are important success factors for technical solutions, especially digital products and cross-channel services. Consumer and business customers alike demand intuitive interfaces and processes and expectations for these are continually rising.

What is the UX design process and the key techniques to deliver products and services that resonate with users? What is the role of the BA in this user-centred design process where user requirements are methodically captured, designed for, and integrated with core business requirements?

This presentation will provide a useful overview of the user-centred design (UCD) process and activities of International Standard ISO 9241:210. It will highlight key stages especially relevant to BAs and compare the UCD process to traditional business analysis activities. The resources provided will provide a clear path for BAs that want to learn more about how to enhance their BA skills with UX / CX related techniques.

Key Messages

• Good CX / UX in products and services results from following a proven process which will be outlined in the presentation
• The BA can play a crucial role in the UCD process and developing certain skills will help increase their effectiveness
• Although employing different techniques, BAs and UX professionals have much in common with opportunities for cross-learning

Business Analysis involves a deep understanding of the interconnectedness and interdependencies within an organisation, and beyond its boundaries. Which means having an understanding of Systems Thinking. This is a huge topic, so in this fun and interactive workshop we will be focusing specifically on the interplay of Analysis and Synthesis.... and convergent and divergent thinking.

In this practical and engaging session we will look at the key skill of knowing when to swap between analysis and synthesis, and how to guide an individual, group or whole organisation through cycles of convergent and divergent thinking in order to make better decisions and more successful actions.

In this session we will:

• Reflect on the importance of synthesis as well as analysis - divergence and convergence
• Explore when and how to move from one mode to the other
• Share practical approaches to help ourselves and others to switch between these two modes of thinking

Most change projects fail. Mine don't. And the key is understanding this fundamental (and underappreciated) skill. Join me for an informal, fun workshop where we will be learning together.

What comes to mind when you hear the term “Agile Requirement”?

Usually, it is not referring exactly to a concrete requirement, but rather to some requirements engineering related process. The title Agile Requirement usually refers to techniques as User Stories, Story Mapping, Acceptance Criteria, BDD, Prototyping, Backlog Management, Kanban… focused on software development projects using an agile approach.

The usual definition: “The development team must be able to change a requirement during the solution development project to maximize the value delivered by the project”.

The new definition proposed in this session is more comprehensive, applicable to both agile and cascade approaches and oriented to business agility. And it is not about processes, but it is a real concrete requirement that must be added to all digital transformation initiatives.

Key messages:

• Ignite business agility with dynamically configurable solutions
• Use the agile requirement to stimulate your team's creativity
• Model business as configurable processes and rules

Frank, a former Head of Analysis, has grown his career through Business Analysis and into Project and Programme Management Roles. He is now a Portfolio Manager and following a path to become an IT Director. He started many years ago as an analyst on an account for HMRC. It will focus on some of the research, skills development and behaviours you may need to develop to reach your next step, be it Head of Analysis, Product Management or Delivery Manager.

• From a BA you can move sideways or upwards
• You can manage a team of BAs and PMs
• You can move into Delivery Management and Portfolio Management

The world is your oyster, BA gives you the skills to succeed in so many roles, but no one is planning you a clean path. This talk is how I and others like me have risen to the challenge.

Agile & Architecture. Are they a match or not?

Agile methodologies either pay no attention to architecture or they only look at it from a too narrow-angle.

An important difference needs to be made between Agile Architecting - the process of doing the architecture job - and Agile Architecture - the structure of a system that exhibits agile attributes, like evolvability.

During this presentation, you will learn:

• What is Agile Architecting?
• What is Agile Architecture?
• What happened when you combine them?
• How to get there?

Transitioning to the circular economy presents a challenge to organizations due to the radical shift from the "linear" economy. At a macro level, there is general agreement as to the value of transitioning to the circular economy, but individual organizations may not see the immediate benefits or be able to prioritize this transition in the face of other business priorities.

This session introduces the circular economy and outlines a holistic transformation approach that enables organizations to concurrently transition to the circular economy while continuing to satisfy a wide range of tactical and strategic demands. To highlight the role of business architecture, the session discusses how to craft a strategy execution roadmap that enables the concurrent transition to the circular economy, optimization of traditional business models and deployment of new, innovative business models.

The example presented involves an automotive company that seeks to meet multiple cost, revenue, and customer demands through optimizing a traditional manufacturing business model and deploying a digitally connected customer business model. The overall approach may be readily replicated across multiple industry sectors.

Transitioning to Circular Economy: A Business Architecture Approach

The Product Owner (PO) role has become a popular path for many Business Analysts (BAs) and is vital for achieving business agility. But before a BA can master the art of product ownership they must learn how to adapt their mindset and find innovative ways to harness the wisdom of crowds to unlock creative thinking.

Join Grant Wright and Pardeep (aka Paddy) Dhanda, for an immersive hands on session, where they will show you how to unleash your Visual Thinking superpowers and take your product ownership practice to the next level.

Follow our heroes on an epic journey where they will literally illustrate how Visual Thinking can help you to:

• learn about the PO role and how to adapt as your career advances (whilst avoiding some common pitfalls along the way)
• explore problems and spark creativity within teams
• produce simple but effective visuals to provide clarity, create alignment and open up new possibilities

In this session, focused on Chapter 5 of Podeswa’s new book, The Agile Guide to Business Analysis and Planning (Pearson, Addison-Wesley, April, 2021), author Howard Podeswa and Alain Arseneault, CEO, TheBAExecutive™ and former IIBA® Interim President, CEO, and Director Strategic Initiatives, discuss the key requirements for a successful transition to a more agile organization – from strategy to execution.

The conversation focuses on the critical steps for accelerating change, with an emphasis on preparation for impacts beyond IT, such as transitioning the corporate culture and the elements of successful change management.

The Business Case for Agile Business Analysis

Kenniswerken in een context van steeds toenemende complexiteit en steeds snellere verandering.

Wat kan ik een klant, manager, gebruiker, burger nog beloven? Men verwacht dat we juister zijn in onze voorspellingen en tegelijk flexibeler in onze uitvoering. Bovendien moeten we allerlei veranderingen aan prioriteiten respecteren. Alleen maar harder werker gaat ons bij deze uitdaging niet helpen, maar het zelfs lastiger maken.

Dit is het reisverhaal van een afdeling over anders denken en slimmer werken. Wat deden ze en hoe hebben ze hun -interne- klanten, collega's, en management overtuigd van deze verandering?

You run with me and I can cut you free of the drudgery you’re stuck in. You can play it sensible, work all conventional, or you can risk it all… Ah yes, the promise of Agile! No documentation! Faster Delivery! Value delivered every week! Agile may not be considered the sideshow or circus approach to solution delivery, but there is still a lot for practitioners to understand. Let’s take a tour of PT Barnum’s world of Humbug and debunk some of the myths of agile.

In this session, let’s tame the beast that is the backlog! Do we need to create epics first? What do we do when everything is important? How to get our rag-tag bunch to work together (and ensure that the show does go on!)?

You will:

• Understand and recognize the backlog humbug^* & untruths (the myths that surround the backlog);
• Learn tools and techniques that can help make your backlog more manageable Work your backlog into a three-ring spectacle that communicates goals, context, and learn to wrangle the performers and ensure everyone is in their place when they are meant to be there.

Presentation slides

The Uncommon Book of Analysis Techniques

^* Humbug: nonsense, rubbish | Movie: The Greatest Showman

Data and its fast availability are rapidly growing in importance for businesses. Valuable data is often spread across different teams and systems. Yet, to benefit from data science, machine learning, business intelligence and data governance, it’s necessary to prevent data silos and data inconsistency. The DataOps discipline lets you face these challenges.

To facilitate companies to work the DataOps way, we have built TENGU, a DataOps Orchestration Platform. During the presentation, we’ll zoom in on one of our customer success stories, where we enabled the sales team to grow their results. By simply reducing the number of data related meetings and service tickets with easier integration and automation, they can start right away with the relevant data and go into their customer meetings with the whole picture.

Sinds juli 2020 hebben inwoners van Nederland het recht op inzage in hun gezondheidsgegevens. Als gevolg van deze wet moeten zorgverleners hun dossiers ontsluiten naar niet-professionele gebruikers. Ter voorbereiding hierop is in 2016 door VWS en Zorgverzekeraars Nederland het programma MedMij opgezet met als doelstelling om een afsprakenstelsel voor de zorg, relevante informatiestandaarden en financiering vorm te geven.

In deze sessie zal Johan Hobelman een inkijk geven in de diverse onderdelen van MedMij, bijvoorbeeld

• wat is de samenhang tussen de lagen van het interoperabiliteitsmodel en hoe is dit beschreven op basis van rollen, informatie en verantwoordelijkheden;
• wat is een afsprakenstelsel en krijgen we dan de requirements cadeau?
• Wat is de impact op zorgprocessen en systemen?

Ondertussen is vanuit vele andere domeinen in binnen- en buitenland belangstelling getoond voor deze wijze van specificeren van informatie-uitwisseling. Het jaar 2021 zal in het teken staan van grootschalig uitrollen van veranderprogramma's in de zorg om de informatieontsluiting mogelijk te maken. De overheid heeft daarvoor rond 1 Miljard (!) euro gereserveerd voor een periode van 5 jaren. Dit is dus een onderwerp met grote maatschappelijke relevantie dat merkbare gevolgen gaat hebben op de zorg in Nederland.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is high on the corporate agenda. This software technology enables you to build digital co-workers or software robots who are able to automate a wide range of repetitive, rule-based tasks. Due to its interesting Return on Investment and ability to deliver results quickly, RPA is often described as "the low hanging fruit of Artificial Intelligence".

One of the key challenges in an RPA initiative is being able to identify the right processes to automate. RPA should only be applied on the right cases, that represent significant benefits and are not overly complex to automate.

During this session, you will learn how to identify, evaluate and select RPA use cases for your own organization. We start by explaining what RPA is, and with showing several live demo's of RPA robots in action.

Subsequently, we will explain a structured methodology to identify and evaluate RPA use cases. During this interactive workshop format you will list and evaluate applications of RPA for your own organisation.

Working as a BA on a multiple stakeholder initiative in a rapidly changing and fairly political environment can be very challenging.

The project I want to talk about originally started over ten years ago, was put on hold, restarted, stopped again, kick-started last year and is finally on its way to the finish. Though it was sometimes a frustrating experience, the presence of the same BA during this journey turned out to be very useful.

A plus was the fact that the BA was able to build a network of relationships over the years which was helpful in defusing certain volatile situations between stakeholders. This also means that each time the initiative resurfaced, a summary of what had already been done, what changed in the meantime, what should be done next could rather easily be given to management.

So by telling the story of such a very long term initiative we want to show that:

• Knowledge & relationships build up over time combined with a good dose of persistence can pave the way to something valuable.
• How reuse can help to come up with solutions faster and be just that little "extra" to convince stakeholders.
• The life of a BA isn't always a bowl of cherries. Even a bad harvest can be turned into a learning experience.

Business analysts are change agents. After all, the BABOK defines business analysis as, “… the practice of enabling change in an enterprise…”. But how do BAs face change themselves?

We have all had to deal with unprecedented change on a global scale. Who knows what 2021 will bring. The future is unpredictable. Change is the new normal.

All this change can make us anxious, feel disappointed and undermine our state of well-being. It doesn’t even have to be big, drastic change. Even small, trivial change can be stressful.

How do we manage in these times of volatility and constant change? It takes more than just hard work and perseverance. BAs need mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a key skill that helps us to cope with change and build resilience. It enables us to think more clearly, remain focused and cope with challenges with more ease.

By attending this session you will:

• Understand mindfulness and its benefits.
• How mindfulness helps us cope with change and uncertainty.
• Learn some simple mindfulness techniques to build resilience.

The life of a business analyst within the United Nations poses specific challenges, particularly in the context of a global pandemic.

Kevin Crampton, BA at the World Health Organization (WHO) emergency team, will share his learnings on public health crisis topics experienced over the past 5 years. He will address the specific problems of practicing his activity in a refugee camp or in a conflict zone with a 'case study' from the Go.Data project - smartphone application for monitoring contacts - very relevant at the moment in context of COVID-19.

Powerful data visuals can help you to quickly inform and engage your audience on complex topics. This hands-on session will show you how to turn boring data into powerful data visuals using free and easy-to-use tools and techniques, so you can use them in your social media posts, articles, presentations or reports.

In this session, you will learn

• how to extract relevant information from a datafile, and prepare it for visualization;
• choose the right chart for effectively conveying your message, and
• use free and easy-to-use online tools to create data visuals you can use in your online and offline communication.

Whether a company will extend its business services, has plans to grow aggressively or has the ambition to become operationally more efficient, in a digital world each of these transformations require an evaluation of processes and IT landscape.

All too often in that case, we see the temptation to immediately open Pandora's box and look for new E2E software packages or point solutions for the most urgent process improvements.

At that moment however, it is our duty as a business analyst to take a step back and make sure the focus is on the right improvement areas for the software selection / automation project. There's nothing worse than investing in a great solution for the wrong problem.

In this session, we will highlight:

• the motto "simplify before you automate"
• the role that techniques such as Value Stream Mapping, Business Capability maps and Business Process Modelling play in scoping your project
• how to efficiently use the artefacts of this scope analysis phase in the succeeding software selection phase

Why have Business Analysis Community of Practice? To help…

• BAs to increase efficiencies through sharing best practices and a continuous improvement approach.
• preserve the integrity of business analysis ways of working and maintain professionalism.
• consistently deliver benefits across business functions.

What does it take to establish BA CoP - by BAs for BAs?

• Get senior stakeholders buy in.
• Clarify the role and deliverables across project stages.
• Define toolkit, assets and continuously improve.

Business analysis, along with other well-established disciplines such as project management and IT service management, is under pressure from the digital revolution. The increasing potential of digital technology places higher demands on digital practitioners and at the same time, the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) of systems makes them more difficult to deal with. Many business leaders believe in the promise of Agile and digital products and services are often developed by product-centric multi-disciplinary teams with no specific positions for business analysts and other traditional roles.

This presentation explores:

• The nature of the digital challenge
• The natural pitfall that business analysts must avoid
• Competences that help business analysts contribute and prosper in the digital enterprise

We’ve all heard about the circular economy, but how many of us really know what it is, and more importantly, what it means for our organization and for us. This session will introduce the basic concepts of the circular economy, compare it with the triple bottom line, and explore the impacts they have on business and operating models. After looking at a case study of a manufacturing organization that has successfully integrated the circular economy into their digital transformation, we’ll look at the role the business analyst can have in helping their organization move forward. Attend this session to answer these questions and learn:

• What is the circular economy?
• How does it affect business and operating models?
• What do you need to know and do as an business analyst?

Shift your mindset around architecture. Business Architecture if often associated with modelling of boxes and arrows, but how often does this provide value to the many? Architecture is not an end in itself, it is a practice for building digital transformation. This session will focus on the mindset shift to an outside-in architecture to funnel automation in strategy to execution.

• Outside-in, always start with the market and business-side
• Setting the right team, no-one is capable of delivering change and communication while tuning a tool
• Track the adoption and success of your Business Architecture

We all know that communication-related skills are an essential part of the BA toolbox - perhaps the most important competences of all. But what does communication actually mean, and how can business analysts use it more effectively? Nick will deconstruct some commonly held myths about communication at work and show how:

• The time-honoured theoretical model of information communication is not only mistaken, but irrelevant.
• Communication isn't a matter of getting information out of your head and into someone else's.
• Actually, most of what we communicate isn't information anyway.

The Digital Transformation proposes all kinds of challenges to all organizations. One of the most obvious is the shift to customer centricity and the agility of the organization to adapt to changes in business models and to completely new revenue models. How to transform the business into a fully, agile and customer-centric digital business?

This presentation will show why organizations should learn to think Decisions-First and learn to treat their operational decisions as their core digital assets. True Digital Transformation is only possible by shifting the organizational paradigm from process-centric to decision-centric. Decision-First process design puts the focus on what matters: the day-to-day decisions organizations take and puts the gathering of information to make these decisions on the second place.

Takeaways:

• There is a better way to approach Digital Transformation of Business Processes and applications
• An insight into recent developments in process analysis and requirements management
• A very brief introduction to the DMN standard

Forget processes, think decisions

We helped, together with KRC Genk, to build their Digital Roadmap.

• What were their obstacles, both tangible, and in their heads?
• What were their pain points?
• How have we increased the different dimensions together?

Why we did it? We helped KRC to facilitate and inspire them as an independent partner thru 4 workshops. They want to grow in 3 different dimensions:

• Geographically: How can we grow Inside and outside the stadium?
• Time: What to do with our facilities when there is no gameday?
• Digital: How can we grow into the future with a DATA Driven culture?

All these dimensions brought us to One conclusion - “How can we help make the brand bigger and stronger”. This works in 2 directions.

• How can we create value for the fan
• How we can create value for the club

Let me tell you their story!

Have you ever wondered where requirements come from? What makes a requirement "required"? Such a strong word, isn't it? Required. If we do not implement it, everything will fail. Right?

When you ask someone "their" requirements, how certain are you that this person is giving you the "right requirements"? Does it really solve a problem in the right way? Is the problem even worth solving? How much are you willing to bet on it? Your pension? Your house? Your car? Tomorrow's lunch?

In this workshop we would like to show you the paradigm shift from "requirement" to "assumption". What does this shift mean? What is an assumption? How to practically organise your work around "assumptions" and start building better (software) products?

We will look at and practice the concrete steps needed to

• make all your assumptions explicit,
• design an experiment around your most riskiest assumption, and,
• translate these to requirements.

Yes, you read it correctly. This talk is not about motivating people, but about demotivating them. As a consultant, motivation of people is considered important. But after a few years, you know all the tips and tricks, and it bores. So I became a demotivation coach.

After years of experience and a lot of scientific research, I compiled an list of demotivation techniques, and I want to give you some ideas. That way you can choose your own demotivation techniques.

Next to that, I want to present you with an existential dilemma as a demotivation coach. I'm hoping that you can help me on that? (Or not, and that is the existential problem)

In context of business transformation programme, business leaders & managers always look for the genuine advisor who they can trust, particularly when programme is not on track and it crosses all limits in terms of time, cost and quality. They look for someone who understand the business pain points & risks, who keeps best interest of the business first and who can provide a rational and logical advice without any fear and bias, at the same time one would be able to challenge assumptions & status quo with sense of helping rather than proving that someone is right or wrong.

The business analyst is in a natural position to become the trusted advisor to the business and you can’t become trusted advisor overnight and it has to be earned with great display of courage, performance consistency, intact integrity, profound credibility and competency. Being a trusted advisor of the business, you would be in a position to help and shape the vision, strategy and approach for any business programme and this also leads the path towards getting more challenging and strategic role in the organisation.

So question is how could you achieve the status of ‘the trusted advisor’? My talk will dwell upon in detail to get you the answer with live experiences, examples and finding.

Key take aways:

• A clear understanding of what ‘the trusted advisor’ means.
• How a business analyst could achieve the status of ‘the trusted advisor’.
• What benefits it could bring to the business as well as business analyst.

The popular, majority view often decides what's best in everything from entertainment to business practices. Time and again, however, we've seen how going along with the crowd can lead to dissatisfying or disastrous results. If only we had taken the time to seek a thoughtful dissenting opinion.

• The origin of devil's advocacy and why modern Devil's Advocates are needed today
• Why we need to regularly challenge our formal processes, including so-called best practices
• How to embrace modern Devil's Advocacy for diverse and useful dissent without impeding progress

Why You Should Invite a Devil’s Advocate into Your Business

2020 was a year that taught us a lot. It was amazing to see how people adapted to their circumstances as well as the speed at which government and society were able to respond to the change. Agility was not optional but necessary as the circumstances changed daily. 2020 was also a year of rules, and there were many lessons learnt when rules were not properly defined. Statements like 'wear a mask in public' send my business analysis brain into overdrive. Is this a statement or a guideline, should I do it or must I do it? What constitutes a mask and what does in public mean?

This presentation will focus on business rules and the how-to structure them in a way that reduces, or even eliminates, the ambiguity in order for the necessary outcome to be achieved.

Business analysts are often celebrated for their analytical skills. Improving processes, implementing new software, and so on. However, I argue that analysts should be more like designers.

Analysts should be more involved in crafting solutions instead of streamlining processes. Talking with people who are experiencing the problem at hand, iterating possible solutions and not being shy to go back to the drawing board: those are key skills for a business analyst 2.0.

At Neuroventis, we deliver digital solutions for people, not for patients. We treat our user base as a human base. This is my story of thinking like a designer, demonstrating the impact HCD can have and how the are the transformers of healthcare.

An honest session and a lot of slides.

Today many organisations are attempting to transition into more agile & adaptable structures. A network of small self-organising teams seems to become the new organisational target model. Less hierarchy, more staff participation in decision making and cross-functional teams as the most important building block.

Where do Business Analysts fit in these new structures? Will they be part of one of these cross-functional teams? And if not, where do they find a place? How do they interact with other teams and other roles? What can we learn from progressive organizations such as Spotify?

In this workshop, you will learn how progressive organizations replaced the classic org chart pyramid with new, more adaptable structures, how interactions between teams are organised and what this could mean for Business Analysts.

Key takeaways:

• Why small, cross-functional, self-organizing teams are the key building block in such environments
• How teams and roles interact in these organizations
• Where business analysts fit into these new organizational models

Niet alleen de ziekenhuizen, maar ook andere zorginstanties hebben het afgelopen jaar op volle toeren gedraaid.

We belichten een arbeidsgeneeskundige dienst die halsoverkop fysieke medische raadplegingen moest vervangen door telefonische consulten. En dit was nog maar de start van de pandemie. In de maanden die volgden moesten voortdurend nieuwe processen bedacht en uitgerold worden voor bijvoorbeeld Covid-testing, contact tracing op de werkvloer en uiteindelijk ook de vaccinatie in de woonzorgcentra. De druk en de snelheid lagen hoog, en de inhoud en het wetgevend kader waren zeer volatiel.

Aan uitdagingen geen gebrek dus, maar hoe zijn wij hier mee omgegaan? We vertellen het verhaal en lichten enkele kritische succesfactoren toe.

The pre-pandemic world's pace was already fast; however, now the urgency for change means projects and programs need to deliver in double-quick time.

Research in 2020 (McKinsey) stated that about 70 percent of executives from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland said the pandemic is likely to accelerate their transformation pace.

To survive and thrive in the new normal, Business Analysts must be connecting the dots between strategic intent and potentially immediate execution. Strategy implementation that took one to three years must now accelerate into days and weeks.

The approaches of the past were never designed to achieve such rapid and successful transformation.

What are the emergent proven techniques and tools that need incorporating into the projects that enable our organizations to 'turn on a dime' in every walk of life?

We explore three themes:

• How to Remove barriers to change, including overburdensome red tape and bureaucracy.
• When to Incorporate 'next practice approaches' that ensure co-ordinated and controlled change implementations.
• How do we enabling the total workforce to contribute to organization success, i.e. connecting the dots and drawing the lines between everyone and everything to deliver Successful Outcomes?

In this fun, interactive workshop you’ll be learning about the different contracting models that are common in Agile sourcing, and you will experience an intense contracting role play that gives you deeper insights. How do you contract when scope is not detailed and when you expect it to evolve? How do you avoid defensive contractual behavior and use collaboration mechanisms… and how to avoid abuse by one of the parties?

The workshop is facilitated by Stijn Follet, Global Lead of Agile at Capgemini Group, who has been involved in dozens of contractual redesigns with large organizations across the globe.

More often than not, incumbents have an army of IT architects at their disposal, drawing all kinds of technical solutions. Business architectures, on the other hand, are a rare species.

However, in this world of “never normal” and constant change, facilitating this change from a business perspective should be considered a must. This is where the business architect plays its key role. Bridging strategy and implementation, simplifying complex environments, and creating greater resilience for the never normal.

During this talk, we will take a closer look into the true value a business architect can bring to ensure a smooth and impactful project delivery, presented on the basis of a real life case – Colruyt Groups’ Xtra app transformation from loyalty card to shopping assistant.

Key messages:

• Business architecture is key in a “never normal” world, facilitating change and bridging strategy and implementation.
• Explore the true value of a business architect throughout the project lifecycle.
• Experience how business architecture was the enabler for change and ensured smooth project delivery of Colruyt Group’s Xtra app from loyalty card to shopping assistant.

So let's start with the good news; if you are human, you have biases.

They are the framework against which we make many of our decisions each day, from the mundane to the complex. But this is a double edged sword. Our cognitive biases can get us into a lot of trouble around the office (even if that office looks a lot like where you live right now) when we rely on them too much, or worse, allow them to run rampant through self-awareness (or lack thereof.) And that trouble often leads to poor decisions, which generally is bad for business.

But there is hope. By understanding some of the common cognitive biases, and recognizing them in our colleagues (and ourselves), we can mitigate their effects.

In "Overcoming Bias for Better Decision Making", we'll explore some of the common cognitive biases which impact our work and lives, and learn strategies for overcoming (or at least mitigating) their impact.

Enterprises are behind many of the systems that run our planet: government, finance, big tech, you name it. If we want to create better enterprises, we must answers questions seen from three perspectives:

Identity; what the enterprise stands for and the reason for its existence:
What is your enterprise all about? What is its story? What is its purpose?

Experience; how it feels from the outside ecosystem:
What will you actually provide to people? How is this going to change people’s lives?

Architecture; how everything works together:
What are the parts that make it work? How are those parts related?

In the past, these questions have been treated separately by specialist disciplines, leading to incoherent, siloed, underperforming enterprises. This session presents the Intersection Toolkit that tries to align those disciplines to co-create better enterprises.

Can we expand the scope of classical business analysis to a broader and more impactful way?

• Expand your impact as a BA
• Facilitate a collaborative Enterprise Design Process together with many disciplines
• Let's create the Intersection Toolkit together

Data is what connects business processes and the parts of an organization to create an integrated enterprise. We need data to develop the right products, to connect to our customers at the right time, and to run the business efficiently. We use data to create value and to solve business problems. A BA needs to understand the fundamentals of data management and data analysis to provide value to modern data-driven enterprises. In this workshop, we will review how fundamental concepts of data management apply to business analysis.

Concepts covered:

• Types and sources of data
• Data life cycle
• Types of business analytics and using them to support better business decisions
• Data and analytics requirements
• BA role in data governance

Key takeaways:

• Data is what connects business processes and parts of an organization
• The future of process improvement is in embedded analytics
• Defining data and analytics requirements is essential to solving business problems

On the 25th of February we are organising an international 2 hour on-line unconference in the run-up to BA & Beyond 2021.

We will have a structured, but agenda-less meeting based on the tried and true Lean Coffee formula. Bring your experience, ideas and hard-won knowledge and we'll build the agenda together!

Grow your knowledge in an interactive way and get to know your peers as if you were on a conference floor, networking and meeting new people. This is sure to be a turbo boost for your BA&Beyond 2021 conference experience later in March. Expect a tie-in with the informal discussion groups during the conference (birds-of-a-feather sessions).

Bert Heymans from The Business Analysts facilitates the conversation, and the topics are defined by you, the participants. Bert has moderated the monthly Lean Coffee Ghent events since 2016 and he's an active Toastmasters member, he will make sure that you get as much value as possible out of this experience.

Tickets to BA & Beyond are not required for this exclusive event but you have to register and commit to your attendance as spots are limited.

Attendance is free and open to everyone interested in Business Analysis and related topics.