How to Use BA Mindset To Solve Business Problems

We use business analysis to understand the organization’s problems and needs and enable changes required to solve the problems. Easier said than done? This session will outline the twelve principles of the BA Mindset required to define, facilitate and implement successful change.
These principles, first outlined in Yulia Kosarenko’s book “Business Analyst: a Profession and a Mindset”, tackle key challenges organizations face when planning and executing change. From solving the right business problem and addressing the gaps to taking responsibility for a shared understanding of requirements – the focus is on what makes a change successful.
Whether you are a business analyst, project manager, sponsor of change, or member of the technical team, this session will reinforce how to use the BA Mindset to become part of the solution.

Target audience:
- Business analysts, project managers, and product owners
- Software development teams
- Business stakeholders and executives

Sample videos:
https://youtu.be/ufoR4JGbKz0
https://youtu.be/R0NUZkUutHM

How to Stay Relevant in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Where Humans Outperform AI

Surprising feats of AI models can both impress and terrify us. While there are many areas where machine learning and AI algorithms can deliver spectacular performance, we, humans, are better at many things.
Where do we outperform AI? How to develop professional competencies that are even more essential and relevant in the age of ubiquitous technology?
Delivering successful enterprise change and implementing new products requires more. Engaging diverse groups of people to work on projects requires diplomacy, facilitation, and communication skills. Designing successful solutions requires system thinking, creativity, and innovative ideas. Overcoming resistance to change requires tact and an understanding of human motivations.
This session will reinforce the importance of developing professional competencies that cannot be replaced by technology and AI. These durable skills and mindset are vital to our success in the age of AI.

Meetings That Work: How To Uplift Remote Engagement with Live Modelling

There is nothing more frustrating during a virtual meeting than radio silence. Are they even there? Is anybody paying attention? Facilitating remote meetings is emotionally taxing. It requires preparation, skill, and ability to make oneself vulnerable.
In this session, you will learn and observe how to use live modelling to keep participants engaged during virtual meetings. Modelling or collaborating on a shared screen is a simple and engaging way to create a focal point for the discussion. It's less about the tool and more about how you use it.
Where you are mapping process flows, discussing integration architecture, or analyzing the root cause of a difficult problem, a visual feed stimulates engagement, active thinking, and contribution. Learning to do it with ease will make facilitation your superpower.

Yulia Kosarenko uses live modelling when teaching college students, leading virtual group coaching sessions, and process mapping with reluctant stakeholders.

Sample video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_95LZd7Tfs

How is Baking Macaroons Like a Software Project?

Real life teaches us many lessons we can apply professionally. Sometimes, a lighthearted lesson is the one we remember most.
My experience of baking macaroons with my daughter turned out to be a memorable learning in project management. In this session the audience is invited to draw parallels between baking and software development challenges.
Just like with cooking projects, many software development project pitfalls can be avoided with sound project management and common sense:
- Preparation and timely procurement of resources
- Common language and terminology
- Smart planning and scheduling

This talk is based on a true story. It is meant to be a light-hearted and humorous presentation where the speaker takes on the role of an ill-prepared project manager jumping into a new project, making many mistakes, and making the best of it.

https://why-change.com/2019/09/15/how-is-baking-macaroons-like-a-software-project/

Embedded Analytics: How To Deliver Business Insights to the Right Place at the Right Time

Having a lot of data does not equate to value. Even an attractive dashboard does not bring value if nobody is using it. How can you deliver the right insights to the users – when and where they need them?
This session will outline the main principles of embedded analytics – delivering data insights in context. We will review practical scenarios of using embedded analytics to streamline business processes while supporting real-time decision-making. The presentation will focus on the key components required to realize the benefits of embedded analytics – from managing expectations and smart requirements to effective data pipelines.

Sample video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6cTxDLg2Sg&t=3s

Business Analysis Techniques Everyone Should Now

You may be doing business analysis activities in many roles. Titles do not matter - what matters are the results of the analysis — improvements, efficiency gains, and positive change. This session will recap essential business analysis techniques that everyone involved with business change and process optimization should know.
Whether you are in software development, analytics, data science, or operations, mastering how to ask questions, analyze data, determine root causes, facilitate meetings, map business processes and create simple models will set you apart as a versatile professional with a growth mindset.
In an environment of constant change, disruptive technologies and global growth, durable analysis skills will ensure your long-term employability and professional growth.

Sample videos:
https://youtu.be/92-WsL7-LOo

Requirements Don’t Come From Business – They Come From Business Analysis

Business stakeholders have needs and problems, not requirements. Business analysts can’t gather requirements like apples from a tree. Analysis requires research, investigation, comparison, validation, and root cause analysis.
This session will explore what "analysis" really means, the difference between information and requirements, symptoms and root causes, and gathering and analysis.
Participants will follow an example of discovering the real problem through applying business analysis tools and techniques, including the 5 Why’s technique, and will explore other useful techniques they can apply right away in their jobs.
The goal of the session is to demonstrate how business analysis brings value through elicitation, investigation, root cause analysis and other higher-level thinking activities.

Sample video:
https://youtu.be/ufBTD0x7c90