New Horizons of MN (www.nhmn.com) is a Silver Sponsor at the Business Analyst World Symposium today and tomorrow at the DoubleTree Hotel - Park Place in Minneapolis. I am at our conference booth both days. There are about 120 Business Analysts here at the 2 day conference. For more information about the Symposium, which is an annual event here in the Twin Cities, visit their website at: http://www.basymposiumseries.com/minneapolis/documents/08Prospectus.pdf
The keynote today was on the Challenges and Opportunities for Business Analysts in Business Transformation. (Business Transformation sounds like a fancier word for CHANGE!). The keynote was done by Don Imholz, Sr Associate for a company called Ouellette and Associates. His abstract for the keynote is: Rapid Change is occurring in terms of global competition, markets,technology, and business models.Further, current economic conditions put even more pressure on corporations to successfully accomplish rapid and dramatic change. Yet, such transformations are difficult to accomplish and often fail. This Keynote will examine the causes of such failures, and the skills Business Analysts need to develop and apply to increase the probability of success. Proven techniques for Business Analysts to be more relevant, and create more value will also be presented and discussed.
I sat this keynote and took away a few things. First, Business Transformation is the key executive management iniatitive to align people process and technology to a business strategy and vision to support that strategy. (The first thing in this that really grabbed my attention is the phrase "Align People, Process and Technology". I hear this over and over again. You can have all of the processes in place and the technology in place, but unless you train your people, the chances of success are slim. You invest in the technology and in the processes... invest in your people as well!
He also talked about the skills a Business Analyst needs which include being a liasion between business and IT (sounds like a hint of ITIL in there), building and sustaining client relationships, negotiating skills, Project Management skills, being able to navigate the political mindfields and gathering requirements. There was a poll done on the audience here and only 50% of the audience present here has an IT background. He mentioned System analyst vs business analyst, which is one of the things talked about in the BA Essentials class from Babbage Simmel that New Horizons works with. One fun thing he said is that the opposite of system is "chaotic". System being an IT system, business system, political system... basically any system.
He talked about the people involved in a business transformation. They typically fall into four categories. Technology Wizards --> Technology Assistants --> Silent Influencers --> Problem solving partners. He mentioned that BA's typically fall into the first two categories and the baol is to have them fall into the last two categories.
He talked about leadership within an organization and a phrase that he used was "You can be a leader if you see yourself as a leader". He showed a picture of a cat looking into a mirror and seeing a lion. Very cool analogy.
Finally he talked about goal setting and PM techniques that work. His examples were having a clear scope, schedule and resources, confidence in project leadership, a risk management plan, an open culture and a diverse, committed team.
Great conference so far. I look forward to sitting the afternoon sessions on "Business Intelligence Requirements: How to Conduct Business Analysis to Ensure a Successful BI Iniatitive" and "Documentation is not a Four Letter Word".
The phrase I'll leave you with is this: "If things outside of your business are changing faster than things inside your business, then the end of your business is in sight" -Welch