What if I told you this is my last business analysis keynote? What? How can that be?

Here is the deal - in my career, I have championed the profession of Business Analysis, extolled the virtues of being a Badass Business Analyst, professed Progress over Perfection, glorified Gamification and Game Changers, coached on Crucial Conversations, and much, much more.

What else is there to say? Should I talk about user stories? The cross-pollination of methodologies? It is not that I have run out of ideas, I just want to talk some sense into the BA world and for that, I need this to be my Last Business Analysis Keynote.

In the food industry there is a well known book entitled ‘My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals’. Each section is the culmination of a great career wrapped up into what food means to them - and their answers are surprising, refreshing and unique as they are.

I know what I want to share with you. The Life Lessons of a Badass BA will be refreshing, raw, surprising, and hold a few other twists and turns along the way.

It is after all, my Last Business Analysis Keynote - so expect the unexpected!

-Bob the BA

BOB PRENTISS CBAP is a keynote speaker, author, mentor, coach and Business Analysis thought leader. Bob is passionate about helping you think, learn & work differently so you can become the best version of yourself. Bob is the CEO and founder of Bob the BA Training providing badass business analysis training, consulting and mentoring services. Bob the BA helps organizations transform their requirements practices utilizing modern techniques, an agile mindset and street-smart approaches to get the work done faster. Bob is CBAP® certified with 30 years of experience in corporate America; with a background in managing BA centers of excellence, assessing and managing BA maturity, quality, and competency. Bob has presented numerous keynote, workshops, seminars, conferences, and training sessions across North America. Bob is a founding member and past President of the IIBA® MSP Chapter. Bob the BA is part of The League of Extraordinary Analysts Inc.

During this session, we’ll discuss change management concepts and how BAs are catalysts for an outstanding user experience, solution adoption, and a seamless change journey.

 

Katie Adastra PhD is a trained scientist with more than ten years of experience executing projects in academic, non-profit and corporate settings.  Katie leveraged her passion for people and her understanding of technical capabilities to progressively move around in the IT organization of a Fortune 500 life sciences company. At North Highland, Katie connects clients and consulting experts to solve business challenges across the St. Louis region.

   

Stephen Smith has over 18 years of consulting experience at North Highland and Accenture. In his career, Stephen has helped clients as a business analyst, project manager, and for the last 10 years as a change manager. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies across the United States and Canada in the financial services, agriculture, utilities, and telecom industries. Stephen has a passion for building creative and positive experiences to help individuals navigate the ever-changing world we live in.

As agile practitioners who focus on business agility, we can’t help but recognize that humans sometimes develop blind spots and mental biases.

A mental model is a concept, framework, or worldview that is used to explain how something works. Mental models are the tools we use to try to make sense of things and to help generate ideas. They shape individuals’ perceptions and beliefs, ultimately driving how people derive meaning and define solutions. To be useful, however, the models have to be applied in the right context and at the right time. To use them well, you have to know them well and practice using them.

In order to be change agents in our organizations, we need to understand the patterns of use of mental models in ourselves first. Then, we can form and reinforce new mental models to be able to generate greater value for our organizations. In this workshop, you will examine several mental models and how they influence decisions.

Participants in this session will be able to:

• Explain what mental models are,
• Describe several mental models in detail,
• Identify mental models that they have a tendency to use, and
• Identify mental models that they want to develop further

 

KIM SCHREY CBAP, SR CONSULTANT, DAUGHERTY BUSINESS SOLUTIONS

KIM SCHREY is an avid agilist, certified in several areas related to the agile mindset, including facilitation, enterprise product ownership, fundamentals of the agile mindset, business value analysis, and agile coaching. She is an ICAgile authorized trainer. Currently, she is writing a Business Agility Foundations course for accreditation through ICAgile. Kim has coached teams through transformation from waterfall to agile methodologies. The agile mindset is a must in her work as well as in her personal life.

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 BPMN: Tools, Tasks, Models, and Beyond!

STEVE GAMACHE - SAFETY NATIONAL

STEPHEN GAMACHE with Safety National has a passion for designing and developing efficient and effective solutions to solve business needs, particularly in ways that make it easy for business to understand. His experience as a BA and Systems Analyst and expertise in BPMN helps businesses visualize and verify requirements, process steps, and related paths of a workflow more easily than by text alone.

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Branding Yourself with Intentionality

LADAN KAMFAR - ENTERPRISE HOLDINGS

LADAN KAMFAR is a visionary technology leader with over 14 years of experience leading highly effective teams, strategy, process modeling, and Organizational Change Management who builds cohesive and results oriented organizations. She is a positive thinker, women and youth advocate, success mentor, mindset coach, and trainer who is passionate to connect people and opportunities.

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Bootstrapping Data Analytics

   

JUDAH BAKER - CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS

JUDAH BAKER is a results-oriented IT professional with expertise in planning and delivering strategic solutions. Judah is a Senior Business Systems Analyst with Charter Communications , developing metrics to measure successful adoption and identifying opportunities to ensure a world-class client experience. He brings his innovative operational intelligence and an elevated user focus to integrate systems and applications that simplify and streamline processes enterprise-wide.

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Business Process Redesign