What has changed?

In his latest message, President Ziad Sakr challenges us to think about “change” — how the circumstances around us shape change and how we, as business analysts, respond to it. From shifting work environments to evolving tools and expectations, he explores what’s changed—and what it means for how we practice business analysis today.

We, the business analysts (BAs), have a specific definition as per the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge^® (BABOK^®), that we enable changes! So, let’s pause a second to assess what has changed? So, apart from the beautiful colours of the trees, and AI existence, let’s ask ourselves, what has changed?

Well, let me start by the Business Analysis Core Concept Model^TM (BACCM^TM), we still have changes to be enabled, needs to be addressed, solutions to be designed, stakeholders to be satisfied, values to be delivered and context to … ? Hold on, I think we found it.

Context!

BABOK defines the context as, “The circumstances that influence, are influenced by, and provide understanding of the change.” So let’s break it down further: Circumstances & Change!

Let’s start by the “circumstances”: last June, during our chapter annual planning day, we could feel the fluctuation in the preferences to attend the events amongst: 100% in-person events prior to the year 2020, 100% virtual in the years of 2020-2023, and virtual, hybrid and in-person post 2023! And if we put all these together, we can see that the context is changed, and directly impacted the tools used to fulfil the need of being able to meet using multiple channels. This, in my opinion, is the biggest change that led to using new tools, which dramatically impacted the context. Let me give some examples:

With the implementation of virtual meetings, we as BAs are able to schedule multiple back to back meetings without worrying about transportation, and sometimes, we can be in 2 places at the same time.
Remote work opportunities: this influenced the costs, technologies, transportation, people, and real estate market, in other words “the context”.
We are able to record meetings and transcribe them and even translate them. This change improved the quality of requirements and made the “confirm requirements” task much easier than running around with a notebook trying to confirm some ambiguities.
We are able to do our exams at home! Still stressful but for many applicants it is better than going to test centers.

Why I wanted to share this with you in this newsletter? Simply because the business analysis profession depends on the best practices, and if we can’t keep up with the changes at all levels starting with our mindsets, then we won’t be able to provide the expected outputs and enabling the changes.

We always welcome opinions and reviews, so please feel free to join our chapter events and tell us about what do you think about “What has changed?”

Ziad Sakr, MBA, CBAP ®, AAC, PMP ®

President, IIBA Ottawa-Outaouais Chapter