Event Presentations 2019-2020

In our May meeting, Stuart Houlahan spoke to us about how a Business Analyst can use their existing skills to influence pre-project planning to achieve greater project success.

We learned about:

• the differences between Strategic Business Analysis vs traditional Business Analysis,
• how to use existing BA skills to improve project planning, business outcomes, and successful projects, and
• why Strategic Business Analysis is critical to project success.

In the April meeting, Betsy Bond, an experienced business leader and change management consultant, demonstrated Change Management fundamentals and strategies used to help projects succeed.

We learned about:

• what Change Management is,
• how it makes a difference to a project,
• the various roles involved in successful changes, and
• tactics to effectively apply change management.

Speaker presentation not available

In this first-ever virtual monthly meeting, Michael Roberts led us through a presenation on how Business Analysts are impacted by the implementation of the DevOps methodology.

We learned about:

• Current state of organizations and their SDLC
• What DevOps is and how it can be implemented
• Examples of generic stakeholders as described in the BABOK® Guide
• Applying the DevOps context to stakeholder roles
• Pain points and enablers of roles associated with successful DevOps style work

Presentation

Chapter Updates

In the February meeting, our speaker Tim Pinet, a cloud software architect, talked to us what the cloud really is.

We learned about:

• the cloud basics to be able to speak fluently to clients, technology teams, management, and your curious friends/family.
• how the Business Analyst can translate the cloud knowledge into requirements.
• how to work with development teams to help flush out the cloud vision into tangible products.

Chapter Updates

In the first meeting of 2020, Ron Gagnier, showed us how stories can be used to help a product team improve communication and deliver product strategy while preventing churning requirements.

We learned:

• The when, why and how of storytelling in product strategy
• How stories can improve the communication within teams
• How stories improve the accuracy of requirements 
• How storytelling can improve your practise as a Business Analyst

Chapter Updates

December 17, 2019

December Meeting | 2019 Holiday Social
 

In this month's meeting, Mike Lachapelle addressed the conundrum of design thinking versus design by looking at the principles, rules and behaviours of Design Thinking, and the purpose and methods of Design.

We learned how to:

• Differentiate Design Thinking from Design;
• Understand foundations of design thinking;
• Consider different design methods.

In this month's session, Jason Oliver, CBAP, led us through an interactive case study on how to use dashboads to deliver valuable business insights to particular audiences.

We learned how to:

• Tailor dashboards for appropriate audiences
• Calibrate dashboard content access between “need to know” and “right to explore & reveal”
• Gauge appropriate use of visuals, scope, filters, and more!

Presentation

Kevin Dewalt of PROLEGO, an AI expert, led an online session specifically for Business Analysts. We covered: 

• what AI actually is in practical terms,
• how to identify opportunities for AI projects,
• what the elements of managing an AI project are, and
• how this new revolutionary technology will affect the BA role.

September 17, 2019

In this interactive session, Peter Paul introduced tried-and-true estimating and planning tools used by Agile organizations where aversion to uncertainty is high.

In particular:

• Sprint / iteration planning: Planning Poker, T-shirt sizing, and Bucketing
• Release Map, Product Backlog sizing: Themes, Epics, Features, and User Stories 

Presentation