Innovate, Inspire, and Ignite at FOBA 2024

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect the perspectives of IIBA.



This year, the IIBA Australia Chapter’s Festival of Business Analysis (FOBA) will embrace cutting-edge developments, transformative methodologies, and limitless potential within the world of business analysis.

The festival—whose theme is “Innovate. Inspire. Ignite.”—will convene business analysis professionals worldwide to explore next-gen strategies, discover innovative approaches, and be inspired by an exciting range of innovators and industry experts. It takes place from October 14 to 18, with in-person events in Auckland, Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, and Wellington. The online event will run at the same time.

Shane Hastie, Global Delivery Leader for SoftEd, was a director of the Agile Alliance from 2011 to 2016 and the founding Chair of Agile Alliance New Zealand. He’s an ICF-registered professional coach, co-author of The Rock Crusher: A Model for Flow-Based Backlog Management, and was part of the core team for A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK Guide) version 3.0. He also led the team that produced the Agile Extension to the BABOK Guide (versions 1.0 and 2.0).

Pathways to Business Analysis Greatness

Shane’s presentation, Pathways to Business Analysis Greatness, encourages business analysis professionals to introspectively examine their values and skills to maximize value for their organization, team, and community. “We’re never just our job,” he says. “It’s an important part of who we are, but we have a footprint that goes into our families, communities and wider society and we need to think in terms of what we want to bring to the table. What is the impact you want to make on the universe, in order to shift the dial for other people?”

Drawing from his extensive experience as a business analysis professional and agile coach, Shane says that a good practitioner must be able to self-assess. He believes that individuals should identify their growth areas and set career progression goals. His presentation focuses on questions a good business analysis professional must ask themselves and the tools available to assist in this process.

“We need to know ourselves, as well as understand what is happening in our industry and the world around us as we progress through our career, so that when we have reached senior roles, we’re able to step into mentoring, guiding and supporting others,” he says.

“The profession is in a state of flux and somewhat under threat—from AI, from rapid and accelerating change, from the ‘anyone can do this’ misconception. A good BA with a deep understanding of the impact of their work on humans’ lives will use AI tools as a starting point, to accelerate the rate of work and value delivered, freeing them up to do more valuable things. Being able to clearly communicate your value, what it is that you bring that will make a difference to your organisation, to the outcomes for the people whose lives you will change, with a humanistic, values-based approach, is vital for today’s business analysis profession.”

A Late Bloomer’s Guide to GenAI

Agile analyst Mindy Bohannon, Managing Consultant at Excella and President of the Washington, DC Chapter of IIBA, will also be presenting online at FOBA 2024. Her topic, A Late Bloomer’s Guide to GenAI: Ethics, Bias, and Effective Prompting, reflects her own (self-confessed) late adoption of AI. “I only started my journey with AI this year. I resisted a little, I am a late adopter, but my company wanted us all in, so I dived in and have been learning ever since. There is hesitancy in the industry, which is why I want to invite people in to the GenAI space, since I also identify as a late bloomer myself,” says Mindy.

Her presentation focuses on how AI can add real value by performing time-consuming tasks, so the business analysis professional can focus on the areas that require the agility of the human mind and critical thinking. “A common narrative seems to be ‘I will lose my job to AI,’” says Mindy. “At the moment, though, AI will only replace the bare bones, the boring work we don’t want to do anyway. Humans will have to continue to do the analysis, which we love anyway!”

“I find AI extremely useful for tasks such as data sorting, basic writing, and teaching me to do new techniques. Of course, we must be aware that AI is not a perfect technology yet, and there may be inherent bias and hallucinations because of the way AI is trained. Right now, it is a tool to lighten the analyst’s load, but we must be careful to think critically, to examine AI’s output, and be a bit skeptical.”

Her advice to new AI users is to try it out for themselves, with a healthy dose of common sense.

“Let it do the mundane stuff first and remember that even if you do need to vet everything that comes back, you are probably doing that now anyway when you use Google or Wikipedia, you are still saving that search time,” she says. “In my experience, using AI to provide a draft or an outline for me to then check sources, edit and write up in my own voice is still much quicker than for me to come up with it in the first place.”

Leadership in the Age of AI

Another presenter who advocates for the use of AI as a personal productivity tool is Leading Edge Global’s CEO Lauren Ryder. Her presentation, Leadership in the Age of AI, will focus on the technological shift on the horizon and how organizations can adapt, unlock efficiency, and embrace AI strategically.

“Personal productivity tools just mean you can be a more effective person in the workforce,” Lauren says. “It’s not just about getting through work faster. Effective use of AI can open your eyes to things you might not have thought of. As a business analyst this can be valuable because sometimes you can get quite narrow-focussed. You don’t necessarily know what questions you haven’t asked yet.”

That said, Lauren is pragmatic about the pitfalls of AI and recognizes the need for governance around AI use. “It’s vital to understand the rules and regulations you will use and have good governance in place, which will help make decision-making a lot better for organisations,” she says. “AI is just another area where organisations must set clear guidelines. I am aware of some companies banning AI, but I believe organisations must get on the front foot with new technologies, educate at every level, and importantly, make sure their leaders understand and have data literacy, so they can ensure they know what questions they need to ask the AI to get the correct information.”                                   

Lauren’s talk will outline how technology and humanity can co-exist harmoniously, emphasizing the importance of human skills that AI cannot yet mimic. “If you are using AI to do everything you do, then of course you can be replaced,” she explains. “You need to have two other skills: people skills like communication, bringing people together, and engaging them; and how to use AI. If you get yourself educated in enterprise AI tools, you will be on the front foot.”

To register for FOBA 2024 and for more information, visit festivalofbusinessanalysis.org.

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