Record-Breaking BBC 2019 Highlights

That’s a wrap for BBC 2019 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Here’s a quick recap of some of the highlights of this past weeks trending topics (check out the hashtags #BBCCon and #BBCConf on Twitter for more!).

With 15 tracks and four trails, attendees had a wide range of session themes and topics to choose from during the conference. IIBA sessions focused primarily on cybersecurity, product ownership, agile analysis, and the advancement of BA careers.

 

 

At IIBA’s corporate and EEP (Endorsed Education Provider) member reception on the eve of the conference, guest speakers Kupe Kupersmith, Principal of Kupe Talks (@Kupe) and Angela Wick, CEO of BA-Squared (@WickAng) talked about the importance of BAs adopting a growth model focusing on continuous learning and using outcome-based metrics. So, you should be asking questions, such as: Can you tie minimal viable products to advanced business metrics? Are you having critical conversations about outcomes and collaboration? Their underlining message was that by having these conversations, together we can help our community get better.

In their actual conference session, ‘The State of Agile Analysis 2019’, Kupe and Angela shared the results of their state of Agile Analysis 2019 survey which delved into how teams learn agile ways of working and touched on the struggles teams experience. They drove home the importance of putting the customer back into the product and your team’s work and shared how you can connect analysis to agile team results and values.

 

 

The theme of the customer was interwoven into all of IIBA’s sessions, including in the corporate session ‘Your Customers Are Talking, It’s Time to Listen’ with Matthew Winterbottom, Head of Social Listening & Analytics, Global Social Media Team, HSBC, an IIBA Corporate customer. In Matthew’s session attendees heard how HSBC is focusing on the importance of customer insight to better understand their customers and their experiences. Matthew spoke to a packed room about AI and social media. He encouraged everyone, if you are not already doing it to start mining the data you can pull from social listening tools to find out ‘what your customers are saying about you’, ‘what are their pain points’ and ‘really bring your customer into the room’ in everything you do with AI.

 

 

We also heard that the role of the BA in cybersecurity is becoming more commonplace. In the session ‘Cybersecurity: It’s Your Responsibility’ led by Bindu Channaveerappa, Business Analysis Consultant and Director of IIBA UK London Communities she addressed the question of who is responsible for cybersecurity and stressed that it should ‘be part of everyday delivery for all team members’. Bindu shared necessary insights and tips for implementing key security components, enhancing your skills and recognizing gaps in your current analysis (by analyzing a real-life cybersecurity incident). According to respondents in IIBA’s 2019 Global Business Analysis Salary Survey 21% of business analysis professionals report being involved in their organizations’ cybersecurity practice. Stay tuned for more information on cybersecurity and business analysis from IIBA coming in Q1 2020.

 

IIBA also held a session on ‘Business Data Analytics – Using Data to Drive Better Business Outcomes’ with speakers Laura Paton, CEO, BA Academy, Inc. and Ken Fulmer, CEO, IIBA. They shared the findings from a recent corporate member survey that asked what businesses felt were the skills business analysis professionals will need in the future - the answer was data analytics. This doesn’t come as a surprise, based on the results of IIBA’s 2019 salary survey that found 38% of respondents are involved in Business Data Analytics. Laura and Ken also highlighted the fact that when BAs are involved in data analytics teams the outcomes improve and the business is better able to utilize and consume the results (enabling organizations to get better results from their investments in data analytics and business intelligence). They discussed the growing need for the BA to work with the data scientist as a ‘translator’ to tell the story of what the data says in a way that enables the business to examine it, evaluate how it corresponds to their experience and ‘gut’ based sense of the business. For more information on Business Data Analytics and the Certification in Business Data Analytics read the free paper.

Again, throughout the two day workshop and three day conference there were too many sessions to sum up in one blog but overall the energy in the air and the engagement level of attendees combined with the quality of the speakers created an informative and inspiring feeling that attendees were able to bring back with them to their work. It was a great way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Building Business Capability! I’m looking forward to what the next decade will hold for BBC.

 

 

 

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