At IIBA^® we have been focused on improving the value proposition for all our stakeholders this year including launching new EEP™ programs, new academic programs (this month), revised corporate programs, and of course more substance to what the individual practitioner Member gets. This includes a new Competency Model launched this summer, a new high-value Agile Extension, a new Leadership series for the BA program - which has drawn over 4,500 attendees to the online program and a new face-to-face, hands-on leadership workshop day coming this November - an improved webinar program slate, and a new Global Thought Leadership program. Thanks to over 5,200 global respondents to our 2017 Annual Business Analysis Salary Survey we've gathered the latest insight into the role of the BA by industry, function, education, reporting structure and more. The Summary Report shares the highlights of the survey. An in-depth guide that delves deeper into the results will be released later this month. These are just a few examples of much more to come. The strategy is to reach more professionals and grow the membership.

Working extensively with the Agile Core team, IIBA launched the Agile Extension to the BABOK^® Guide in August live from AGILE2017 in Orlando, Florida. Agile Alliance and IIBA Members received early access to the PDF and exclusively for IIBA Members we shared an online version of the new Agile Extension. We understand time to market is important and Version 2 provides you with the latest thoughts and practices including our multi-level rolling planning horizons. This month we are launching the online feedback tool for IIBA Members to share their comments and suggested edits. Feedback will be validated by the Agile review team and updates to this iterative online publication will be timely and relevant. To learn more about the Agile Core Team's work, read the new Agile issue of BA Lens online. 

Most of the Thought Leader core teams are by invitation, but some are open invitation, such as the Data Analytics SIG. The output of the core teams will be shared so you can participate in webinars, blogs, etc. that each team will set-up. We are also looking in the near future to broaden this to a hub and spoke model, where there is the core team and then a ring of more local groups at the Chapter level, or at a virtual meet-up /internet café model, that will expand or feed back to the core teams. Right now, we are focused on ramping up the teams and having them create shareable reports, webinars, findings, case studies, etc.  
 

We have 3 key objectives to help us focus on the profession:

From a personal perspective, I see item ‘c’ as core to the change. We want to focus on the profession, and not on the association as the driving imperative.  We need the association to be successful and remain financially viable, but that is not the core purpose.  
 

We are most concerned with all aspects of how to achieve better business outcomes, and at our core we are highly concerned about ‘change’.  Technology is no longer just information technology, but digital and other technologies are a part of that. It is also true that business models are changing, and it spans across industry segments. Information technology was fundamentally conceived as enabling and supporting the business. Technology today is becoming part of the very fabric of the business itself, it is about how we impact the customer, how we market in retail, how we manufacture, how supply chains operate, and how we do finance and investment management. Technology is pervasive in the new business world. This not to say the traditional aspects of business process, change, data, and people go away or are less important. They are our foundation and they remain absolutely critical and relevant for how we use technology and drive our client businesses into a new era of transformative business models, and customer focused design of products. We see the business world changing, and we are in the midst of an emerging new industrial revolution that includes things way outside the purview of traditional IT, such as robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Digital Products, and Mobile platforms, new nano-materials, new energy economics, and countless others.  
 

So, what are the skills and competencies that will enable a person to succeed in the next job, and more importantly 3-5 years into the future? To say that the traditional competencies alone are sufficient for success would be a disservice to our membership. Those traditional competencies are still relevant and still the foundation; they are necessary, but not sufficient conditions. Members need to acquire new skills, new competencies, learning new techniques and tools as they become more relevant.  Learning new IT skills is valuable, but the future will require much more than traditional IT skills. Business analysis professionals must become knowledgeable about digital and other new technologies so we can work with emerging businesses, understanding the capabilities that are possible, and guiding the business and technical experts to solve real problems based on understanding the requirements, the change objectives, and the outcomes to the business. 
 

A great source article that explains this foundation approach even better is a blog published by one of our board members, Barbara Carkenord and RMC. In her blog, Barbara explains how IIBA still strongly supports the business analysis foundational view supporting the full scope of the profession, but at the same time is also working to prepare the community to move with the marketplace and its new business models and its new technological driven transformations. The world’s largest companies are anticipating the 4^th industrial revolution will greatly transform the way they do business, IIBA wants to help business analysis professionals be prepared for the changes and also to see  the opportunities and the advantages. We look forward to taking this journey with you.