And… we are going LIVE with the Membership Circle on May 2 🚀. I’ve received a healthy number of responses and suggested topics — thank you all!
If that’s all you needed to know, then ➡️ skip reading and register here.
Topics for the first month:
May 2nd: Decision tables.
May 9th: How to build a BA portfolio for interviews.
May 16th: User story mapping.
May 30th: Resume mistakes (with examples).
And right away, before we even started, we’ve hit an exceptional scenario 😉: there are five Tuesdays this May. So, we are skipping May 23rd on the tail end of the long weekend in Canada.
From the survey, I’ve extracted more topics for Q&A discussions and later meetups. Here is a summary. Send more any time. Once we launch, we will have a live Discussion Forum to stay in touch and continue sharing.
Additional topics
Agile practice, sprint planning:
- Writing user stories
- User story mapping
- How to run a backlog grooming session
- Agile mindset for a business analyst
- Analysis tasks in the backlog
Stakeholder management:
- Facilitation of requirements workshops
- How to improve communication with stakeholders
- Completion of analysis tasks dependent on other stakeholders
- Lack of consideration for project risks among stakeholders
- How to challenge a requirement without challenging a client or offending anyone
- Lack of understanding of what business analysts do and challenges it creates
Diagrams and models:
- Business process mapping
- State charts
- Data models
- Use case diagrams
- Organizational modelling
Feasibility, pre-project analysis, beginning & managing projects:
- Market analysis
- Business analysis planning
- Business case
- Role of BA in project management, risk management
BA techniques:
- Business process re-engineering
- Decision analysis
- Decision trees
- Functional decomposition
- Use cases vs user stories
- Use case writing
- How to pick a BA technique for different situations and for small, medium and large projects
- Practical examples of problem solving
Advanced topics:
- Requirements elicitation in complex multi systems changes
- Requirements traceability matrices, how to build and maintain them
- Techniques to get senior people on the same page regarding the change across multiple systems (such as business architecture models)
- Doing analysis for very large projects in an agile environment with lack of architecture planning. What to do when the MVP is huge?
- Solution architecture and how it relates with business analysis
- How to manage BA processes and build a BA practice
- Knowledge management approaches
- How to not get stuck in the details and still be aware of the big picture.
Data & analytics:
- Develop a data analytics mindset
- Entity relationship diagram, data modelling
BA job family variations:
- Technical BA skills
Career:
- Transitioning into a BA role
- Real-world “day in the life” of a business analyst
- Preparing for interview questions
- Building a great BA portfolio
- Transitioning from intermediate to senior BA
- Career growth in business analysis and product management, networking
- Career advancement as a business analyst
Staying practical:
- Explanations and examples of common BA techniques
- Homework between meetups with feedback
- Preparing BA artifacts
- Mock hiring assessments
Future possibilities
If we build up our circle to a point where it is feasible to break up into two groups e.g. career starters vs advanced BAs, I will do another survey for the best time slots.
If you stay interested for the fall, we can also discuss in advance whether to keep the same time slot or change. I also need to plan my schedule so that I can commit to these times (I’m teaching college and have to juggle that.)
Registration and schedule
Discounted price for everyone who signs up in May is US$20 per month. You will be billed monthly; at any time you can cancel the next month’s payment. This round is for 3 months only (May-July 2023).
We will take a break in August.
Once you complete the registration, create a Why Change Academy account — this is where we will have our member-only area for videos, resources, and discussions in between meetups.
And while you wait for the first meetup, feel free to email me with questions and suggestions.
Ready? Let’s go!