1. Rethinking the Future of
Business Analysts - Right Now!
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Welcome
Michael Antonio

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Why Rethink?
To consider something again that may result in a confirmation
or a change to change a choice or decision…Ongoing!
a. A careful reassessment of your careers, educational
choices and a broad understanding of what Business
Analysts will be called on to do in a rapidly changing
business world.
b. Part of the ongoing process of preparing for, or planning
your career in business analysis.
c. Also guides the educators in how to design IT and
related programs.

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Digital Transformation?
1. Customer Experience: Digital transformation of the customer
experience using technology to change the way an
organization interacts with its customers or clients.
2. Operational Processes: Digital transformation of operational
processes using technology to dramatically reduce the cost
or increase the efficiency of back-office operations.
3. Business Models: A digital business model making the
organization reliant on technology to deliver new forms of
value.
(Capgemini)

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Life is a Journey
1. Think about your own lives, your own careers.
2. Have you “arrived” at that stop on your career
journey you planned?
3. Have you achieved everything you’ve hoped
to achieve on this leg of your journey?
4. Worked on areas you have wanted to?
5. Finished training/courses and projects you
wanted to complete?
6. Do you stop to assess your journey?

5. My (golf)Journey
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• Personal Needs
• Challenges
• Analysis
• Adaptation
• Desired Outcomes

6. Quarry Oaks G.C.
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My Journey…

7.  Good golfers know how to deal with complexities and train to
themselves,
…maybe take lessons, learn good techniques
…to perform well...and consistently.
 How to select the right golf technology to suit their game.
 Stay abreast of the constant development of golf equipment and
systems (like Rangefinders) and
 Are able to analyze golf course layouts and conditions well.
 They also practice and prepare well!
Handling Complexity
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8. Recognizing situational complexities and
learning how best to utilize the technologies and
techniques in my pursuit of a goal (e.g. good score) is all
a means to achieving my Needs
…or to put it a different way
… the Outcome (I desire from golf.)
Meeting Needs & Achieving Outcomes
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9. Lessons to learned from my Journey
 Staying abreast of the constant development
of our environments, new tools and
methodologies,
 Changing delivery methods,
 Superior analysis of changing needs and
conditions,
 Prepare and plan to adapt,
 Focus on Needs and Outcomes.
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10. Prepare Business Analysts for the transformation of their
roles and delivery of value into the future
...Today, Right Now!
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11. The Changing Role Business Analysts
(Penny Pullman “The Changing Role of the Business Analyst”)
“The role of the Business Analyst is changing, providing
more value than ever to the organizations that employ
business analysts.”
• The growth of Business Complexities,
• Constant development of Technology,
• Virtual working becoming the norm,
• The Rate of Change and
• New delivery methods (e.g. mobile, cloud, IoT).
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12. Business Complexity
• If there is one thing that outstanding Business Analysts
must be well equipped to deal with, it is Complexity.
• The ability to work in great detail where necessary
and use deep skills in analysis and enterprise modeling.
• Need to be skilled at applying techniques such as
process model abstraction to reduce complexity and
allow efficient analysis, design and implementation of
complex solutions.
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13. Critical Thinking
 Recognizing Assumptions - This is the ability to separate fact
from opinion.
 Evaluating Arguments - analyzing information objectively
and accurately, questioning the quality of supporting
evidence.
 Drawing Conclusions - bring diverse information together to
arrive at conclusions that logically follow from the available
evidence,
 They do not inappropriately generalize beyond the
evidence.
… all in a disciplined manner.
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14. What makes our world complex is the relentless
movement of technology and
…particularly in the areas of data management,
cloud and mobile applications, and virtual working.
The Constant Development of Technology
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15. In today’s world, it doesn’t matter so
much where you do your work, as the
quality and quantity of work getting
done.
There are compelling reasons why all
work is moving in a virtual direction.
Virtual Working
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16. The Rate of Change, Agile and Innovation
• Change in companies is no longer something that happens for
a time and then everything settles down.
• Change appears to be constant, with organizations evolving to
suit the changing conditions they face.
• One way that many are seeking to grapple with the increased
rate of change is to move to more Agile methods for their
projects or
• Innovation used to change business models to succeed.
Examples... PayPal, Google, Apple, Facebook, Napster.
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Transforming the (Mb) Public Service…
“The world is changing rapidly, and that provides us with a unique
opportunity to transform the Manitoba public service for the future.
We are in a period of profound technological change that compels
us to evaluate the nature of our work…
We can no longer meet the needs of citizens and achieve outcomes
defined by government if we continue to rely on our historical
approaches to providing programs and services.
While they have previously served us well, these approaches were
not designed to meet the unprecedented challenges we now face.”
Fred Meir
Clerk of the Executive Council, Manitoba Government

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For our educators…
“Training curriculums should be freed from
enforced restrictions of traditional disciplines so
that they can work in partnership with business
and the community to reflect the reality of the
changing demographics and incorporating the
new knowledge that the acceleration of
technology brings.”
Dr. Lloyd Axworthy
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Canada and President and vice-
chancellor of the University of Winnipeg (10 years)

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For our students, graduates and practitioners…
• The last decade has seen a massive shift in our economy and we are
starting to see entire industries disrupted through innovation and
transformed.
• Business models that were stable for decades or centuries have
suddenly stopped being viable and similar transformative events are
likely to continue.
• This presents a significant opportunity, and risk for business analysis
professionals as we shift to integrating new technologies directly into our
organization’s business model.
• It’s no longer simply about improving what we did before, it is about
changing the relationship with customers and suppliers in fundamental
ways that were impossible before.
Business Analysis and Digital Transformation
(Capgemini: A global leader in consulting, technology services and digital transformation)

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10 areas to consider as you Rethink your career journey
1. Business Analysis (BABOK) Fundamentals
2. Understand Business Goals and Outcomes
3. Facilitation
4. Communications
5. Project Management
6. Change Management
7. Critical Thinking
8. Understand Digital Transformation Drivers
9. Technological Trends
10. Innovation

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1Business Analysis professionals need to focus on
delivering business value, while acting as trusted advisors
for organizations that need to adapt quickly to their new
reality.
This requires greater knowledge and understanding of
customers and competitors, as well as increased
knowledge about innovative technology that meets the
demands of todays business world.
It also requires increased soft skills including change
management and facilitation skills.
1 Capgemini

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