Monday, June 16, 2014

Business Analysis Webinars for June 2014 - Part 2

IIBA Webinar: Agile Test-Driven Requirements Management Using BDD-Style Executable Specifications
Presented by Ted Kerr, CBAP VP Marketing IIBA Ottawa-Outaouais Chapter

For several years now, there has been a significant movement toward using a Test-Driven Development (TDD) approach within the Agile software developer community. Test-Driven Requirements Management helps BAs to ensure: all requirements are aligned to a business need; application behaviour is obvious and testable; and it is safe to change requirements.  Product owners, BAs, testers and developers use tests as the central element for requirements collaboration: this is the premise of using a Test-Driven (or Test-First) approach. Quality is baked into the solution from the very beginning of the project and a full set of executable specifications can be included inside the working software. Testing is not left to a bunch of isolated individuals off on an island somewhere, far removed from evolving requirements and evolving code.
 
Learning Objectives:

1.   How to use Given-When-Then to capture behaviour and document requirements.  

2.   How automated scenario tests can become executable specifications.  

3.   The effectiveness of writing requirements, tests and code for a given feature in parallel. 

Audience: IIBA Members

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 17, 2014; 11:00 am – 12:00 pm EDT

Host: @IIBA

Cost: Free


 
 

Q and A – How Can Business Analysts & Project Managers Do Better With Data?
Presented by Chris Knotts and Darrel Raynor

The information and decision-making duties of project professionals and business analysts get more complex every day. Data resources – and concerns – have become ubiquitous, and it’s critical to stay on top of them. While BAs and PMs don’t need to suddenly transform into data scientists, they must understand the data resources currently available, what they offer, and how they’re being used. Most importantly, every BA and PM should understand how data can be leveraged to deliver business value and project solutions in their own work.

This one-hour open Q&A session gives you a chance to get answers to common real-world data challenges. Join us as we talk with top-tier data expert Darrel Raynor. Darrel is a veteran project consultant and turnaround expert. He owns and runs www.dataanalysis.com and has provided consulting services to many dozens of Fortune and enterprise customers.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 17, 2014; 12:00 – 1:00 pm EDT

Host: @ASPE-SDLC

Cost: Free


 

 
How to Prepare a Complete & Concise WBS
Presented by Joe Lukas, PMP, PE, CSM, CCP

This webinar will discuss the importance of having a complete Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), including defining WBS quality and tracing WBS elements back to project requirements. Decomposition of Work Packages into activities will also be covered, including showing activities in MS Project and the pros and cons of linking activities in the project schedule.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 17, 2014; 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT

Host: @PMCentersUSA

Cost: $14.95                                                        June Webinar Special: 4 Webinars for $39.95


 


‘Early Warning’ for IT Software Projects
Presented by Tony Higgins, Barbara Davis and Mark Mullaly

At the beginning of your IT projects can you tell which are heading into danger?  Statistically one in six IT projects are “Black Swans”, exceeding their original budgets by 200% on average.  What if you could tell, during the early formative stages of a project, whether it was heading in the right direction?  How much money, time, and frustration would that save you and your organization?

Requirements are the “Blueprints” for a software project.  When they’re imprecise, incorrect, or incomplete it can – and regularly do – spell disaster.  To see into the requirements process and detect if it is “on track” lets you steer the project onto the right course.  Join Barbara Davis as she presents how a handful of basic requirements measures and a few KPI’s provide visibility that can transform your projects.  Tony Higgins from Blueprint will then demonstrate how these are automatically generated using technology available today, across your entire portfolio of projects.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 17, 2014; 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT

Host: @BlueprintSys

Cost: Free


 


The Executive's Guide to Information Management Across the Extended Enterprise
Presented by Tyler Shields, Forrester and John Giudice, Intralinks

IT Consumerization, particularly the “bring your own device” phenomenon is continuing to reshape the way IT is purchased, managed, delivered, and secured. While BYOD has the potential to increase worker productivity, it also poses significant challenges. How do you balance the needs for end-user flexibility without compromising organizational data? Join our guest speaker, Forrester Research Sr. Analyst, Tyler Shields, a leading expert on mobile and application security topics and Intralinks Director of Product Management, John Giudice as they address the IT realities of today. Attend this session to learn how you can easily share information across the extended enterprise while maintaining security and control.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 17, 2014; 1:00 – 2:00 pm EDT

Host: Ziff Davis, Inc. @ZDB2B

Cost: Free


 

IIBA Chapter Leadership Webinar: 2014 Chapter Awards Program Kick Off
Presented by Jared Gorai, Deputy VP of Chapters, IIBA

Please join Jared Gorai, our new Deputy VP of Chapters to officially launching the Chapter Awards Program. Learn the merits of participating and what the program means to those chapters that have participated in the past.

Audience: IIBA Chapter Leaders

Date/Time: Wednesday, June 18, 2014; 1:00 – 2:00 pm EDT

Host: @IIBA

Cost: Free


 
 

Blueprint 5.4 Live Product Demonstration
Presented by Blueprint Software

Join us on for a live, interactive demonstration of Blueprint, a visually driven requirements platform, that empowers companies to get complex IT project requirements right from the start. Register now and see why Blueprint is a better, visual way to drive the success of mission critical IT projects.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Wednesday, June 18, 2014; 7:00 – 8:00 am EDT
Date/Time: Wednesday, June 18, 2014; 12:00 – 1:00 pm EDT
Date/Time: Wednesday, June 18, 2014; 3:00 – 4:00 pm EDT

Host: @BlueprintSys

Cost: Free


 
 

Owning the Collaboration Circle on All of Your Future Projects
Presented by Jama Software

As a Business Analyst or Project Manager, you are on the front lines of bringing products to market that build value for your business. If you’re like most BAs, however, you spend too much time reporting status, explaining context and tracking decisions. In this session, learn tips and tools to help you keep your teams aligned, provide better visibility and maintain a continuous feedback loop so you can spend less time reporting and more time innovating.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Wednesday, June 18, 2014; 1:00 – 2:00 pm EDT

Host: @JamaSoftware

Cost: Free


 

IIBA Webinar: How to Introduce The Decision Model to your Organization Successfully
Presented by Barbara Von Halle, Managing Partner, Knowledge Partners International, LLC

The practice of Decision Modeling and Management is becoming widely accepted as the best way for organizations to transform business logic and business rules, often buried in process models or code, into a highly visible, changeable, reusable asset.  Doing so enables Business and IT to collaborate effectively and efficiently while executing organizational strategy.  Productivity and agility improvements over other approaches have proven to be significant, sometimes game-changing.
 
Published in 2009, The Decision Model provides organizations with a uniquely rigorous, technology independent framework for business decision modeling.  The Decision Model finds its way into organizations in many different ways: through a Center of Excellence, a pending crisis or opportunity, an inspired individual, or a small investigative group.
 
Regardless, all paths to organizational decision modeling encounter a common question: How do you introduce The Decision Model into an organization?  More specifically, how do you gain management attention for delivering decision models as a standard practice? This webinar addresses that question.
This webinar will

·         Describe goals for a presentation for introducing The Decision Model to a management audience.  

·         Provide insight on creating a visual story targeted at your organization’s needs.  

·         Highlight the key points you should include in your presentation 

Audience: IIBA members

Date/Time: Thursday, June 19, 2014; 11:00 am – 12:00 pm EDT

Host: @IIBA

Cost: Free


 
 

Business Book Reports: Monday Morning Leadership by David Cottrell
Presented by Chris Knotts

Each month we pick a valuable, substantive business book we think will benefit the professionals we serve. Some are new; some are classics. Either way, we do the reading, then use one of our free web seminars to deliver a one-hour "book report."

This month’s book pick is “Monday Morning Leadership “ by David Cottrell

Little known yet highly impactful, this little gem of a book is required reading for every member of the management team here at ASPE. Cottrell outlines 8 of the most fundamental and useful principles any business professional should internalize for success in business, work, or any leadership endeavor. Through a series of eight mentoring sessions, the author uses the experiences of “Jeff,” a fictional manager at a Fortune 500 company, to outline the framework of successful leadership:

·         Drivers and passengers

·         The “main thing”

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Thursday, June 19, 2014; 12:00 – 1:00 pm EDT

Host: @ASPE-SDLC

Cost: Free


 
 

Real-Time Actionable Insights for Better Business Decisions

Presented by James Cancilla, IBM and Kimberly Madia, IBM

Real-time analytics enable truly data driven decisions where and when you need them most. Streaming applications must support business decisions in real time. IBM Operational Decision Manager provides a rich environment for authoring and managing business rules and InfoSphere Streams provides analytic toolkits to support the execution of business rules created using Operational Decision Manager.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Thursday, June 19, 2014; 1:00 – 2:00 pm EDT

Host: @ZiffDavis  @IBM

Cost: Free


 


 

Introducing the New PMI-PBA (Professional in Business Analysis) Certification
Presented by David Mantica

PMI (Project Management Institute) continues to meet the needs of Project and SDLC (Software / System Development Life Cycle) professionals by offering another specialty certification.

The industry knows how critical a working relationship between the BA and PM is for project success. Also it is well understood that smaller companies can only afford to have Project Managers yet still need strong business analysis work done. PMI as answered these needs by offering this new certification.

Pilot applications are being accepted through May 12, 2014.

This web seminar will go over in depth the PMI-PBA handbook (costs and application requirements), the examination content outline and the reading/outside knowledge requirements. We will save you the time and energy of reading through the 70+ pages of documentation.

ASPE-SDLC promises to be a the fore-front of this critical designation and this is our first step in providing you the information, knowledge, and skills needed to achieve the designation

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 24, 2014; 12:00 – 1:00 pm EDT

Host: @ASPE-SDLC

Cost: Free


 

 

 

IIBA Annual General Meeting and Board of Directors Election 2014
Presented by Stephen Ashworth, President and Chief Executive Officer of IIBA and Indy Mitra, Chair of the IIBA Board of Directors

On Tuesday, June 24, 2014, International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) will be holding the 11th Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Board of Directors Election. For more information on the Board of Directors Election please visit here.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 24, 2014; 7:00 – 8:30 pm EDT

Host: @IIBA

Cost: Free


 
 

Stand Up and Deliver Great Product with Collaborative Requirements
Presented by Regg Struyk, Product Manager, and Jiri Walek, Vice President, Product Management, Polarion Software

Process and organizational changes alone are no longer sufficient to meet the mandate of improved quality, governance and auditability in today’s complex, high-pressure development environments.

We will discuss the value of real-time collaboration, where everything is connected through bi-directional traceability, and all collaborators have access to the information and functionality they need to succeed. We’ll demonstrate why engaging stakeholders early and in context provides a clear path forward and helps uncover issues before defects occur. And we will share how easy access to previous work products combined with fully linked variant and change management can bring your team collaboration to the next level.

Topics covered in the presentation include:
   * Integrate Workflow into your existing process
   * Power of Granular Work Items
   * Complete Traceability and Versioning
   * Real-Time Collaboration using Social Media

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Thursday, June 26, 2014; 1:00 – 2:00 pm EDT

Host: @ModernAnalyst

Cost: Free


 



Bringing your Big Data Strategy to Fruition
Presented by Ziff Davis Events

IT professionals and business leaders alike know that the insights gleaned from big data holds the key to growth and creating competitive advantages. Giving lines of business and end users access to powerful capabilities that let them harness their data for business value can mean the difference between closing a deal and losing a deal to competitors or detecting a data breach as it happens instead of ending up in the headlines. However, knowing the potential of big data analytics and actually executing on a holistic big data strategy are two very different things.

Ziff Davis recently conducted a User Insight Survey, investigating the capabilities of businesses to leverage their growing data resources. While it was clear that respondents understood the areas in which analytics could offer substantial benefit and insight, it was also apparent that many organizations were still developing a big data strategy but weren’t yet prepared to bring it to fruition.

Join Ziff Davis and IBM for a round table webcast where analysts and experts that understand what’s required for success with big data & analytics will discuss:

  • How to operationalize big data across lines of business
  • Necessary infrastructure to support big data analytics now and in the future
  • Capabilities and delivery options and considerations

Don’t miss “Bringing Your Big Data Strategy to Fruition,” where our panel of experts will dive into the elements necessary to turn a big data strategy into big data insights.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Thursday, June 26, 2014; 1:00 – 2:00 pm EDT

Host: @ZiffDavis  @IBM

Cost: Free

 

It's All About the Visuals: Effective Modeling Techniques for Business Analysts
Presented by Terrell Smith, MPA, PMP, CBAP, Corporate Education Group

Poor requirements lead to failed projects. There is solid evidence that visualization of requirements result in higher quality results. Engaging stakeholders by the use of a variety of modeling techniques results in much higher quality requirements and greatly improved project results.

In this webinar, you will gain insight into a wide array of modeling tools that assist in more effectively documenting customer requirements. You will gain an understanding of how these tools can effectively improve the communication with your clients. Examples of modeling tools will be overviewed, including: context diagrams, use cases, activity diagrams, screen flows and prototypes. This allows a business analyst to connect the dots when documenting requirements.

Learning objectives include:

·         Understand the value of creating a context diagram at the beginning of the project

·         Learn how to derive use cases from the context diagram to document functional requirements

·         Increase the effectiveness of process documentation by developing activity diagrams

·         Learn how to create screen flows and use prototyping for improved usability

·         Understand how these modeling techniques come together to provide a true picture of requirements

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Friday, June 27, 2014; 1:00 – 2:00 pm EDT

Host: @ModernAnalyst

Cost: Free

 

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Sharing Your Knowledge: Why and How

Often, through their normal daily work the business analyst learns new knowledge about systems, business processes or the organization as a whole.  Doing business analysis tasks on a daily basis a business analyst investigates systems; whether through documentation analysis, interface analysis or interviews with system users or subject matter experts (SME), they learn how systems operate and how the business uses the system(s).  All too often what happens when the business analyst leaves the team or organization is all that learned, and now tacit, knowledge leaves with them.  Then comes the unpalatable task of replacing the business analyst and bringing the new person up to speed with the team.  What can never be regained is that knowledge that left with the previous business analyst.  Wouldn’t it be great to keep that tacit knowledge? Let’s look at a better way… Read the article.

Monday, June 2, 2014

Business Analysis Webinars for June 2014

Complimentary Webinar: Who's Doing What? The Confusion on Roles & Responsibilities
Presented by Rick Clare, PMP, CBAP, CSM, MSPM
                                                                                                                            
Many companies still use different terms and descriptions for Business Analysts and Project Managers, and many other roles can get integrated into both professions. These different terms and the differing corporate interpretations on the job positions can cause a lot of confusion, especially as you move from one company to another. Come and hear our take on this subject! This webinar will be 30 minutes long followed by a live question and answer session with our instructor.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 3, 2014; 12:00 – 12:30 pm EDT

Host: @PMCentersUSA

Cost: Free



 
 

Five Easy Steps for Turning Data to Insight in an Hour in the Cloud
Presented by Adam Ronthal, IBM and Michael Lock, Aberdeen

If you are evaluating whether Cloud could be an option for your next data mart or data warehouse project, join us to learn how IBM BLU Acceleration for Cloud, IBM Watson Foundations' data warehouse solution on Cloud, provides everything you need to get started: analytics, R programming language, and the ability to connect your own preferred solution. Go from data to insight in an hour.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 3, 2014; 1:00 – 2:00 pm EDT

Host: Ziff Davis, Inc. @ZDB2B

Cost: Free


 

 


BVUG: Blueprint Tips & Tricks, and Blueprint 5.5 Preview
Presented by Brian Partington, Enterprise Business Consultant at Lexis Nexis

Be sure to join us for our upcoming Blueprint Virtual User Group (BVUG) presentation. In this session Brian Partington, Enterprise Business Consultant at Lexis Nexis, will be demonstrating “Tips & Tricks” with Blueprint. Learned through several years of Blueprint usage, Brian and his team have evolved very efficient ways to work with Blueprint within their process, and will share several of these ‘tips & tricks’ during the session. After the presentation we will then demonstrate capabilities in the upcoming release of Blueprint, Blueprint v5.5.

Audience: Blueprint Customers and Partners

Date/Time: Wednesday, June 4, 2014; 12:00 – 1:00 pm EDT

Host: @BlueprintSys

Cost: Free


 

 

 
IIBA Webinar Sponsor Series: Organizational Survival: The Double Meaning of Sustainability
Presented by Greg Balestrero, Strategic Advisor – Corporate Consciousness, Leadership, and Sustainability, International Institute for Learning, Inc. (IIL)

This webinar provides the motivation for organizations to look beyond a pure profit motive and take on social, economic, environmental, and ethical responsibilities to have a positive influence on global prosperity. Gregory Balestrero (IIL Strategic Advisor on Leadership, Sustainability & Corporate Consciousness and co-author of Organizational Survival: Profitable Strategies for a Sustainable Future) will discuss the results of nearly three years of research and share insight on how to increase value, enhance reputation, and improve image and brand through an integrated approach to strategic change.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Thursday, June 5, 2014; 12:00 – 1:00 pm EDT

Host: @IIBA

Cost: Free


 

 

Taming the Testing Beast
Presented by Marc Balcer

How do you know what to test?

There seems to never be enough time (or money or people) to adequately test systems. Rapid cycle times brought on by the adoption of agile approaches only seem to make things worse. Even with automated systems for running tests, you’re still left with the time-consuming problem of designing many test cases.

This webinar will introduce you to a simple yet powerful technique for modeling functional requirements and a tool that uses those models to generate effective test cases. This approach can be used for unit testing, user testing, and more. Tests can be developed from early specifications (use cases and user stories) and in response to bug reports.

You’ll see how to easily produce a good set of test cases – exhaustive enough to give your software a good workout, but intelligent enough not to waste time and effort.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Thursday, June 5, 2014; 12:00 – 1:00 pm EDT

Host: @ASPE-SDLC

Cost: Free


 

 

 
How to Conduct a Successful Requirements Workshop that Helps Ensure Project Success
Presented by Rick Clare, PMP, CBAP, CSM, MSPM
                                                                                                                          
At the beginning of a large project it is necessary to quickly get a solid understanding of the high level requirements.  This is needed for a number of reasons: to put some context around the true scope of the project, to bring the team into sync, and especially to form a solid basis for the balance of the requirements work.  The best way to achieve this is to conduct a Requirements Workshop.  Come and learn what this elicitation technique consists of, what its goals are, and how best to make it successful.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Thursday, June 5, 2014; 12:00 – 1:00 pm EDT

Host: @PMCentersUSA

Cost: $14.95                                        June Webinar Special: 4 Webinars for $39.95


 

 

IIBA Certification Chat
Presented by Vicki James, PMP, CBAP

This is a free chat session featuring questions and live answers by an experienced CBAP from Watermark Learning.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Friday, June 6, 2014; 12:00 – 12:30 pm EDT

Host: @WatermarkLearn

Cost: Free


 

 

 
Agile and ITIL
Presented by John Parker, CEO of Enfocus Solutions

At first Agile and ITIL seem at odds because of the rigid release and change management process of ITIL and the rapid delivery of software in agile.  However, the two frameworks are actually quite complimentary.

In this webinar, John Parker will describe how the design of End-to-End business services works in an agile development environment and how agile can easily be integrated into ITIL change and release management processes.

He will address the following topics:

·         Managing Services instead of Products
·         Defining Agile Services
·         Service Portfolio Management
·         Economic Benefit of Small Batch Sizes
·         Design Coordination Management
·         Creating a Service Design Package
·         Service Transition Management
·         Creating RFCs
·         Dealing with Release and Change Management
·         Continuous Delivery
·         Achieving Agility and Operational Excellence
·         Requirements: The Old way and the new way
·         Using ITIL for Scaling Agile

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 10, 2014; 12:00 – 1:00 pm EDT

Host: @EnfocusSolution

Cost: Free


 

 

 
IIBA Webinar: Meet the Candidates

Presented by Michele Maritato, Board of Director, IIBA

Join us on Tuesday, June 10, 2014, for the IIBA® Board of Directors Election 2014 “Meet the Candidates” webinar. This is your opportunity to hear from the candidates who want to lead IIBA into the future.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 10, 2014; 3:00 – 4:30 pm EDT

Host: @IIBA

Cost: Free


 

 

 
The Impact of Decision Modeling for Business and IT
Presented by Knowledge Partners International @PKIUSA

With the introduction of Decision Model & Notation as a new standard, the Object Management Group (OMG)  ushered in new era for decision modeling. Initially pursued by a small group of early adopters and thought leaders who evolved from the Business Process and Business Rules Management space, decision modeling joined the mainstream in early 2014.
 
This panel discussion, moderated by Larry Goldberg, Managing Partner at Knowledge Partners International, includes strategic leaders working with Business and IT in the financial services, semi-conductor and software development sectors.
 
Panelists:
 
Alan Holsztynski, Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, Cole Taylor Mortgage
Dr. Nick Illingworth, Strategic Architect, SAP FSI Consulting EMEA
Cheryl Mascaro, Enterprise Architect, Strategy, Architecture & Innovation, Intel
Todd Schmitter, Executive Director CBB Architecture, JP Morgan Chase
 
Among the questions we will explore are:
  • How did decision modeling change the information exchange between Business and IT?
  • What impact has decision modeling had on the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC)?
  • How is decision modeling supported from an IT infrastructure perspective?
  • What is the outlook for the coming years?
These are just a few of the questions on which our panel will elaborate during the 1 hour long panel discussion.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Thursday, June 12, 2014; 12:00 – 1:00 pm EDT

Host: @KPIUSA

Cost: Free


 

 

 
Taming the Testing Beast
Presented by Chris Knotts and Darrel Raynor

The amount of data available to software teams and the tools available to utilize it can easily become mind-numbing if you don’t know how to ask the right questions. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a data guru or a technical specialist to understand this fundamental truth: your data is only as valuable as the questions you ask. This is good news for project teams and business analysis professionals because it means you can quickly and realistically begin harnessing insights offered by data that’s readily available, as long as you understand how to frame the questions that yield those insights.

In this one-hour web seminar, data guru and veteran enterprise consultant Darrel Raynor will take your questions on how you can immediately begin framing the useful questions that will yield useful insights for your organization, using data analysis resources you probably already have in place. Darrel is the founder and Managing Director of www.dataanalysis.com and has decades of experience consulting with Fortune companies on uncovering useful business insights and turning around troubled projects using data-driven resources. Join us for this open Q&A in which we take as many of your questions as possible.

Audience: Public

Date/Time: Thursday, June 12, 2014; 12:00 – 1:00 pm EDT

Host: @ASPE-SDLC

Cost: Free


 

 
 
 
Everything You Need to Know About the New BABOK® Guide - v3
Presented by Phil Vincent, CBAP, PMP, Corporate Education Group
A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® (BABOK® Guide) from International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA®) is the leading global standard for the business analysis profession. Regularly reviewed and updated since its first publication in 2005, the BABOK® Guide - v3 is open for international public review until mid-July, 2014.
This webinar will provide a comprehensive review of the new content and structure of the BABOK® Guide - v3, including a spotlight on:
·         The realignment of the knowledge areas
·         The introduction of the five formal perspectives on business analysis
·         The changing definitions of business analysis and requirements
·         When the CBAP® and CCBA® Exams will change and how to determine whether you should wait or sit for the exam before it changes
This is an ideal webinar for both new and advanced business analysts.
Audience: Public
Date/Time: Friday, June 13, 2014; 1:00 – 2:00 pm EDT
Host: @ModernAnalyst
Cost: Free