2018 ba-con speakers and presentations

Breakout Session Schedule

Sneha Fotedar - From Loose Groups to Effective Teams

Ken Randall - Visualize, Specify, Collaborate!

Kermit Morse - How Trust Impacts Software Development

Thomas Haver - What is Example Mapping and How to Use It

Melissa Keesing - Being a BA on a Scrum Team

Paul Meeker - Finding your MVD (Minimum Viable Documentation)

Richard Reichard - Innovation: The Other Discipline

Victoria Beckman - What a Business Analyst Needs to Know about Data Breaches

Taranjeet (TJ) Kaur - Security - The New Imperative

Brenda Eldridge and Ryan Skoglund - Requirements and the Great Design Debate

Christy Fenzl and Bart Weaver - The BA as a Catalyst for Continuous Delivery (NOT CLICKBAIT)

Laura Fernandes - Formulating the Experiment: Pilots, Prototypes, and Proofs of Concept

Chad Willett - Rip Off the Rearview Mirror

Joshua Eastman - Behavior Driven Development (BDD) – Guide to Agile Practices

Anna Chlopecki and Raymond Hamlin, Jr. - Collaboration or Conflict: Adding Value as a Business Analyst Working with Vendors

Barry P. Tarlton - Dismantling the Monolith

Jack Maher - Deterministic Process Design for DevOps

Heather Mylan-Mains  - Calling BA Explorers! Navigate the Dark Forest of Process

Dan Clausing - Role the BA Plays on a Successful Agile Team

Neelam Mohanty - Moving Applications to the Cloud with a Focus on Data and Analytics

Cody May - What it Means to be a QBA – Quality Business Analyst

Damian Synadinos  - The Hidden Requirements: Exploring Emotions with Placebos

Logan Daigle - DevOps for BA’s

Cindy Hufnagle - Off the Happy Path: Looking at Requirements from an Exploratory Testing Point of View

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From Loose Groups to Effective Teams

We all must work collaboratively in teams to deliver quality products.  The ability to contribute effectively in a team is among the most valuable skills to develop in a workplace. Many organizational problems are the direct result of people failing to communicate adequately.  Faulty communication leads to confusion and can derail the best laid plans.

This topic aims to differentiate a group of individuals from a working team. The audience will learn about several elements of interpersonal skills such as communication, team trust, conflict resolution, motivation, and leadership – all of which help to convert a loose group into an effective team. This talk will also delve into simple models of communication, self-awareness, and motivation used by an individual or team to be effective in a global work environment.

Download Sneha's presentation here.

Theme: Miscellaneous     Level: Introductory

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Visualize, Specify, Collaborate!

A three-part talk on the processes, skills and toolsets practiced by professional Business Analysts in leading organizations today. Ken Randall presents a survey of techniques and the application of these techniques in the AxureRP Toolset. The presentation focuses on the challenges Business Analysts face in representing requirements to their many customers, methods to improve communications and collaboration with stakeholders and approaches to representing solution requirements. The talk includes real-world examples of “ah-ha” moments, success and even some painful lessons-learned that no doubt will encourage and challenge you to do your own continuous improvement with your teams. 

Download Ken's presentation here.

Theme: Agile     Level: Intermediate

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How Trust Impacts Software Development

Whether you are operating in a Waterfall or Agile environment, trust impacts product development.   This session will examine how trust enables or hinders our efforts.  We will also look at the costs associated with not having trust and answer the question, how do you build trust with our stakeholders.

Download Kermit's presentation here.

Theme: Miscellaneous     Level: Introductory

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What is Example Mapping and How to Use It

Example Mapping is a collaboration technique used by teams to help refine requirements. Every team should have a set of "ready" criteria that includes some kind of workshop between development team members to establish a shared understanding. In a time-boxed Example Mapping session, rules will summarize examples or constraints about a user story, and questions about outcomes or dependencies are documented for future refinement. The end result are requirements written as user behavior with a shared understanding among all roles on an Agile team. The audience will participate in a live Example Mapping session and learn how to implement the workshop within their own team.

Download Thomas' presentation here.

Theme: Facilitation     Level: Introductory

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Being a BA in a Scrum Team

The Scrum guide says that Scrum recognizes no titles for Development Team members, regardless of the work being performed by the person. But wait! I’m a Business Analyst, not a developer.
This talk will discuss how a BA fits in and adds value to a Scrum team and what makes a BA a desirable Scrum team member. 

Download Melissa's presentation here.

Theme: Agile     Level: Introductory

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Finding your MVD (Minimum Viable Documentation)

It’s a challenge to know how much documentation is necessary for any given product. I’ve written pages and pages of documentation that have never been read by anyone, including me. I’ve also written close to zero documentation on projects, only to have someone ask to read the documentation! How can we add valuable documentation that isn’t a waste of everyone’s time? As a product manager over multiple products, I have experience finding the right amount of documentation necessary to get the job done for various projects with various stakeholders.
This talk will address:

• Avoiding the extremes of documentation for documentation’s sake and “it’s agile so there’s no documentation”

• Identifying your documentation persona (who will actually read what you document)

• Alternatives to traditional documentation

• People don’t like to read, let’s face it and adjust how we write

• Documentation and the SDLC, how documentation evolves from inception to training

• Reduce, reuse, and recycle your documentation (example: write your user stories like a training manual)

• When and where to share documentation

Attendees will come away with a new way to view documentation and some new tools/ processes for analyzing how much documentation they really need for a project.

Download Paul's presentation here.

Theme: Agile     Level: Introductory

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Innovation: The Other Discipline

Like drawing or singing or cooking, people think of innovation as something you either have natural talent for or you don’t.   And most people think they don’t.   The truth of the matter is, however, that, by changing our behaviors in some small ways and practicing some specific disciplines, all of us can become more innovative.  And with innovation being such a critical element of the continuing success of our enterprises, it is incumbent upon us all to improve our innovation skills.   In this talk we will learn what the research says about how individuals can develop their innovation skills as well as what organization should be doing to foster innovation and capture innovative ideas.

Download Richard's presentation here.

Theme: Miscellaneous     Level: Introductory

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What a Business Analyst Needs to Know about Data Breaches

This session will discuss developing, implementing and executing incident response policies and procedures before, during and after a security breach; who should be on the incident response team; breach notification requirements; and the role of outside counsel and vendors in breach response.

Topics:
- Mapping and evaluating data
- Identifying legal obligations
- Creating and implementing security policies
- Understanding direct and longer-term costs of breach
- Incident Response Plan and Team
- Privilege and hiring of vendors
- Role of insurance

Download Victoria's presentation here.  Download the accompanying handout here.

Theme: Security    Level: Intermediate

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Security - The New Imperative

With changing paradigm Cyber Security has become a key aspect of Application development. Enterprise Application Team deals with Security Vulnerabilities on a much more frequent basis now. Understanding that most of these issues can be addressed early on while scoping and designing an IT solution, Business Analysts can play a key role by enabling strategic approach for building secure product.
You will leave the session with detailed understanding of how to secure an application from start and to pose right set of questions to everyone else involved in building IT solutions.

Download TJ's presentation here.

Theme: Security     Level: Introductory 

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Requirements and the Great Design Debate

There has always been a fine line as to what constitutes a requirements element vs. a design element when documenting Requirements.  Join in the age old debate on where requirements end and design begins.  Can the two elements co-exist in one place and should they?
Potential arguments up for discussion include:

• Business Analysts vs. Business Designers

• Are prototypes requirements of design

• Can a “to-be” solution be documented without including some elements of design

• There is no role for designers in Agile

• A requirement should never specify aspects of physical design

• Are Data modeling, process modeling and prototypes requirements or design

• Agile blurs the lines of role by asking team members to be cross-functional

• Is it fair to shut down discussion of design just because it’s happening in a requirements meeting?

• Is it possible to keep design elements out of a very technical project?

Download Brenda and Ryan's presentation here.

Theme: Miscellaneous     Level: Introductory

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The BA as a Catalyst for Continuous Delivery (NOT CLICKBAIT)

With the speed of business and technology change, the ability to deliver solutions at a lower cost and higher velocity -- continuously, in fact -- is a key to survival. DevOps has been described as "the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to our end users," and Business Analysts are uniquely qualified to make a significant contribution to achieving the DevOps vision for the organizations and customers they serve. In this presentation, Business Analysts and their partners will learn the DevOps principles where they can personally help drive the achievement of continuous delivery within their organizations along with specific tools and techniques that are tested and immediately actionable.

Download Bart and Christy's presentation here.

Theme: DevOps     Level: Intermediate

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Formulating the Experiment: Pilots, Prototypes, and Proofs of Concept

Experimentation is a powerful tool of product development that can be used to elicit and validate requirements, evaluate solutions, and mitigate risk. While pilots, prototypes, and proofs of concept are ubiquitous in product development today, their objectives and outcomes are often misunderstood and ambiguously defined, muting their effectiveness.  Enhanced knowledge of experimentation techniques can be a vital resource in a business analyst’s toolkit, especially for those working with emerging technologies and innovations.
This session will cover:

• Characteristics, objectives, and outcomes of each type of experiment

• Critical questions for eliciting deliverable requirements and defining the experiment

• Using experiments as requirements elicitation and solution evaluation techniques

• Tips for maximizing the outcomes of the experiment

Download Laura's presentation here. Download the accompanying handout here.

Theme: Facilitation     Level: Intermediate

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Rip Off the Rearview Mirror

Rip Off the Rearview Mirror will give you a hands on experience to live for the only minute you can control which is now. Living in the past creates depression, while, living in the future creates anxiety. We only have this moment to discover our “Through Line” in life by defining our short term objectives and our super objective and when in unison the line is created.

Rip Off the Rearview Mirror is a one of kind experience which includes:

• “Through Line”: Discover your “Through Line” in life which gives you energy, purpose, and direction

• The Power of “Now”- Live for the only minute you can control which is “Now”

• Entertainment: Storytelling, audience interaction, and watching short clips from TV Shows/ Films that re-enforce the vision and message of “Rip Off the Rearview Mirror”

• Value: By focusing on your “Through Line” experience firsthand what it is like to “Rip Off the Rearview Mirror”

Download Chad's presentation here.

Theme: Facilitation     Level: Introductory

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Behavior Driven Development (BDD) – Guide to Agile Practices

It seems as if the agile methods have lots of DD’s going on. TDD – Test Driven Development, BDD – Behavior Driven Development, and ATDD – Acceptance Test Driven Development. Adopting BDD allows for testing to be done as early as possible in the software development life cycle, promoting accurate testing, ensuring proper test coverage, and supporting the introduction of automation testing. One challenge is understanding the characteristics and benefits of “driven” approaches. Join Josh Eastman to discover ways that BDD can be employed to describe and test system behavior, user stories, and user acceptance. Josh will discuss Gherkin - the language to capture behavior descriptions and automation with cucumber and explore the four major values of BDD to ensure product quality, while driving time and cost savings. Leave this session with ideas to reduce the ambiguity and miscommunications that occur during development and testing.

Download Josh's presentation here.

Theme: Agile Level: Intermediate

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Collaboration or Conflict: Adding Value as a Business Analyst Working with Vendors

As the trend of companies transitioning from Build to Buy strategies increases, the role of the Business Analyst often comes into question. The vendor sells a bill of goods, but as experience shows, "One size does not always fit all."

In this session, Anna and Ray will help you gain an understanding of the evolution of the Business Analyst role when working with vendors on a project:

• By exploring some of the specific issues and challenges that arise for BA's working with Third party Vendors on projects

• By discussing some lessons learned from their experiences at a company that is going through this transition

• By sharing some “tips and tricks” that they have found effective in driving quality and business value when implementing third party apps

• By leading a brainstorming session with the participants to share their experiences as well

Download Anna and Raymond's presentation here.

Theme: Facilitation  Level: Intermediate

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Dismantling the Monolith

Due to their epic size and complexity, building large enterprise applications can seem like such a long and arduous task that it may feel like it would require less effort to send a man to mars than to build some of our monolithic applications. In this session, we will take a historical look at how Monolithics applications where built in the past and the issues that they bring. We will seek to understand how the shift to microservices and cloud technologies are enabling companies to deliver software faster and with more confidence. While we will provide a gentle introduction to some of the new technology trends, we will mostly focus on the vital role analysts play in Dismantling the Monolith.

Download Barry's presentation here.

Theme: DevOps  Level: Experienced

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Deterministic Process Design for DevOps

DevOps delivers tremendous advantages through automation of processes. Designing processes that can be automated through the build and delivery value streams requires a new approach to process design. The acceleration of process from development through deployment also puts increasing pressure on the requirements collection and provisioning processes. Automated processes and requirements management drive clarity of expectations and consistency of process which in turn provides practitioners with an environment conducive to focusing on the work, with reduced distraction from work discovery and low- to no-value-added administrative work. Deterministic process design based on process standard work and role standard work enables rules based process work flow which can be automated using commonly available software tools. This additionally provides significant benefits by providing intellectual property and asset protection, version control, improved availability to distributed teams and re-use.

Download Jack's presentation here.

Theme: DevOps  Level: Intermediate

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Calling BA Explorers! Navigate the Dark Forest of Process

Forests are full of trees with many branches and all kinds of leaves. Some trees are overflowing with leaves and some have bare branches. Some are even dead on the ground. There are many similarities to forests and processes in our organizations. In this session learn how to navigate the dark forest of process. Understanding the entire forest and the individual leaves of the tree is important at different times. Analysts that are skilled process navigators create value in their organizations. It’s important to watch out for the forest rangers, hikers and preservationists in our process forest too. Learn how the entire ecosystem works together to ensure a healthy forest. We will have fun as we explore the dark forest of process!

Download Heather's presentation here.

Theme: BA Toolbox  Level: Intermediate
 

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Role the BA Plays on a Successful Agile Team

Explore the integral role the business analyst plays in the success of Agile teams.
This highly interactive presentation will explore the integral role the business analyst plays in the success of Agile teams.

• Discuss real world examples of how the analyst can leverage their unique skills to help drive an Agile transformation.

• Examine the significance of producing the right requirements in the right way

• The essential role of communication in project success

• Provide an open forum to address audience topics and questions regarding the business analyst in an agile environment

Download Dan's presentation here.

Theme: Agile Level: Intermediate

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Moving Applications to the Cloud with a Focus on Data and Analytics

Organizations of all sizes either have or are planning a strategy to move their applications to the Cloud to gain scalability and elasticity benefits. The Cloud requires a fundamental rethinking of aspects such as networking, security, topology among others. Migration patterns and redesign of workloads and business processes have to be deliberate to gain the efficiencies that the Cloud promises. As Program Architect for her department's move to the Cloud , Neelam will share her experiences on the gotchas encountered . She will also explore the process of developing a business case for Cloud migration and focus on how requirements for migrating or building new in the Cloud differ.

Download Neelam's presentation here.

Theme: Emerging Technology   Level: Intermediate

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What it Means to be a QBA – Quality Business Analyst

Discussion of techniques and tactics for BA’s to inject quality earlier in the life cycle of SDLC and requirements analysis: e.g., using ISO 25010 to guide requirements elicitation, how and when to engage and collaborate with QA/QE stakeholders, etc.

Download Cody's presentation here.

Theme: Miscellaneous   Level: Introductory

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The Hidden Requirements: Exploring Emotions with Placebos

The way we feel is important! All that we think, do, or say is influenced, to some degree, by emotions. Many successful businesses and people recognize the importance of emotional considerations.

The way we feel is important and should be considered! All software is intended to help solve some problem, and both problems and solutions evoke emotions. Software requirements are simply wants or needs, which often stem from core emotions. Research shows that emotions can affect the acceptance or rejection of software.

The way we feel about software is important and should be considered!

A placebo is designed and used primarily to evoke emotions. Things like sugar pills, false elevator door close buttons, and fake office thermostats aim “to please”, rather than have any other physical effects. Placebo requirements focus on emotions. And so, considering software through the lens of a placebo can help emphasize emotional considerations, and provide a valuable perspective on bugs, ethical design, and much more.

In this session, I support the claims above, suggest some methods to elicit and test emotional requirements, and finally, use placebos as a lens to view software design and testing. Using presentations, demonstrations, and interactive discussions and exercises, we collaboratively explore why “The way we feel about software is important and should be considered!”

Download Damian's presentation here. 

Theme: BA Toolbox   Level: Introductory

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DevOps for BA’s

Years of stories and research have taught the industry that DevOps can help organizations reach greatness and high(er) performance. DevOps is the movement that has inspired companies to bring together the business, the development organization and the operations organization to drive more valuable change for their end users which in turn drives profit higher. How does the business analyst fit in, and better yet, where is the business analyst’s place of influence and leadership? Come to this session to understand not only how the role of the business analyst in DevOps but more importantly the influence of the business analyst in an organization to inspire transformation, continuous learning and continuous improvement.

Download Logan's presentation here.

Theme: DevOps   Level: Introductory

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Off the Happy Path: Looking at Requirements from an Exploratory Testing Point of View

Let’s face it, there are more things that you want the application NOT to do then to do. As a tester, it’s my job to figure out how to gain access to all the unmarked paths surrounding the happy path and go on a bug hunt! When going on a bug hunt, I follow each of the unmarked paths until I am stopped. Every path is a mystery. I wonder what I will find. Is this path here because of missing requirements, incomplete requirements or a developer’s unique interpretation of the desired functionality? Come exploring with me as I share the most common reasons for unmarked paths and tips on how to create requirements that keep your tester (and users) traveling down the happy path.

Download Cindy's presentation here.

Theme: BA Toolkit   Level: Introductory

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