The first speaker was Lee Spelman, a managing director of JP Morgan Asset Management. Her talk was on the economic outlook and investment strategies. Her personal expertise is in the technology sector and she recommended companies building cloud computing solutions are a good investment. She noted that non-technology companies should not have to be technology experts to use technology. Cloud computing  allows users to have less hardware and infrastructure locally, instead accessing what they need via a cloud.

The second speaker was Michael Hugos, author of Business Agility: Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive World, during the IIBA Books, Authors webinar series. Michael also predicted the rise of cloud computing, and subsequent outsourcing of corporate technical support call centers.

Both of these predictions make sense as mobile devices become the norm. Users don’t need to know where their data is stored, or where their application software is physically stored.

This, like every technology innovation, has implications for business analysis. I honestly don’t know a lot about cloud computing but am going to spend some time learning more about it. It is very likely someone will ask me about it and I want to be able to have an intelligent conversation. This is a good example of how BAs need to stay current with new trends in both technology and their industry. As BAs we must be educated enough to have a conversation about any new innovation and how it might better support our business stakeholders. As with all of our analysis work we don’t need to know “HOW” to build it, but we do need to know “WHAT” it is.

I attended a panel discussion on The Developer’s View of the Value of the BA. Daren May from aspenware pointed out several important behaviors of BAs which improve the entire development process. As Brits often do, Daren used a couple of great phrases: BA’s maintain “solution neutrality”, making sure that the business needs are met while being open to various architecture/platform options. He also appreciates the fact that BA’s ask the difficult questions, without alienating anyone and that they are “absorbed in  the culture” of the business so they really understand the impacts of software changes to the business.

Tony Chen of Sielevel gave a great presentation on Agile which included a Lego Helicoper build exercise! He gave each group different requirements and we all saw the various results. My team got a textual description of how to build the helicoper and failed miserably!!

Afternoon sessions included BI, business case development and relationship topics. I am on my way to Day 2 so I’ll write more later . . .