The day after BA World

First off, it took me 3 hours to drive home, downtown Toronto to K/W (assuming u know where that is..)

Other than presenting, the most fun I had was listening to Scott Ambler dissing Business Analysts, but not Business Analysis, on a panel discussion. I had one innocent question when one of the other panelists mentioned offshoring, but after some other questions from the floor that had Scott complaining about 'useless documentation produced by BAs' and 'BAs should learn to code', I got the mike back and vented on him a bit about how BAs like me work successfully with developers every day... then when things slowed down, I got the mike again and the MC (good Ms. Kerton!) warned me to ask a question only, which I was going to do, as I started to speak Scott called me an 'evil man'! All in good jest, of course, and I accept it as a compliment. I must see if he has a forum and continue the discussion, if possible. He is certainly one of the most recognized proponent of Agile approaches, so I give him full credit for coming to BA World and participating on the panel (about the future of the BA role). Our wonderfull IIBA president, Kathleen Barret, was also on the panel and had plenty of chances to mix it up with Scott as well, but they agreed on a few things too.It is somewhat amazing/exciting that we actually have a controversial subject to discuss, so also full credit to BA World for addressing it. I had to duck out before the session ended to get ready for my own little show, so if anyone else was there and has any news on how it ended, do let me know.

The other new and good event was roundtable group discussions on various topics like where does the BA role belong in an organization, and BAs as PMs, and (my favourite) Agile Analysis. Volunteers facilitated the sessions, and groups of 5 or 6 people made for great discussions; there were roundtables on PM subjects too (as BA World is partnered with the longer-running Project World), so I hope the PMs enjoyed theirs as well.

That's it for now. I am gathering more thoughts on how my presentation went, and the very good discussions I had with some attendees afterwards, plus I have some business cards and email addresses to check up on, and all the the presentations I didn't see on CD to go over... so more on BA World in my next post.