Being a Biz Analyst

Being a Biz Analyst How to Move Your Career Forward: Always be leading even if not long-term. The funny thing about being a BA is the challenge of using leadership muscles, when the role does not give you consistent opportunities to do so, as you might not work with the same people on a regular basis. Join us on how to move your career forward to develop leadership skills in a role where there is not a lot of opportunity. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

If this is you, and you are thinking it would never happen for me, think again! I have seen tonnes of stories of people who transitioned from some of the most odd careers to business analysis, and become massively successful, including yours truly!! Every month we explore one of the following per week: The BABOK talk, Lead with Soft Skills Not Hard Skills, How to Move Your Career Forward, Retrospective. Join us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments lead with soft skills not hard skills: Own Your Career. The issue with excuses and blaming is that it does not produce value, and even destroys value in most cases. The great thing when you truly own your career is that you always know the next step to improvement. Join me to find out more about ownership and how to take action! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Headed to BA/PM World to speak on October 29'19, and started a new position. Episode on the challenge (published around Aug 1'19) mentioned bin this episode was called: "Biz Analyst Moments Are you up to the final quarter of 2019 challenge". --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Case study: rapid feedback from event attendees to improve experience. Today is the episode we look at a case study, and this week we are using BA Performance Improvements as the theme for the case study. Join us! Free use case template to level up: http://bit.ly/UCpod --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Mindset: Being ethical in the face of requirements...this is definitely going to be a hot topic today as we are discussing ethics as described in the BABOK as an underlying competency. Although, a hot topic, one that I rarely see discussed by the other educators out there. I will be exploring the topic from a point of view of the reality of deadlines, demands of stakeholders, and other pressures that come up in a normal work environment. Also, I will look at how to deal with even that fear of saying something when you are confronted with an ethical issue. Join us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments The BABOK Talk: BA Performance Improvement, a crucial missed step. How often do we actually take a step back and look at our work, or our capacity to do the work, and ask what is the quality of my work? How often do we ask for feedback from others? If you are like me, very rarely, maybe we find it scary or cannot be bothered as it takes time we do not have. I get it and that is why task 3.5 of the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge, called Identify Business Analysis Performance Improvements is our next focus on The BABOK Talk. Join us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Mindset: Visual thinking and comics...Adam, an Archie comic and Business Analysis, I do not get the connection?!?! Don't worry I will explain in the second half of the episode. In the first half, I explain the underlying competency of visual thinking and communication, and the power it has over verbal or written communication. You are not going to want to draw away from this episode, as it is to visually appealing, see what I did there!!! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Lead with Soft Skills not Hard Skills: ...be a collaborator...don't be a dictator. All to often we forget just how much we need others, and how much they need us. We all to often feel we are not valued, or that people who work for us do not respect us. And maybe that is true, as you are in a dependent relationship with that person. We live in a World that demands interdependence, and yet we act like the World demands dependence. How do we begin to make that switch from dependent relationships to interdependent ones, it all begins with 2 words. Join us to find out what those words are!!! I am so very grateful to all of YOU as listeners, this podcast is not possible without you. So all this month I am giving away templates and training to level up you Business Analysis career! This week is a free template for creating use cases: http://bit.ly/UCpod --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Retrospective: How to handle stress on your Business Analyst career after it has been introduced, and taking ownership for all the effects that result from the stress on your business analysis career. For more on this topic and the best solution listen in! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Retrospective: #BusinessAnalyst #lifestyle can determine ability to deliver #business #value. We all want to think we can go hardcore for ever, but as I discuss in this episode we learned this month that it is not sustainable. Also, we looked at how do we become more valuable as a BA by recapping the chicken and the egg problem, and how the BABOK teaches us how to deliver value as a BA. For the conclusion listen in, this is more important than learning any #technique! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Mindset: Impact analysis for your career, and why/why not would you want to change? The interesting thing about career changes, small or large, is that they WILL have an impact on the rest of your life. Impacts on your life can be big, medium, or small, but one thing is for sure they are inescapable. Even if you are not willing to look at the impact of a career change does not mean you will not experience it. How do you do the impact analysis, and how do you determine whether you should allow it to happen? Listen in! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments lead with soft skills not the 9 to 5: scope of our careers, what does it include? We often consider the 9 to 5 and the string of positions we have held over the years to be what defines our careers. Today we explore the reality of defining scope for our career, I think what you hear will surprise and enlighten you to what it means to make a career change on your whole life! Free training: http://bit.ly/BPfreetraining. The Business Analyst Blueprint: http://bit.ly/BAblueprint --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Case Study: How to choose the techniques to learn first in your career! No one has time, money or any other resource to spend on learning and getting good at every #BusinessAnalyst #technique. There are 48 techniques that #IIBA Global believes you need to have an understanding of, but even they do not expect you to be perfect in your execution of all of them. How do you decide then on which ones to learn and get really good at? How do you know what techniques you need education on? How do you know what techniques to get practical experience actually using? These are the questions to be answered in this episode. Press play now to get the answers. Free training: http://bit.ly/BPfreetraining. The Business Analyst Blueprint: http://bit.ly/BAblueprint --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Mindset: Conceptual thinking as part of a solution to the chicken and the egg problem! We are all familiar with the two frustrations of making a career change. The first is the actual chicken and the egg problem which is do I do experience first or get a position first. The other related issue is do I get experience or education first, obviously experience is a direct route to a position--hard to get without at least some education on the topic. Both are issues that new BAs struggle with a lot, as it feels like everything needs to happen all at once, but how does everything fit together? why is each part important? who can help me with each part? These are the questions we will be answering with the use of conceptual thinking as the underlying competency for this week's mindset episode. Answering these questions will then open the doors to rationalize doing one over the other. Learn to assess your own situation by pressing play! Free training:http://bit.ly/BPfreetraining. The Business Analyst Blueprint: http://bit.ly/BAblueprint --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

How to move your career forward: How to get out of the chicken and the egg problem in a BA career. The issue for many new Business Analysts is how do I get experience without a position? Or how do I get a position without experience? A very common and frustrating problem for which there are 3 major solutions I have heard to be successful. The last one I have a solution you can start implementing September 18, 2019. Free training:http://bit.ly/BPfreetraining. The Business Analyst Blueprint: http://bit.ly/BAblueprint --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments BABOK Talk: The BABOK details how a Business Analyst delivers value for an initiative. I find when I am talking to people studying the BABOK they sometimes get confused once they see the table on predictive vs. adaptive approaches for the task Plan Business Analysis Approach, in the knowledge area Planning and Monitoring. They begin talking about Project Management, and the different approaches to managing tasks and resources. Although, that is not the purpose of that table...so today we dive into the purpose of that table and how to really see how a BA plans for delivering value to the team so they can execute on their deliverables. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Retrospective: Realities of being a business analyst. I was looking at the 2 episodes I did for the final episode of each week this month and I noticed a theme of reality. I believe that with any career change reality is the hardest part to deal with. As many of you know I started my own career change, and the road has been long. And reality is like a poor friendship that keeps coming back and slapping you silly, career change will do the same. Unfortunately, you cannot escape it. Listen now for how I have worked through many ups and downs, and kept my head high. Free training: http://bit.ly/BAblueprint --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Mindset Retrospective: Agile mindset is a combination of many skills and mindsets. We bring together many skills or mindsets to have an Agile mindset, and two of those skills are problem solving and systems thinking that we also covered this month. I find it so interesting how to be effective in Agile requires the skills and mindsets from many different areas, and the more we unpack what is Agile the more we recognize what we see as skills or mindsets we started learning in kindergarten. During this episode I give my opinion on why I believe all 3 mindsets are important to your success as a Business Analyst. Listen to the end of the episode where I explore this idea of mindsets and skills being interconnected, and why this is so important to your success as a BA regardless of whether you are in an Agile environment right now or not. Free training link: http://bit.ly/BAblueprint --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Retrospective: Being a more effective Business Analyst. To be an effective BA involves skills from many different areas that creates that ideal T-SHAPE of skills and skill sets. Also, with the rapid changes in customer demands it is imperative that as BAs we adopt at least an understanding of Agile and how you can be the model for adoption of the organization if they are not ready yet. Lastly, being an effective BA means understanding the BA body of knowledge or BABOK. Taken altogether you have a recipe for greatness. Now of course this is not everything that a BA needs, in all contexts to be great, to be effective, but it is a very good start! The issue for most BAs on each of these topics is where do I begin? In this episode we breakdown what episodes covered each of these topics in detail, and give some additional advice moving forward. Turn off those notifications and let's get started. Link to free training: http://bit.ly/BAblueprint --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Mindset: How does everything fit together... systems thinking to learn the content of the BABOK. What if you could be thinking about the impact of how everything from a single task actually affects the business outcomes, do you think you could assess the most valuable solutions more effectively? I would say so and thus we take the time today to discuss how to be a better systems thinker, and how does this link back to our discussion of using the BABOK as a reference rather than a book. Also, how does using systems thinking help you in learning something new like the content of the BABOK. Listen today! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments BABOK Talk: Understanding the value of the BABOK. The Business Analysis Body of Knowledge is written in a very specific way that most people do not understand, find boring, and claim "this is not how I do Business Analysis". I understand where you are coming from, listen in on my opinions to develop an understanding for the value the BA body of knowledge provides and another resource you can use to get started on your journey to understanding the whole BABOK by starting with just the nuts and bolts. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Case Study: Being Agile means actually thinking and acting like it! It is great to discuss Agile and Agile analysis, but so what... let's take this time to listen to an example of actually taking action in this week's case study. Your link to the free training mentioned in this episode, which will help you with being an Agile Business Analyst, is found at this link: http://bit.ly/UCpod --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Mindset: To be Agile...is to prioritize people over everything else! The Agile Manifesto describes 4 values and 12 principles. Although, really if you understand the first value everything else is redundant. Find out why this is so by listening to this episode of Biz Analyst Moments! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments moving your career forward: Being an Agile Business Analyst! Many people confuse Agile and flexible, and this podcast's purpose is to help set the record straight and help you begin to act like an Agile BA. Listen in for all the details! If you missed last week's free training use this link: bit.ly/8stepsBAPodcast --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments case study: Embracing a hectic learning curve when being a new Business Analyst! When first starting out as a new BA I say accept the hectic nature of needing to learn a lot. In this episode I give an approach I have used throughout most of my life in these types of situations to come out successful! Listen to find out more. Also, stay tuned for a special offer; then come back and enter this link in your browser to get the goods: bit.ly/8stepsBAPodcast --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Mindset: You don't need the skills when you have problem solving! Problems are not usually solved by a single person, skill, or skill set...so even if you do not have the necessary skills you can still find a solution to any issue, and that is what we show you how to do in this episode on problem solving! Also, to help you solve more problems with Business Analysis click on the following link to an 8 Step process to being a BA! bit.ly/8stepsBAPodcast --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments lead with soft skills not hard: T-shaped or not, be ready to take action! No matter what your skill set shape is, if you cannot use it then who cares! Use it or lose it! Listen in to hear how to get out of the trap of having lots of great skills that you cannot use. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: Successful on monthly plays goal! Thank you! This month was another successful month in just barely reaching the goal. Listen in for all the details!!! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: Are you up to the final quarter of 2019 challenge??? This is the challenge that would help you make a huge change in your life with just 30 minutes per week. Keep listening to the end for the offer to help you be successful with the challenge you choose. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Update: the recording in now on the YouTube channel in the Live Broadcast playlist. Will you be joining us for our first ever live broadcast on YouTube?!?!?!? July 29'19 5:30 pm PDT (Pacific Daylight Savings Time). --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Retrospective: A case study on how to make the shift from expert to explorer? In this episode I dive into a real life example from my own career where I made the shift and used the mindset skills we talked about this month to solve a major communication issue. This month we had episodes on creative thinking, discovery and decision making if you would like to know more about the background you can go back and find those episodes (those words are found in the title of the episode, so they are easy to find). --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Retrospective: Frustrations of soft skills for an application. The funny thing about soft skills is the lack of clear boundary between one soft skill and another, and how to deal with this for applying to a position. This is what I help you to solve in this retrospective episode. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments Retrospective: Become the explorer of the business World. We are all experts of something, but we can all learn something new too. Thus listen in on how to go from expertise to exploration. More on this later this week too! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: How to move your career forward with the use of ideal fit to make choices. Often we are our own worst enemy in making decisions about our career, this is why we need ideal fit! Go back to the previous two episodes to find out more, on why this example is relevant in the bigger picture of decisions. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: A mindset of decision making for moving your career forward. In order to make decisions effectively we cannot walk into decision making situations haphazardly. Find out the approach to avoid the loudest person in the room being the decision maker! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: How to move your career forward using the hero within. No one can be a hero all the time, and no one should ever feel alone in a new situation. Find out how to identify what to work on to make leaps and bounds in your career, and get the assistance you need! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: A story of using creativity to find ideal fit! Lead with creativity not hard skills application episode tells the story of how I discovered ideal fit and the power it can give you in your career! Listen for how I used creativity to both identify how I failed, but ultimately discovered a better way to assess a career position as ideal or not. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: Developing a creative mindset by beginning with the question why, and always asking a minimum of 3 questions. Want to learn more about the power of 3 questions, and what three questions I am always asking to be more creative? Listen in! Biz Analyst Potential to Biz Analyst Career! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: Lead with creativity not hard skills! Creativity and why is it important to be creative as a Business Analyst is what we explore in this episode of lead with soft skills not hard skills. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: Stakeholder type switching from my experience. You might be thinking this Adam sounds a little ridiculous, I cannot imagine a person switching roles as much as he is talking about. Or maybe you are thinking, maybe he switches roles but I do not see it happening in my own experience. Hopefully, this episode will give you insight into not only how much I have had the experience of role switching, but also help you to begin to identify just how much you too are switching stakeholder types and the importance of doing so. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: Have a mindset of discovery! This is what I like to think of as the Indiana Jones mindset, as you are always curious about all the different roles for a specific initiative. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: BABOK talk on role switching! There are 11 different types of stakeholders described in the BABOK; anyone can-and will- play any of them, at any time, on an initiative! Know how to identify the stakeholder types each person on your initiative is playing, and any gaps that might need to be filled. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: Goal success and setting new one for July 2019!!! Thank you to all the listeners all over the World!!! We surpassed our goal of 250 plays!!! Listen in to find out just how much together we crushed our goal!!! Keep sharing the podcast, Biz Analyst Potential to Biz Analyst Career!!!

Biz Analyst Moments: Retrospective T-shaped for building relationships and overall theme. We looked at the key takeaway for last week's episodes on being T-shaped to create better work relationships from the episodes on how to move your career forward, and a monthly overall wrap up. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: Retrospective on making an impact where we look at the value of your unique selling proposition. So what do you uniquely bring to a new company or your current company that no one else can. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: Retrospective on the types of functional requirements and questions. We explore the key takeaways from the episodes of the first 2 weeks of June and the value of going back and listening again, or listening for the first time if you have not already. So we look at what is the value of knowing the difference between functional and non-functional requirements, and what is the value of open-ended vs closed-ended questions. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: A learning mindset to become more T-shaped and move your career forward. In this episode we explore the approaches I have used to become more T-shaped, and ultimately develop stronger relationships with people I work with. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: Being T-shaped to move your career forward. In this episode we explore the benefits of being diverse in our subject matter expertise, in order to build stronger relationships with people throughout the company, beyond just the standard skills or knowledge that you normally need to be a Business Analyst. As it is far more effective to build relationships on a shared experience or interest outside of work, than to bond over work itself. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: Make impact, not money. In this episode I show you why you will always fail to make an impact as a Business Analyst, IF you do not have something unique to offer. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message

Biz Analyst Moments: When does a BA use open-ended questions? When asking about where to go for lunch is a good opportunity for closed-ended question, as not as big a deal the where as much as the conversation. Creating a vision statement for a project is a situation for open-ended questions, as you will want to be exploring. For more examples listen in. If you are looking to explore what it will take to make your own career change to a role in the the project world email me at beingabizanalyst@gmail.com about our complimentary course! Biz Analyst Potential to Biz Analyst 1st Steps. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/being-a-biz-analyst/message