Sitting back at my desk following three fabulous days at the IRM UK Business Analysis Conference (16-18th September), I felt both invigorated and exhausted in equal measure.

I am so grateful to CMC for supporting attendance at this conference for a collection of CMCers, including Dan covering the Young Business Analysts (YBA) stand, Stephanie and Mercy attending as BA apprentices, myself, Will and Mick all attending as speakers, and finally Jon who am I am very proud to say was a 2024 Business Analyst of the Year finalist. It was fantastic to have such a range of CMC attendees all at different stages of their professional business analysis career.

Huge congratulations to Kay Hardy who was the very well deserved winner of the acclaimed Business Analyst of the Year award, and well done to all the finalists for being shortlisted for such a prestigious award.

For me, the conference was a buzz of conversation, networking and learning which aligned nicely with the themes of AI, personal development and staying connected.

So, on to a few of my highlights…

Some highlights from me include Maggie Alphonsi MBE’s keynote on how rugby has helped her achieve her goals. She shared her early childhood challenges and how different leaders have shaped the kind of leader she has become.

I also attended a brilliant session on “BA Delivery in an AI Augmented World: Will we even be needed?” by Daniel Ziekenoppasser-Powell, who highlighted that the future for business analysts in an augmented world will be “what isn’t effectively automatable”, which includes areas that AI can’t reach such as reasoning and human emotion.

I really enjoyed Chris Pyatt and Alison Jurowski’s talk on “Coffee, AI and Strange Smells”. It was so interesting to see how they have built and support their BA practice and the development programme. I particularly liked the observations they made on the increasing use of AI in recruitment and the human or robot game.

Geoff White asked the question “Could a BA stop a billion dollar hack?” in his keynote, which took us on a journey of a bank heist and highlighted that no matter how technical and digital we become, cyber threats often stem from human error, (i.e. one person clicking the attachment in the phishing email).

Danny Kalkhoven treated us to some of his exceptional photography and highlighted that a cheap camera can capture an image almost as well as a very expensive camera, as ultimately the camera is just the tool. The real skill is in how the person uses the tool and we need to remind ourselves of that when using the BA toolkit.

I loved the talk from CMC’s Mick Brian and William Izzard, who explored the power of AI and Large Language Models (LLM) in enhancing strategic planning, stakeholder engagement, risk management and requirements elicitation in the early stages of business analysis work. They shared some brilliant insights into how to effectively integrate LLMs into workflows, and how to enhance your strategic advantage in the world of business analysis.

Another big highlight was the uplifting keynote from LJ Rich, who not only treated us to her musical and vocal talents – which was exactly what was needed after lunch – but showed how Gen AI works in the world of music.

My own interactive session, titled “So you think you know use cases?”, was well attended and (apart from a couple of technical issues) was well received. In this talk, I showed how use cases can be used in system delivery and integrated with other techniques, such as user stories and story maps, and included tips from both Alistair Cockburn and Ivar Jacobson on why BA’s should use and care about use cases.

Debra Paul and I also ran a lunchtime session to discuss what is new in the 2nd edition of our ‘Agile and Business Analysis’ book, and gave away two free signed copies to well-deserving participants.

There really wasn’t enough time to catch all of the brilliant sessions and to network with all of the brilliant BA’s that attended, so apologies if I missed your talk or didn’t get a chance to chat to you – I’ll be sure to catch you next time.

By Lynda Girvan, Head of Business Analysis and Agility at CMC Partnership Consultancy Ltd