Either by choice or chance, as business analysts we get involved in sustaining innovation – Innovation that helps companies improve the performance of existing products and services along the dimensions that the business values.
So, our proximity to innovation is intimate.
What is disruptive innovation? Click to continue
When I started TheBACoach podcast in June of 2011, my only hope was to get 10 regular monthly listeners. To my utter surprise, I didn’t expect a colossal vacuum to exist in this space. Fast forward one year, we are averaging about 2,500 monthly downloads of the podcast.
We also reached a major milestone this year (in September) when we crossed 50,000 downloads … with an average length of 40 minutes that’s =
The feeling is awesome when I get emails and tweets from total strangers that it has helped them to become better analysts. This is probably one of the best gifts I could give back to the BA community and I am completely humbled by the response. No harm in building good karma I guess.
So, how did we track these stats? The premium hosting service we use for the podcast, provides detailed stats episode-wise. There are stats associated with location based downloads, that allows us to conduct the CBAP/CCBA boot camps in the cities where we are heard most (The recent CBAP Boot Camp in London, is a great example of this).
So, let us do the count down for the top 12, starting from number 12.
A great episode on finding out if you have the skill set and knowledge to become a BA. A must listen if you are on the fringes of becoming a BA. This seemed to be an ongoing question in the community. Laura helped provide a solid context and information to help the transitioning professionals.
An inspiring episodes. Filled with helpful tips on overcoming challenges surrounding office politics. Her biggest message to the BAs was to never stop learning – and no wonder it is in top 12.
10 ->; From Chemistry to Computers – AuthorCast with Karl Wiegers
Being a big fan of Karl’s work and having studied it as part of my engineering curriculum, it was a great experience to interview him. A great and inspiring story about Karl and his inspiration for writing books.
9 ->; How to Manage BAs – Community Cast with Jennifer Doyle
Jenni did a great job in sharing some very useful tips to manage BAs. This was a great listen for BAs too, since they could always reverse engineer what their manager would expect and perform better. She also shared traits of effect BAs and how to spot them while interviewing them.
This episode contained useful info about the BABOK V3 and when it is coming and such. Also, being a continuation of introduction to the BABOK episode (at number 3, below), this episode helped answer a few most commonly asked questions about BABOK.
7 ->; Go Independent after CBAP – BA Interviews with Margaret Marco
This was a well received episode about honing your skills as a BA, how to approach the CBAP mindset and why you should look into going independent after getting your CBAP certification.
6 ->; From Getting things done to Ready for Anything, AuthorCast with David Allen
It was a dream come true to interview David Allen. Interviewing him was a great experience. Having applied and revered his work, it was insightful to hear the story behind the book that inspired the most effective productivity system (GTD®) in the world.
5 ->; Take Charge of and Care About what you do, BA Interview with DavidMorris
David brought forth valuable lessons from his consulting experience. Tips on coming up to speed really quick in a project, and caring about your career were really well received and appreciated by the community.
4 ->; Using Project Patterns and More, BA Interviews with Jonathan Babcock
Jonathan always brings out unique perspectives to help the practitioners. His blog practicalanalyst.com has helped numerous BAs around the globe. In this episode he shared some valuable tips on using project patterns, with practical tips on how to track and use them.
With so much confusion around what the BABOK really is, especially within the BA community (forget outside), this episode did the trick to help. We dived into the history of BABOK and also discussed the writing and review process. This is one of the first podcasts we advise attendees to listen to in our CBAP / CCBA online prep courses and CBAP prep boot camps.
2- >; Conducting Effective Requirements Workshop, AuthorCast with Ellen Gottesdiener
Ellen was once again at her best behind the mic, bringing forward useful and practical advice to help BAs conduct effect requirements workshops. Her extensive experience in facilitation, and coaching added to the educational value of this podcast.
1 – >; 10ish Things I wish I knew Before I became a BA, AuthorCast with Howard Podeswa
This is gotta be one of the best podcast episodes a BA can listen to. I have listened to this 3 to 4 times myself. As they say “Hindsight is always 20/20″, this episode can provide some very powerful lessons for every practicing and aspiring business analyst. If you haven’t yet, go right ahead and do so (like, right now. 
These two episodes missed the top 12 by a whisker:
Sometimes Leave Some Silence, BA Interview with Jonathan Nituch
Which among these and others were your favorite episodes in 2012?
Please use the comment space below to provide your input, feedback and comments.
“Well Bob, at summer’s end I plan on moving to New York where I’ll pursue a career as a serious actress. It’s my goal to entertain the world through artistic expression. Through art I shall serve my country.”
~ Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) from the movie ”I know what you did last summer.”
On a beautiful summer day last year, I almost felt like Helen when I tread on a path to embark on the journey of TheBACoach.com. My goal was to entertain, educate and inspire the BA community. Blogging, graphic designing and podcasting were the art forms to be used. Having spent over a decade in the world of software industry, and loving all the aspects of being a business analyst, I thought it was time for me to give back to the BA community and also learn from other talented practitioners, authors and thought leaders.
A year ago, every pixel of this blog and every decibel of this podcast was a dream. It was a vision to create something truly useful and help the BA practitioners advance their careers; one podcast episode and blog post at a time.
Today marks the first anniversary of TheBACoach blog and podcast. It is a momentous day for me to have had the honor of serving my fellow BA practitioners by creating inspiring, relevant and educational content.
I want to thank each and everyone who was behind the stellar success of the podcast and blog over the past year.
Thanks to thousands of readers and listeners from all corners of the world for tuning into the podcast and the blog. It really means a lot when you dedicate 30 mins to an hour listening to each podcast episode.
With over 40,000 downloads, 103 Tips and Tricks for practitioners, this 25-episode season presents an unprecedented learning opportunity for business analysis practitioners. Over 250 hours were spent in recording, post-production and publication of these episodes to deliver an enlightening 1019 minutes of inspiring, entertaining, relevant and educational audio content.
See below to see a 10 minute glimpse of this via this trailer for season 1 (This also happens to be our first video for the youtube channel starting this year):
While hosting is an important aspect of producing a podcast, these episodes wouldn’t have come to life without having great guests. In the order of episodes, I would like to thank the following guests for being part of Season 1 of TheBACoach podcast:
I would like to thank my mom for being a source of inspiration that helped me give back to the community. Her lessons about the importance of giving back to the community is the most powerful driving force behind all the generosity on this website. My wife for believing in my dreams & providing constant support and encouragement.
At a high level here are a few things that you could expect to see in the coming year:
What do you like about TheBACoach podcast and blog so far? What do you think we could do to bring unprecedented value to the BA community in the coming year?
Please use the comment space below to share your comments, thoughts or questions.
The very fact that you reached this page makes me believe that you are a BA who is serious about advancing your career and keeping yourself abreast of the latest business analysis news. A segment of this post contains some unbelievable news, so, please make sure you are well caffeinated and alert.
In this post I want to focus on two exciting developments that will affect your career as a business analyst and will change the way you will study the BABOK for CCBA or CBAP Exams (starting next month); specifically:
If you are thinking CBAP / CCBA is just a certification and must not be required to gauge the effectiveness of a business analyst, please read this.
OK, now that you have an idea, lets talk business. While, this is not widely prevalent yet, it is something that I wish to see happening. If you are an experienced BA, you must understand and know what a business analyst is and more importantly, what the role can be and do. When companies ask for CCBA / CBAP as a requirement in job descriptions, they are signaling to the world that they want people with credentials. They are getting aligned with the normalization that is happening to our profession.
In the recent BA World Conference in Toronto, I got the wonderful opportunity to moderate two panel discussions. One of which had the title “The BA Identity Crisis“. Here is a blurb of the premise for this panel:
“What the heck are we anyway? The question continues to challenge many of us. Some organizations call us BAs and others call us System BAs. Some ask us to solve others problems and others ask us to take notes. And all of this is just in our first few years. It gets even more complicated when we see the words Business and Enterprise Architect. We have to figure this out!”
There were a lot of interesting and key take aways from the discussion. The crux was that there is confusion still. And we cannot blame anyone for this. It is just that we are in an evolving profession. There has never been a better time to start this dialogue.
Yes: – When we take time out of our busy schedules and focus on getting acquainted with the BABOK and understanding what we do for a living, things can start to change. This gives the world a signal that we are serious about what we do, we are passionate about this kind of work and we are ready to start a global movement to get our profession recognized.
No: - Getting your CCBA or CBAP is just the first step of this journey. Don’t ever think that we can address the Identify crisis by becoming CCBAs or CBAPs. Nothing saddens me more when I see a CBAP or CCBA that cannot articulate what we do or even just articulate. Our work starts when we get certified. We should focus on forming a nucleus of BAs within our organizations and spread the word about the role and what we can do for our departments and the organization.
PATH in Toronto is the world’s largest underground shopping complex. Along with a plethora of shops, offices, restaurants, it is also a home to plenty of Business Analysts. While enjoying your stroll there, you may end up rubbing shoulders with Business Analysts working on some of the most challenging problems in the country. Let us do a quick analysis on how a few of them get hired and if they would need a CCBA or CBAP?
Head over to workopolis.com (Canada’s Nr. 1 Job Portal), and search for the word “CBAP” (Go on, I am waiting)
Let us look into a couple of the postings:
I still remember back in 2010 when I was looking at workopolis, CBAP was no where to be found. Things have changed.
I am sure we could see a similar trend in other cities as well. In this post, I just wanted to demonstrate an example of Toronto, since I am from here, I thought I could use some real emotion and facts to illustrate my point.
Having said that, if you are in Toronto and are looking into becoming a CCBA or CBAP you MUST attend this CCBA / CBAP exam prep boot camp that we are conducting next month. Jonathan and I will be the instructors for this and it will be a lot of learning and interaction! There are limited seats in this course, so get your spot soon (when I was posting this, there were 3 seats left May 26th: All seats are now taken).
The special thing about this boot camp is that for the first time in the history of CCBA Or CBAP teaching, cartoon strips will be used to demystify some aspects of the BABOK. This takes me to our second main point of this post.
Starting June 2012, our courses will incorporate KAT Tales™ into them (KAT = Knowledge Area and Tasks). These are cartoon strips that will help you study and remember a few key aspects of all the knowledge areas and tasks in the BABOK. These comic strips and this approach to teaching will be one of our flagship trademarks. This will validate our commitment to keeping the CCBA / CBAP taker’s interest first, by helping them enjoy the process of studying for the exam.
For all the curious cats out there, here is a sneak peek of a KAT Tale™ :
CCBA / CBAP Prep Course in Toronto will be the first course on the planet to start teaching BABOK using cartoon strips. If you are in Toronto, dont miss this. Here is the link again to CCBA / CBAP Exam Prep Boot Camp in Toronto.
About 10 months ago, in May 2011, I had visited the BA World Toronto for the first time. It was one of the most amazing learning experiences for me. The energy and the excitement there was really intense and engulfing. I got a chance to meet all the folks that I @ reply and DM to, face-to-face.
I had not imagined, even in my dreams, that I would be the official podcaster for the same event, 10 months later!
BA World (and Project World) Toronto and The BA Coach will be partnering up for producing some exclusive podcasts before, during and after the event. We will bring the voices of some very prominent speakers to an mp3 player near you. As always, the primary focus of this partnership will be to bring value to the BA community.
The BA Coach followers will also get a special discount attending the event (details below). Additionally, The BA Coach is also one of the media sponsors for the event. This is indeed a great honor and opportunity for me to meet and interview all the great minds in the world of business analysis and project management. The BA Coach will be setting up a media booth along with a mini-studio to facilitate short interviews and feedback sessions for the speakers and conference attendees.
If you are living in Toronto, I strongly urge you to make use of this wonderful learning opportunity. This is akin to a great business analysis learning pilgrimage for 4 days.
BA World is giving a special discount on the event fee to The BA Coach community. You can find more details about the event and the offer here. The special discount code is “BAC”. Please use this code when you are registering for the event to avail the special discount.
So, hurry up, make use of this great discount and register today.
Looking forward to meeting you at the BA World Toronto.
~ Yamo
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Yamo is a passionate and practicing business analyst, author, and blogger from Toronto, Canada. He hosts this blog, and podcast to help business analysts throughout the world, do analysis better, by providing educational, relevant, and inspiring content. 
