It’s our 50th BA Brew! To celebrate this momentous milestone Producer Tom finally steps out from behind the camera… but he’s not sure how comfortable he feels about it. From taking up bee-keeping to playing music on an open mic night the Crew share how they’ve stepped out of their respective comfort zones. And they discuss some useful strategies, including some from the business analysis toolkit.

It’s the last BA Brew of 2022 and this one’s incredibly inspiring. Coach, speaker, psychotherapist and mental health consultant Petra Velzeboer shares her extraordinary story and talks to the Brew Crew about looking after our mental wellbeing and how we can ‘check in’ with friends, family and colleagues.

Topics covered include: Growing up in a religious cult; the recent rise in depression and anxiety; connection and a sense of belonging; taking small steps out of your comfort zone; setting boundaries; habit stacking; reflection vs. rumination; normalising talking about mental health; the work-life balance and much more.

Petra’s new book Begin with You: Invest in Your Mental Health and Satisfaction at Work is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Mike Williams mentions VMOST. You can find a Business Alchemist’s blog which mentions this technique here.

You can find the NHS list of emergency mental health helplines here.

Now you can get everyone on the same page… literally. Chris Ingold joins the Brew Crew all the way from Melbourne to share his passion for the ‘one pager’.  T\

opics covered include: The power of the one pager; A3 management; establishing the ‘why’ and the purpose; the misuse of small fonts and overcrowded PowerPoint slides; the one pager as a validation document; compatible BA techniques including Timelines, Scope, Process Mapping, Capability Maps, User Story Maps, the Value Chain and the ‘How Now Brown Cow’ technique.  

Chris Ingold is a digital expert, change agent and Head of Solutions Design at ReadyTech.

What is your ‘Why?’. In this inspiring BA Brew, Joe Newbert joins the Crew to talk about how we can create purpose and meaning in our personal and professional lives.  

Topics covered include: Jacob Morgan’s framework for purpose and meaning; values driven leadership; bringing our personal purpose and meaning to work; finding consensus on purpose and values; intent-based leadership and helping others to find their purpose and meaning. 

The books recommended in this BA Brew are: The Future Leader by Jacob Morgan; Start with Why by Simon Sinek and The 8th Habit by Stephen R. Covey.

What is Business Service Design and is it the next big thing? If you’re curious about this powerful new human-centred approach you will be interested in this BA Brew where Jonathan, Kerry and Kate share their thoughts on the subject.

Topics covered include: Systems, Service, Design and Lean Thinking; Business Service Design tools, frameworks, techniques and more.

AssistKD’s Kate Biddle joins us for today’s BA Brew, her first as part of the Crew. It’s a good one, discussing how to break those bad habits and build positive behaviours instead.

Topics covered include: the power of habits; self awareness; the habit loop; habit stacking; planning ahead; good BA habits and the value of moral support from friends, colleagues and family.

Books recommended during the podcast are The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, Atomic Habits by James Clear and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

It just takes one person to gather people together to help each other. Today the Brew Crew chat with Lou Powell about how she set up and grew the BA Crowd, a Meet Up group for her local BA community.

Topics covered include: the value of community, how to get sponsorship, finding speakers and more. Louise Powell is a Senior Business Analyst at BGL Insurance and Co-founder of the BA Crowd.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you’ve thought ‘You just could not make this up’? Today Jonathan, Mike and Lisa discuss their experiences as customers and as business analysts. They range from the sublime (luxurious upgrade, anyone?) to the ridiculous (a multi-million pound project with no agreed scope… two years in). Hear about Jonathan’s nightmare coach journey, Lisa’s broadband switch horror and Mike’s discovery of a business process involving a rubber-stamp and a shredder. You won’t be disappointed! 

Are BAs leaders or followers? Jonathan, Debbie and guest Emily Tom explore this challenging question in today’s BA Brew.

Topics discussed include: the importance of context; why BAs are more than scribes or translators; the new vs. the mature BA; lifelong learning; giving back to the BA community; growing your skillset and challenging stakeholders.

Regional Director of IIBA Americas Northeast region, Emily Tom is a senior consultant with over 18 years’ experience in business analysis and business change.

If you enjoy this podcast you may be interested in the Team Leadership course.

Have you heard about job crafting? It’s where you make small changes to and personalise your role to make the most of your strengths, passions and experiences. Charlotte Axon is an expert on the subject and shares her wisdom in this first BA Brew of the new season.

Topics discussed include: the five types of job crafting; self-actualisation and job crafting in the face of the Great Resignation.

Charlotte is Lead People Scientist at Tailored Thinking, a positive psychology, well-being and HR consultancy. For more advice, a free downloadable guide to job crafting and other useful resources such as the job canvas for developing your role and career, visit their website.

Job crafting is discussed in Delivering Business Analysis: The BA Service handbook.

Christina also explores why job crafting for is so relevant for business analysts in her BA Times article Job Crafting for BAs.