“What’s Your Favorite App?” The Right Question Isn’t About the App—It’s About the Outcome
National Speakers Association
December 11, 2024
This article challenges the common question, “What’s your favorite app?” and reframes it to focus on business outcomes rather than tools. With the rise of AI-driven applications, it emphasizes that selecting the right technology should be based on specific needs, goals, and business value rather than chasing the latest trends. The key takeaway is that apps are just tools, and their effectiveness depends on how they align with strategic objectives. Instead of simply asking about favorite apps, professionals should inquire about which tools have genuinely improved efficiency, productivity, and business impact. Ultimately, the right question isn’t about the app itself—it’s about what you’re trying to achieve.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Future of Work, IT Strategy
Productivity Hacks to Get Your Time Back
Association for Talent Development
August 01, 2024
Jamie provides actionable tips to help professionals streamline their workflow, prioritize tasks, and free up valuable time.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Innovation, Leadership
Mastering Hybrid Meeting Facilitation for Business Analysts
BA Digest
July 01, 2024
Jamie wrote an article with some of her favorite tips and tricks to help you be successful when having to facilitate a meeting or workshop in a hybrid environment. See her article on Hybrid Facilitation!
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Tags: Digital Transformation, Future of Work, IT Leadership
The Value of Business Analysis Late in Your Career
BA Times
March 10, 2021
This article explores the value of obtaining a CBAP certification, even later in one’s career or post-retirement. It emphasizes that business analysis is not just a profession but a lifelong skill set that applies across various domains, from strategic planning to community initiatives. Certifications serve as a way to validate expertise, refresh perspectives, and enhance career opportunities, making them a worthwhile investment. The author encourages individuals to assess the return on investment of certification based on their personal and professional goals. Ultimately, business analysis skills remain valuable in any stage of life, providing continuous opportunities for impact and growth.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Careers, Future of Work
How to Figure the Detail of Process Models
BA Times
July 24, 2020
This article explores the importance of clarity and purpose in process modeling, emphasizing that models should serve stakeholders’ needs rather than becoming overly complex. It encourages analysts to ask why additional details are requested, ensuring that the model remains a useful and actionable tool. By focusing on the right level of detail and structuring models to align with decision-making needs, analysts can create documents that facilitate collaboration and efficiency. The key takeaway is that process models should be designed with usability in mind, balancing high-level overviews with deeper details as needed. Ultimately, successful process modeling is about enabling stakeholders to make informed decisions and drive business outcomes.
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Tags: Business Continuity, Business Strategy, Innovation
The business case for certifications
CIO
December 02, 2019
This article explores the value of business analysis certifications, particularly those from the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA), in career growth and salary potential. It emphasizes the return on investment (ROI) for both professionals and organizations, highlighting how certifications lead to higher salaries, promotions, and increased job confidence. The piece also discusses the role of certifications in standardizing skills, aiding hiring decisions, and ensuring analysts possess essential competencies. Additionally, it underscores the importance of both technical and soft skills in business analysis, beyond just earning credentials. Ultimately, the article encourages professionals to build a strong business case for certification as a strategic career move.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Careers, Education
What artificial intelligence means to business analysts
CIO
August 20, 2019
This article explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the role of business analysts, shifting their focus from routine tasks to higher-value analytical work. It emphasizes the need for analysts to adapt by leveraging AI to automate repetitive processes and enhance decision-making. Traditional techniques like root cause analysis, process modeling, and decision modeling remain relevant but must be applied in new AI-driven contexts. The article encourages analysts to refine their skills, ask better questions, and identify opportunities where AI can drive business value. Ultimately, it highlights that AI is not replacing analysts but augmenting their capabilities, making their expertise more critical than ever.
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Tags: AI, Analytics, Future of Work
Feedback is a Gift! Accepting and Utilizing Feedback
BA Times
January 09, 2019
This article explores the importance of receiving and utilizing feedback effectively, especially for business analysts and project managers. It encourages professionals to view feedback as a gift rather than a personal critique, allowing for growth and improved collaboration with stakeholders. The piece emphasizes the need to analyze feedback objectively, involve stakeholders in refining solutions, and foster an open mindset when facilitating discussions. By shifting the focus from personal validation to successful project outcomes, professionals can create better solutions and stronger working relationships. Ultimately, the article reinforces that gratitude and adaptability are key to leveraging feedback for success.
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Tags: Change Management, Customer Experience, Leadership
Leadership Skills Workbook
Amazon KDP
November 25, 2024
Leadership is a quality that is not going to go away soon no matter how our work environments change. Yet you need the skills and perspective to deliver project outcomes and meet organizational goals today in a sea of constant change.
This course focuses on the skills and techniques to execute in environments that are constantly changing with technology, customer demands, regulations and compliance, as well as shrinking budgets with higher output expectations. We will cover what you can do right now to step into leadership roles by setting the example. You will learn approaches to be comfortable with change while still preparing for tomorrow’s unknowns. And you will apply techniques to immediately coordinate your teams and focus on outcomes even when, not if, priorities change.
Come get hands-on practice and directly reshape your department and teams’ work with a focus on outcomes and value delivery. This course goes beyond communication and team building by having you walk through activities so that you can experience leadership in practice and execute those techniques immediately in your daily work.
Learning Objectives:
Participants will gain an understanding of the strategies and techniques required to enhance personal and organizational adaptability.
Participants will learn how to pivot effectively when faced with unexpected changes, ensuring they remain resilient in dynamic environments.
Attendees will acquire practical insights into change management skills tailored for digital and dynamic settings
Participants will learn actionable lessons that can be immediately applied to their roles including tangible techniques to support their teams and organizations in achieving sustained success.
Who Should Attend:
This course targets managers, supervisors, and those who have to coordinate teams while dealing with tight timelines, shrinking budgets, and changing environments. It is focused on those leaders of tomorrow who need to be successful today!
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Tags: Change Management, Future of Work, Leadership
The Who, What, When, Where, Why (and HOW!) of Requirements Workbook
Amazon KDP
August 21, 2023
We all know what our customers want – and they’re good about telling us! Yet what do they need? And no, they do not want or need a 376 page paperweight with 75 pages of spreadsheet attachments (let’s think about what “technical user requirements document” acronym could be…). Yet over and over again we’re challenged to elicit information from our stakeholders like getting juice from a coconut (trust me…it’s a LOT of hard work!). So what are the best ways to do it? How do we get there? Let alone, how do we know our requirements will actually bring about a desirable, feasible, and viable product?
Let’s dive into requirements from a view you’ve probably never seen. Come explore all the shapes, forms, and evolutions that captured requirements can take. And let’s get some hands on practice diving into HOW to pull out this information so that your facilitation session is never compared to a painful dental procedure! Walk through the very techniques you can immediately apply even with remote and hybrid teams. Dive into a world of requirements that is fun and exciting so that you’re successful in not only helping innovative solutions come to life, but that you also delight and excite your customers for long-term business partners.
Objectives include:
1) Understanding the multiple facets of requirements (and what “required” actually means!).
2) Learning techniques for eliciting and managing requirements.
3) Gaining tips and tricks to immediately apply to requirements in your own work.
This workbook accompanies the live workshop and is meant to be used in tandem.
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Tags: Digital Transformation, Product Management, Project Management
Women in Leadership Workbook
Amazon KDP
March 22, 2023
The number of women in leadership roles is growing in all industries and areas of business. As we seek to decrease the gender divide, skilled women leaders are essential for the success of any organization. But what does it mean actually to be a woman in a leadership position? What challenges exist and how do we overcome gender-bias obstacles and be seen as an asset to any team and organization?
Whether you are currently in a leadership position or seen as a leader in your community, learn and practice skills that focus on driving actions, empowering others, and continually building yourself up as you remain a role model for your colleagues and build up the next generation of female leaders! Come share in a lively discussion that challenges masculine or feminine ways of thinking and working!
Topics include: defining success criteria, asking smart questions (and not being afraid to speak up!), presentation skills, managing conflict, and creating action plans beyond the self-assessment. Come, own your seat, and embody the strong leadership skills every organization needs today and tomorrow!
This workbook accompanies the live workshop and is meant to be used in tandem.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Diversity and Inclusion, Leadership
Seven Steps to Mastering Business Analysis: The Essentials (Business Analysis Professional Development)
J. Ross Publishing
November 22, 2019
This volume presents a detailed explanations of business analysis concepts, terms, tasks, and techniques, and includes examples to help readers understand how to apply them to real-world situations. It also delineates the key activities that are core to the BA role and the diverse range of activities analysts perform based on their career competency level, ranging from problem solving and identification of business opportunities, to complex systems thinking and solution development, to strategic planning and change management. It is a must-have reference for BA generalists, specialists, and hybrids at every career level and industry segment or perspective.
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Tags: Agile, Change Management, Project Management
Seven Steps to Mastering Business Analysis: The Essentials (Business Analysis Professional Development) Second Edition
J. Ross Publishing
November 22, 2019
This volume presents a detailed explanations of business analysis concepts, terms, tasks, and techniques, and includes examples to help readers understand how to apply them to real-world situations. It also delineates the key activities that are core to the BA role and the diverse range of activities analysts perform based on their career competency level, ranging from problem solving and identification of business opportunities, to complex systems thinking and solution development, to strategic planning and change management. It is a must-have reference for BA generalists, specialists, and hybrids at every career level and industry segment or perspective.
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Tags: Agile, Change Management, Project Management
Process Model Analysis
LinkedIn Learning
February 21, 2025
In this course, Jamie—a business analysis professional speaker and trainer—explores how to optimize supply chain management through detailed process analysis. Learn about identifying bottlenecks and inefficiencies in supply chain logistics and vendor management. Discover techniques such as process decomposition, root cause analysis, and using fishbone diagrams to simplify complex workflows and resolve issues effectively. Apply frameworks like SIPOC and value stream mapping to capture key process components and visualize improvement efforts. Understand how to define and apply metrics and KPIs to track the effectiveness of process changes and ensure continuous optimization. With a focus on engaging stakeholders and asking the right questions, you'll be equipped to drive impactful improvements in all your supply chain management work.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Change Management, Supply Chain
Studying for the Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP)
LinkedIn Learning
February 07, 2025
Taking the Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) exam is a big step, and a great move for your career. CBAP certification proves that you have the knowledge and the experience to lead projects to success. Jamie has helped hundreds of professionals train for this exam, and she’s prepared this online course to share her proven study tips and techniques with you. Review the certification requirements, including the 7,500 hours of hands-on experience required to sit for the exam. Then study the key objectives: the Business Analyst Core Concept Model, the six knowledge areas, and essential business analysis techniques, as well as the vocabulary needed to work in the field. Jane also provides tips and practice worksheets to test your knowledge and prepare for exam day.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Careers, Education
Hybrid Facilitation for Business Analysis
LinkedIn Learning
December 17, 2024
Hybrid work environments provide a unique set of business constraints and opportunities. In this course, targeted specifically at business analysis professionals, Jamie offers insights and practical strategies for facilitators of hybrid teams, showing you how to collaborate more effectively with team members and deliver higher-quality outcomes in any business environment. Explore the basics of the hybrid environment to understand why facilitation has become such an in-demand skill. Along the way, focus on the distinct requirements of successfully facilitating projects and change work with both in-person and remote employees. By the end of this course, you’ll be equipped with new skills to facilitate change, manage complex teams, and drive process improvements in any hybrid environment.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Change Management, Leadership
Using AI to Generate Business Analysis Deliverables
LinkedIn Learning
October 25, 2024
AI is quickly becoming a competitive advantage, and those who know how to take advantage of these capabilities in their daily work will not only succeed but will far surpass their competition.
In this course, Jamie Champagne—business analysis professional speaker and trainer—will walk you through various generative AI technologies showing you the approach to take to have these emerging technologies facilitate business analysis work. Explore how AI apps can streamline your communications, enhance productivity, and help you verify and validate business analysis work while speeding the delivery of business analysis deliverables. Learn how to articulate the breadth and depth of generative AI applications, not only in areas of your work, but also in generating curiosity and motivation to include various applications in your business analysis work.
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Tags: Digital Transformation, Emerging Technology, Generative AI
AI Chat Prompts for Business Analysis
LinkedIn Learning
August 19, 2024
Being well-versed in AI provides a competitive advantage for business analysis professionals. Those who leverage these capabilities in their daily work position themselves to not only succeed, but also surpass competitors in their field. This course shows business analysis professionals of all experience levels how to craft effective prompts to achieve desired results in their analysis work. Instructor Jamie Champagne demonstrates how to adjust and evolve both the content and phrasing of generative AI prompts to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Transformation, Generative AI
Making the Business Case for AI in Your Company
LinkedIn Learning
July 24, 2024
Everyone is focused on acquiring AI technology or building it or learning how to write the best chat prompts, but does anyone ever stop and ask what is needed based on business need and strategy? What AI is already being used? What could additional AI do for the business? Do we even know what we need to take advantage of this technology before we try to implement it, let alone integrate it? This course builds the business case for artificial intelligence by considering AI as a business opportunity that meets the needs of an organization today and drives the business success for the organization’s future.
Instructor Jamie Champagne highlights the pitfalls of diving into AI technology without a strategy—and that strategy comes from building a business case. She then explains how to build a business case for AI. With a good structure for the business case, she then shows how to analyze the business to define where and how AI technology can enable successful business outcomes.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Transformation, Innovation
Business Analysis Skills to Develop for Future Success
LinkedIn Learning
April 16, 2024
What do you need to become a successful business analyst who’s prepared for the future of work? This course explores the skill sets, perspectives, and leadership responsibilities business analysts need to be successful in the uncertain world of tomorrow.
Join Jamie as she shows you how to plan for tomorrow by welcoming changes into your everyday workflow and adopting new skills, approaches, technologies, and tools that can give you an advantage in the digital world. Learn how to meet the needs of your team—today and tomorrow—and shift your perspective to increase your odds of success. Along the way, Jamie offers insights on key business analysis tasks such as leveraging product road maps, building and utilizing backlogs, and employing constant reprioritization.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Future of Work, Leadership
Facilitating a Collaborative Strategic Planning Session
LinkedIn Learning
January 24, 2024
Are you looking for a step-by-step guide on facilitating a collaborative group through a strategic planning process? Check out this course, which covers everything you need to know, from the early stages of ideation through implementing key objectives and defining metrics for actionable success.
Explore the fundamentals of teaching learners how to overcome challenges so that your team’s focal problem can be accurately defined. Jamie shows you how to convert that problem into your team’s purpose, with instructions on how to facilitate helping teams change causes and effects into outputs and goals. Along the way, learn how to cultivate new opportunities for turning key strategic objectives into measurable projects. This course is designed for anyone tasked with running a strategic planning session, particularly business analysts, project managers, process improvement specialists, and change agents, regardless if they work on an in-person, online, or even hybrid team.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Change Management, Leadership
Project Management in Zoho Projects
LinkedIn Learning
July 27, 2023
If you’re responsible for managing the activities of a project—any project—Zoho Projects was designed just for you. It gives you the power to define, customize, track, and manage project activities with its easy-to-use, built-in core features. Join Jamie to learn how to leverage Zoho Projects like a pro and create more effective and successful outcomes as a project manager.
Find out how to perform resource allocation, leverage resource utilization reporting, track and respond to risk and issue management problems, and use task management, automation, and project-specific templates to apply lessons learned for future project success. Along the way, Jamie shows you how to report and analyze current and projected project success using the reporting and dashboard views. By the end of this course, you’ll be ready to collaborate and connect your projects to take advantage of Zoho Projects’ many available integrations.
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Tags: Business Strategy, IT Operations, Project Management
What Not to Do on Change Work
LinkedIn Learning
June 05, 2023
All too often, change work is unsuccessful, but that’s not because of a lack of effort or vision. Rather, what’s most important is how you understand the effects of certain changes so you can address them as you go. In this course, join Jamie and take a deep dive into change work, its benefits, key challenges, and how to avoid making business-critical mistakes that can derail your teams, stakeholders, and projects.
Get tips on identifying assumptions with your stakeholders and their attitudes towards your work. Jamie shows you how to properly define, articulate, and manage work processes that have a fundamental impact on your work, as well as develop and connect impactful approaches to ensure your success—before, during, and after the change work is complete. By the end of this course, you’ll be prepared to shift your perspective on the go to get additional buy-in and support for new ventures.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Change Management, Leadership
Mural for Business Analysis
LinkedIn Learning
September 27, 2022
Mural is a popular and easy-to-use tool that’s most often applied to online collaboration and analysis work, but it’s capable of much more. In this course, Jamie helps you understand your stakeholders through visual analysis using Mural. Jamie walks you through crafting personas and describing user journeys to help focus on customers. She shows you how to use Mural’s visual toolsets to perform common analysis activities, such as prioritization, risk analysis, and creating process models. Jamie puts the focus on delivering valued products by using Mural for product roadmaps, build releases, and story maps with visual clarity. Plus, she dives into how to use Mural to speed up and simplify your project work, including running great meetings, tracking tasks, prioritizing backlogs, and facilitating retrospectives. Finish this course with more tools in your tool box for successful analysis work using Mural!
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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Transformation, Product Management
Lucidchart for Business Analysis
LinkedIn Learning
August 03, 2022
Lucidchart is a popular and accessible tool to those doing analysis work, but it has many useful capabilities beyond its most commonly-used functions. In this course, Jamie Champagne provides context and examples that can help analysts get the most value for their investment in this incredible tool. She first walks through process modeling and demonstrates operation support models. Next, data models are covered through contextual diagrams, defining data flows, and then building out data structures that support technical development. Jamie then highlights project management activities that help teams organize and track work using Lucidchart. Finally, learn how to facilitate strategic planning with a simple but structured framework using Lucidchart.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Transformation, Project Management
Data-Driven Decision-Making for the Real World
LinkedIn Learning
April 11, 2022
It doesn’t matter where you work—decision-making is a difficult but unavoidable fact of life. But what if it were easier? What if you could find a way to make smarter, faster, and more successful decisions? In this course, Jamie shows you how to use data to drive better decision-making, inform long-term strategic planning, and deliver successful and sustainable outcomes in all areas of business.
Discover what data-driven decision-making looks like in a variety of real-world contexts. Learn how to spot the need for a more focused view on data, what data to gather, how to gather it, and how to utilize it to make successful decisions daily. Be it an operational, tactical, or strategic decision, there’s always room to improve. Jamie walks you through ten key activities to keep your decision-making process razor-sharp, highlighting the power of needs assessments, research design, data gap analysis, substitute data types, partnerships, data visualizations, and more.
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Tags: Analytics, Business Strategy, Leadership
Brainstorming Tools
LinkedIn Learning
February 07, 2022
Using the right tool in the right manner can dramatically improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your brainstorming sessions. In this course, Jamie Champagne introduces you to some of the most effective tools to facilitate brainstorming. Jamie presents some key goals and approaches for using digital brainstorming tools in-person, virtually, or in a hybrid environment. She goes over popular collaboration tools that are available in Microsoft Office; whiteboarding tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom; feedback tools such as Slido and Kahoots; and sticky note tools such as Lucidchart, Google Jamboards, Mural, and Miro. Plus, Jamie shows you how to utilize provided checklists to facilitate your brainstorming sessions using the tools that she covers in the course.
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Tags: Creativity, Innovation, Transformation
Business Analysis: Essential Tools and Techniques
LinkedIn Learning
November 19, 2021
If you do business analysis work and want to see not only what the key deliverables are but also how to deliver them, then this course is for you. This technology-agnostic course employs different technologies to show you how to set up and deliver key business analysis artifacts. Instructor Jamie Champagne highlights traceability as she through the setup and usage of a requirements traceability matrix. Jamie demonstrates how to model processes by showing you the natural evolution of the degree of detail that happens with business analysis work. Plus, she explains the power of context diagrams with both basic and detailed data flow diagrams to define and capture the requirements done in business analysis work.
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Tags: Analytics, Business Strategy, Project Management
Business Analysis: Essential Facilitation and Workshop Skills
LinkedIn Learning
August 26, 2021
To effectively analyze business needs and deliver quality solutions that address these business needs, key facilitation skills are needed in various workshop settings—in virtual and in-person, as well in agile settings—to identify, verify and validate this important information. This course from business analyst Jamie Champagne covers how to facilitate sessions from one-on-one meetings to large workshops with common examples of activities business analysts or anyone doing business analysis work often perform. Jamie demonstrates the differences in approach to in-person activities versus virtual facilitation and how to deliver value in each. Additionally, she details these skills on both traditional, plan-based work as well as more agile and adaptive techniques. Finally, Jamie explains how you can continue to facilitate teams and participate in workshops even when you are not the one running the session.
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Tags: Agile, Business Strategy, Change Management
Data-Driven Decision-Making for Business Professionals
LinkedIn Learning
December 15, 2020
Business professionals need to know how to use and understand data today to be successful tomorrow. Jamie covers the information, skills, and practices that you need to make smart, fast, and informed business decisions. Jamie explains why data skills are required today, how successful leadership choices depend on drawing insights from data, and how to distinguish the driving factors that require analysis skills. She shows how to identify the business problem or opportunity, break down the business problem into data requirements, and drive to prescriptive questions. Jamie also discusses how to identify current data, use data to draw conclusions, and use visuals and storytelling to share data. Plus, Jamie steps through how to present data in response to business requests, identify data gaps, and leverage data to drive business decisions.
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Tags: Analytics, Business Strategy, Leadership
How to Perform Business Analysis in a Virtual Environment
LinkedIn Learning
December 03, 2020
Taking your business analysis work from the office to a virtual space can seem like a big leap. But the skills you developed in your physical workplace can also help you excel in a virtual one. In this course, join Jamie as she shows how to conduct analysis in virtual environments. Using practical examples, she explains how to tailor your analysis techniques and approaches to be successful in these new digital domains. Jamie walks through how to successfully plan, execute, and utilize outputs of valuable analysis techniques including process modeling, context modeling, brainstorming, prioritization, decision modeling, data modeling, and virtual prototyping. Upon wrapping up this course, you'll have the knowledge you need to perform analysis when working in a remote or virtual environment with the same success as you would in person.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Transformation, IT Strategy
Leading the Agility Field
Navigating the Gap: Hybrid Facilitation with Jamie Champagne
The Who, What, When, Where, and Why of Requirements!
