Since mid-May, I've been musing over our BA "Unleash Your Potential" virtual conference for 2026. This was a coalition conference of 11 IIBA Chapters, ours being one of them -- IIBA RTP CHAPTER. This year, it was interesting to be both an attendee and a participant.
🪑As an attendee
Keynote = Delvin Fletcher, IIBA.org, Caused me to reflect on Moving Forward, I need to de-emphasis my T-Shaped Professional mapping and instead clarify my M-Shaped Professional profile. And to continue "sense-making" in complex situations.
David Narayanan, Reminded me that BA's power in teams and organization comes from influencing to drive outcomes.
Angela Maven encouraged me to lean into Shaping the Right Question, keep my eyes on the BIG Picture, facilitate *decisions*, and make sure any data-mining done is to drive decisions.
📜As a participant.
I was involved as President of the IIBA RTP CHAPTER- Raleigh and facilitator for the panel speaking on "The Evolution of the BA Role: From Tactical to Strategic". For the panel I was joined by my colleagues Felicia Joyner, Tekbiz Solutions LLC, Thea Soehren IIBA Tampa Bay Chapter in Florida USA and Yulia Kosarenko Why Change Consulting Inc.. We had serious, thoughtful, insightful discussions and answered insightful questions from the audience.
I heard that what we need for evolution to a Strategic position is "Confidence driven by Experience".
As well, even though, the Strategic level is a goal for many and can be prestigious, some of us like to move back and forth between strategic and tactical activities. And others enjoy the politics and C-suite and Big Picture activities associated with Strategic activity
In the end, a Strategic BA needs to understand their organization and architecture. And be the person who can gather support toward influencing decisions.
🪑As an attendee
Keynote = Delvin Fletcher, IIBA.org, Caused me to reflect on Moving Forward, I need to de-emphasis my T-Shaped Professional mapping and instead clarify my M-Shaped Professional profile. And to continue "sense-making" in complex situations.
David Narayanan, Reminded me that BA's power in teams and organization comes from influencing to drive outcomes.
Angela Maven encouraged me to lean into Shaping the Right Question, keep my eyes on the BIG Picture, facilitate *decisions*, and make sure any data-mining done is to drive decisions.
📜As a participant.
I was involved as President of the IIBA RTP CHAPTER- Raleigh and facilitator for the panel speaking on "The Evolution of the BA Role: From Tactical to Strategic". For the panel I was joined by my colleagues Felicia Joyner, Tekbiz Solutions LLC, Thea Soehren IIBA Tampa Bay Chapter in Florida USA and Yulia Kosarenko Why Change Consulting Inc.. We had serious, thoughtful, insightful discussions and answered insightful questions from the audience.
I heard that what we need for evolution to a Strategic position is "Confidence driven by Experience".
As well, even though, the Strategic level is a goal for many and can be prestigious, some of us like to move back and forth between strategic and tactical activities. And others enjoy the politics and C-suite and Big Picture activities associated with Strategic activity
In the end, a Strategic BA needs to understand their organization and architecture. And be the person who can gather support toward influencing decisions.
😁Why I Volunteer!!!
As a coalition chapter.
It was wonderful to collaborate with the 11 coalition IIBA chapters on planning and bringing this conference forward and with Bluegrass's lead.
As a coalition chapter.
It was wonderful to collaborate with the 11 coalition IIBA chapters on planning and bringing this conference forward and with Bluegrass's lead.
The topics of the all the speakers chosen were extremely applicable to the transformation of our BA operations and outcomes.
The conference spoke to the continuous changes AI agents are placing on our business activities.
Speakers let us know we still have plenty of work to do as we use AI to augment our current outcomes. We were informed that we need to support each other as we let go of some tasks that are now being accomplished by AI agents and move forward by diving into expanding our activities focused around critical thinking, solutioning and influencing. Speakers also reminded us, to use our voice to clearly communicate our augmented way of working. We need to use our voice to enlighten our organizations and teams on our BA AI journey.
Our chapter was represented on the speaker list by Felicia Joyner, current member and past President Emeritus 2025.
👏👏Thank you to my IIBA RTP Raleigh Board and Staff for participating in planning and speaker selection, then doing the heavy lifting of our chapter website's registration and marketing.
Pamela Thomas
President, IIBA RTP Raleigh Chapter.
