The IIBA® Brussels Chapter wants to foster awareness on the added value of what business analysis can deliver for organisations. By promoting and facilitating the understanding of the BABOK®, we want to contribute pro-actively to the professionalisation of business analysis in Belgium. The more organisations will be able to recognise this, the better the professionals will be recognised in their profession.

We do this by organising meetups for the BABOK study group in which we will:

• Facilitate, present & discuss chapters of the BABOK in an interactive manner;
• Exchange real-life experiences between practitioners linked to the discussed chapters; 
• Work in teams and make the BABOK come to life by applying ‘theory’ to real-life cases.

Such interaction really helps to understand the BABOK in ways that cannot be obtained by reading a document or sitting in a classroom. It’s a great way to learn from others regardless of their experience. A solid explanation and interactive dialog are indispensable to understand all the aspects of the BABOK.

As in life, the study group activities demand that the students provide the basis for discussion, in order to understand the nuances to perform a task or complete an objective. For those that have never executed a specific Business Analysis task, the activity comes to life in a way that is generally not captured in dry, technical documentation, and allows the participant to better comprehend what occurs and how it is resolved. 

So make no mistake, this is not a simple reading of the BABOK Knowledge Areas, but a really interactive and participative effort that is requested from the participants. This is not limited to the sessions themselves but will require additional preparation effort & interaction with your peers outside the study group sessions. This will allow the participants to reap maximum benefit of the support the IIBA Brussels Chapter is providing you with.

The study group starts with a kickoff session where: 

• We will give an overview of the BABOK and how to read it;
• We will explain more in detail the setup of the Study Group (expectations, commitments, …);
• The teams will be set up and choose their respective real-life cases.

After this kickoff, we organise several follow-up sessions where we will start a discussion on each of the BABOK Knowledge Areas, in order to finalise with a presentation of a Case Study.

The participants will have to prepare themselves for each of those sessions. There will be a couple of weeks in between to give the participants sufficient preparation time.

Dates for the Study Group sessions in 2021:

• 04/02: Kickoff session (Online session)
• 25/02: Elicitation & Collaboration (Online session)
• 18/03: Strategy Analysis (Online session)
• 08/04: Requirements Analysis and Design Definition (Online session)
• 29/04: Solution Evaluation (Online session)
• 18/05: Requirements Life Cycle Management (Online session)
• 03/06: Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring (Online session)
• 24/06: Present Case Study (Online session)

Each session starts at 19h00 and is planned till 21h00. For a small fee of 200,- Euro you can participate in all sessions(*). However, if you already acquired a BABOK guide, we can offer the study group sessions for a promotional price of 150,- Euro. We set this fee low because we are not aiming for profit, but we aim to maximise impact on the local BA community.

Please register below to join our Study Group. The link to the online sessions will be communicated to all participants.

^(*) Register by 15 January 2021 to ensure receiving your hardcopy version of the BABOK guide by 04/02.