IIBA NewsLetter – June 2012

1. President’s Report 
2. BA Development Day 
3. Call for Volunteers  
4. Volunteer Profile 
5. Board Member Profile   
6. Upcoming Events 
7. Chapter of the Year Article 
8. Karin’s BBC Submission Acceptance 
9. AGM Updates and Minutes 
10. Thanks to David Morris  

President's Report

It's a pleasure to be chairing the new board for our NZ chapter - Richard Wood, Tim Wright and Suzanne Maxted, our new board members, bring refreshing ideas and enthusiasm to the table. Our plans for this year include dedicating time and effort to delivering regular events in Christchurch, and we have a Christchurch events committee forming to facilitate this. The Wellington committee continues to deliver valuable monthly events to our community there, and the Auckland events committee is being revitalised with Jayesh Jain being the new committee chair - thanks for taking this on Jayesh!

 Kathleen Barret, IIBA President and CEO visiting NZ - 17/18 September

Our chapter is delighted to announce that whilst she is down under presenting at BBC Sydney, Kathleen Barret is visiting NZ for a couple of days. BBC Sydney is not an official IIBA conference (note no IIBA branding endorsement)  - instead it is being presented by BBC and Process Days, an Australian based events organising company. Kathleen Barret is presenting as a keynote speaker at the event - IIBA have approved a short visit to NZ in conjunction with this event. Unfortunately due to it being a fleeting trip she will only be going to Wellington and Auckland. The itinerary for Kathleen's visit is still to be finalised. We'll keep you posted!

We've also been talking with other potential overseas speakers and will keep you posted. 

 NZ BA Development Day - 22 November, Te Papa, Wellington

Following the success of last year's BA Development Day and associated roadshow, we're thrilled to be bringing it back again this year! Kupe Kupersmith is our key note speaker. Kupe is a CBAP, the President of B2T Training in the US, a regular contributor to BA Times, a sought after keynote speaker at IIBA chapter events and conferences, and a trained improvisational comedian - making for some lighter moments in his presentations. Kupe will present at the Development Day and tour to Christchurch and Auckland. My thanks to the wonderful team of volunteers who are helping to put Development Day together.

  BA Survey 2012

Our last BA survey was conducted in 2009 and I'm delighted we have another one under way, thanks to Warren Smith. We would love for you to take the time (approx 20 minutes) to fill in this survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/IIBANZ2012

Watch out for regular NZ chapter newsletters and BA Development Day updates in your inbox.

 BA Development Day: Doing the Right Things Right

Planning is well under way for this year’s BA Development Day, to be held in November in Wellington.

The theme is Doing the Right Things Right, with a focus on the value that you BAs bring to your organisations.  In this difficult economy it’s more important than ever that organisations get the best value for the dollars invested in making changes to organisational capability.  And as BAs you are right in the front when it comes to defining capability changes.  Business Analysts are in the right place to ask the hard questions, ensuring the right things are being done in the right way.

Development Day 2012 features two main streams that will increase the knowledge and skills of both new and experienced BAs.  For experienced BAs the DOING RIGHT THINGS stream focuses on minimising strategic value leakage, asking questions that get the organisation to align the dollars being invested with actual organisational need.  For newer BAs the DOING THINGS RIGHT stream focuses on foundation skills for minimising execution value leakage; asking questions to get initiatives delivering efficient solutions.

Last year we introduced two hour workshops designed specifically to attract IIBA professional development hours.  These were quickly oversubscribed so this year we are increasing the availability of this type of presentation as much as we can.

Keep Development Day in mind when budgeting for this year’s training, and keep a look out for more comms when we’ll confirm the actual date and the costs, plus we’ll reveal more detail about the programme.

Also, we’ll be calling for speakers very soon, so if you have knowledge and experience to share along this theme don’t be shy about putting yourself forward. 

Brent Lewis – Theme and Programme Organiser 

 Call for Volunteers

The NZ Chapter has been very fortunate to have an awesome group of volunteers doing a fantastic job helping out with all sorts - huge thank you from the Board to everyone! We need more help though! As we are growing and maturing, the Board has identified a few areas we could use a little bit of help from our friends out there! Have a look at the areas below and if you would be interested in volunteering we would just love to hear from you:

• Policy and process development - we have a list of policies and processes we would like to develop so that we can ensure complete consistency, transparency and fairness to all our members, sponsors and anyone that we have the fortune to work with. You would be working alongside our President, Sarah Gibson. If you are interested then please contact Sarah at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  
• Wellington study groups - we have successfully run several study groups in Wellington and Auckland and we are now needing a little help from someone to manage the study groups in Wellington. These are usually 13 weeks long, are run at lunchtimes and we look for help from volunteers - in particular other CBAPs or CCBAs to take turns. But we really need help from someone who can help coordinate these. You would be working alongside the wonderful Sharon King from the Wellington events committee and reporting to our VP Professional Development and Certification - Richard Wood. If this interests you, please contact Richard at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  
• NZ Chapter newsletter coordination - Tim Wright our VP Marketing and Communications would love to have a helping hand with coordinating our regular newsletter to make sure it always goes out on time! You would be contacting people, getting content and helping put it together alongside Tim. If this is of interest to you, please contact Tim at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it   

Volunteer Profile – Amanda Burrows 

Board Member's profile - June Grey

Hi I’m June Grey and I like to do everything with a passion – whether that’s 100km ultra marathons or being your IIBA NZ Chapter Board Secretary. When I’m not working as a senior business analyst at FMG Palmerston North you will find me outdoors running up a mountain somewhere, competing in Ironmans or just trying to convince my mates to go trail running for fun and to keep fit. New Zealand for me is the ultimate playground and I just love getting out and seeing everything it has to offer! I have been in this beautiful country for the last 10 years and just love it. New Zealand reminds me of Ireland where I grew up and studied BSc Anatomy (Hons) and MSc Applied Environmental Sciences - totally relevant to business analysis, right!!! Having back-packed my way to the southern hemisphere in 2000 I started my first job as a business analyst with a superannuation administration company in Melbourne. I have since worked in local government, corporate, financial, insurance, and software development sectors including experience on agile projects. When I achieved my CBAP® certification in June 2010, I wanted to give something back to the industry that I so enjoy working in. It has been an absolute pleasure working with such dedicated, committed and passionate people on the NZ Chapter Board, trying to raise the awareness of the business analyst role, providing support and building a community for our members. I look forward to serving a 2nd year as Secretary on the Board for the IIBA NZ Chapter before looking to my next challenge. 

Upcoming Events:

 We're confirming the September events over the coming week. These will all be featured on Meetup when we have the details - register with your meetup group for updates and invitations!

• Auckland: http://www.meetup.com/Akl-IIBA/
• Wellington: http://www.meetup.com/Wlg-IIBA/
• Christchurch: http://www.meetup.com/ChCh-IIBA/

• 5th July Members only Advancing the role of the BA  John Barris
• 2nd August Open User Centred Design  Yvonne Bishop   

 IIBA New Zealand Scoops the Inaugural Top Chapter Award! 

Last year IIBA introduced a Chapter Awards program for all chartered Chapters to showcase their achievements and where any qualifying Chapter could receive an award for achieving a certain status and a "Top" award where a single chapter would be selected as the overall Top Chapter. Each Chapter had to nominate itself and provide evidence showing how the criteria set out by IIBA had been met over the previous year.  Well, being very proud of what our Board and our members have achieved we reckoned we were in with a chance! There were 4 categories: 

1. Growth - designed to reward a Chapter for gaining membership. The NZ Chapter blew the criteria for this out of the water with a staggering 64.8% membership increase in one year!
2. Professional Development - intended to reward a chapter for promoting professional development and IIBA certification
3. Community Involvement- used to show the level that a chapter reaches out to the local corporate community and gains involvement with the IIBA, the Chapter and Business Analysis in general
4. Top Chapter - to qualify for this category the Chapter had to meet all of the criteria of the other 3 categories plus additional elements.

Karin's BBC submission Acceptance

One of the members of the IIBA NZ Chapter, Karin Lehmann, has had a paper accepted at an international conference! She was consulting at the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (SCIRT) which is an alliance responsible for rebuilding all the horizontal infrastructure (pipes & roads) in Christchurch after the earthquake, helping them create all their processes. When the IIBA asked for presentation proposals for their conference she thought the SCIRT story is one that should be told. 

Her presentation proposal has been accepted both for the Sydney and Florida BBC conferences: http://www.buildingbusinesscapability.com/agenda/sydney_details/783/ 

IIBA NZ Chapter AGM

The IIBA NZ Chapter's Annual General Meeting was held on the 10th May where the Board presented the achievements and financial statements of the previous year as well as the main goals for the coming year. It was very exciting to be able to link up the centres of Auckland, Wellington and, for the very first time, we were delighted to welcome our Christchurch friends. In total there was an attendance of approximately 70 members. The highlight of the AGM was hearing from Dr Rich Allen sharing his highly entertaining experiences and insight into the psychology of effective presentations. He gave everyone a lot to think about before having some time networking and talking with fellow colleagues over drinks and nibbles.

The minutes from the AGM can be found at http://newzealand.iiba.org/index.php/about-us/governance.

Thanks to David Morris!

It is with sadness the IIBA board has accepted David Morris's resignation from his role as Director-at-Large. David has been on the NZ Chapter board for nearly 4 years, following involvement in the UK chapter before he moved to NZ. His contribution has been invaluable - as treasurer and in an advisory capacity as director at large. David conducted the first IIBA NZ BA survey in 2009, chaired the Auckland events committee and accelerator study groups, and chaired the nominations committee for the 2012 elections. We're not losing David altogether though - he will continue to present at IIBA events and participate in Auckland study groups as time allows. Thanks David for your outstanding dedication to IIBA NZ and the considerable value you have added in your 4 years on the board.