Finally, Spring!

By Ilya Zakharau, Blog’s Master and Commander

Welcome to the 3rd edition of the BArszawa Blog. Spring has arrived in the town. However, the weather is not up to our expectations. But stand firm! The warm days are coming.

This is what has happened since the previous edition:

Our new logo

We are aligned with the trends, so we employed AI to produce our new logo. The next step will be doing some merch with it. Please let us know in the comments section below if you want to be included in the waiting list.

February’s PowerPoint Flip meet-up

Lovely people

As we have the trust of our audience, we can experiment with different formats. PowerPoint Flip is about changing and publicly talking through random slides you see the first time. We played a safe game by splitting the meetup into the classical part, where people spoke their slides, and the new format, where you get a random presentation on a Business Analysis topic and have 15 minutes to tell audiences as if it were yours.

And that totally played out. There was a lot of knowledge from the first part and fun from the second. I hope we repeat it next year.

P.S. All photos and slides are available in our Telegram chat.

BA Coffee Talks #6

Unfortunately, we skipped March in terms of meetups. Instead, we had an informal BA Coffee Talks to discuss various things in a relaxed atmosphere.Lovely people (1)

Presale & BA by Mikita Bobchanka is available on Youtube

Our speakers tend to do offline events first and then do their webinar version with our friends from IIBA Belarus. We are not doing online events as we position BArszawa as a local community focused on the cozy offline experience for our members. Luckily, you can watch some of them on YouTube, so check it out.

April is promising to be a great time packed with inspiring events. Stay tuned!

Announcements

BArszawa April Meet-up

We have two speakers for an upcoming meet-up on April 6. Our valuable community members Karina and Maryia will share their experience with data science projects and tell us about the ins and outs of being a Business Analyst or Product Manager on such projects.

At that time, we will be back in the city center of Warsaw. Thus, commuting will be easier for participants. To become one, follow a registration link.

The number of available seats is limited.

IREB exploRE 2024 - Warsaw

There are no BArszawa speakers at the upcoming IREB (International Requirements Engineering Board) conference in Warsaw on April 25. But our members will definitely be there. Hopefully, we get some insights from there.

Here is a link to the event.

10th Anniversary IIBA Belarus Book Club

Get ready for the 10th edition of the IIBA Belarus Book Club, happening soon! This time, we will be diving into multiple books suggested by the participants. Mark your calendars for April 3rd and join us for what promises to be an enriching discussion 🤩 More details can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/10thiibabelarusbookclub7161286055986397186/comments/

We are sure there will be more professional and entertainment events in April. We share them in our Telegram chat.

Useful Materials

From Stepan:

Frontend vs backend question. It is an interesting (and just a little bit technical) article from Habr about how features with complicated logic are being implemented in real life. It covers several important aspects, such as creating Proof of Concepts, decomposing tasks effectively, and providing an overview of web architecture. I found it trying to get some knowledge about best practices of web development:

Сначала фронт, а потом бэк (когда-нибудь)

Old but gold topic. Cool post from Laura Brandenburg about how to measure a business analyst’s value on the project with Return Of Investment (ROI):

How Business Analysts Create Value

And last but not least. While reading this Medium article about User Experience mistakes, I identified at least three of them in the system I'm currently working on. Let me know how many you find in your system 🙂:

Bad Bad UX: 20 Common Mistakes in User Experience

From Ilya:

Marty Cagan strikes again with unconventional wisdom

If you are interested in product management, you may come across a name such as Marty Cagan. Many years ago, he wrote “Inspired,” which became a cult classic among product people and later “Empowered” for product leaders. He also does consulting with SVPG (Silicon Valley Product Group), public speaking, and training across the globe.

Now, there is a new book titled “Transformed.” I haven’t read it yet, but per my understanding it is about organizational changes. The reality is that having a bright PM mind armored with industry best practices will not help much if a business still operates like it did twenty years ago and is not ready to change.

In this interview, Marty continues his crusade against enterprise methodologies like Scaled Agile Framework, Agile Coaches, Product Owners, and Business Analysts. The latter point is quite controversial for my PO and BA fellows.

Marty also offers insights into how AI will change product management as a discipline and how we should prepare for it.

So I would recommend checking it out even if you find Marty’s thought triggering non-acceptance. Listening to the “painful” point-of-view and being able to process it is a valuable skill.

Act Like an Owner, Challenge Like a VC

In our Telegram chat, we had a joint watch session of ProductCon'24 broadcasted from London. There, we made our comments and shared which speeches we found more interesting. This one particularly made an impression on me.

In a funny and charismatic way, the speaker raises an important question of profitability and business-centricity. We need to consider the Return on Investment (ROI) of transforming time spent by product teams into profit. As an investment, we should approach it accordingly: engage stakeholders as co-investors to share risks and benefits (skin in the game), cap your ambitions by the level of investments, and keep a "portfolio" of multi-risk level investments. It's worth watching.

A minute of self-promotion

Here are a few updates from my personal blog you may find insightful:

My thoughts about a book titled “Team Topology” to describe necessary organizational changes in the team roles and their cooperation to operate efficiently and deliver great software: https://ilyazakharau.com/team-topologies/
I started revising materials from my “Requirements & API” webinars into the comprehensive reading, starting with basics and transitioning to more advanced topics. The first take is about setting definitions required to understand what comes next: https://ilyazakharau.com/essays/requirements-api/2-definitions/

From Olga:

Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in 5 Days

The reading of the book "Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in 5 Days" offers an immersive journey into the innovative methodology developed by Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, and Braden Kowitz at Google Ventures. Through practical insights from collaboration with such companies as Airbnb, Slack and others, readers are guided through the process of conducting a sprint—a focused, time-bound approach to solving complex challenges and validating ideas:

On Monday you will create a map of the problem and mark the places that need the most attention.
On Tuesday you will find possible solutions.
On Wednesday you will have to make several difficult decisions and turn a set of ideas into a hypothesis, which you will then test in practice.
Thursday will be about building a functional prototype,
and Friday to test it with potential customers.

What stands out to me most in this book is the concept of easily testing our ideas, concentrating all efforts and swiftly understanding whether they are effective in just a week (can you believe it!). With the ongoing development of AI and the challenges faced in the IT industry, the demand for rapid and efficient solutions is bound to increase substantially over time.

For those who are not avid readers, there is a comprehensively developed website featuring all the concepts and templates, for example, a The Remote Design Sprint Guide.

My huuuge recommendation for colleagues who are working with startups and on presales, but also think it will be beneficial for everyone who wants to understand how to make ideas true without lengthy development periods.

Atomic habits

I’m sure everyone needs to read this book to make their life easier. It delves into the science behind habits, explaining how small changes in behavior can lead to significant improvements in life over time. By understanding the mechanisms of habit formation, readers gain valuable insights into how they can reshape their daily routines and achieve lasting change.

For those who don’t like books - Atomic Habits: How to Get 1% Better Every Day - James Clear

Some of the quotes I liked a lot:

“Habits can be compared to compound interest accumulated through the process of self-improvement. A daily improvement of just 1% produces powerful results in the long run.”

“The highest form of intrinsic motivation becomes a situation in which the habit becomes part of the personality. One can say about oneself: I am a person who strives for this. Or one can say (and it will sound quite different!): I am a person who inherently is one.”

“There are no bad or good habits, but there are those that bring us closer or further away from the version of the person we want to be”.

I apologize for boasting about another book, but the concepts presented in this one are truly remarkable 😇

Materials that made me feel better through hard times

As Ilya mentioned, spring has already arrived in town, but I'd like to share some videos that I found incredibly insightful and, more importantly, have made me feel more optimistic through greyish winter days.