In May of this year, the Bluegrass IIBA Chapter was contacted by two training providers inquiring about our interest in partnering with them to provide their training courses to our community. To help with that decision the Board decided to send an interest survey to our community to see what training they are interested in receiving, if any. The survey went out to the community in June. We have the the results back and it show some very interesting insights.
The training interest survey asked three simple questions so that it would be very short and quick to respond. We asked what training they wanted on what topics, in what format and the timing they wished. The responses we received are:
Topics:
| Agile | 31 |
| Artificial Intelligence | 27 |
| Business Analysis Skills and Techniques | 28 |
| Business Architecture | 21 |
| Business Data Analytics | 27 |
| Collaboration and Communication | 20 |
| Design Thinking | 25 |
| Digital Transformation | 17 |
| Executive Presentation Skills | 18 |
| Product Ownership Analysis | 19 |
| Stakeholder engagement | 18 |
| Systems Thinking | 20 |
What we derived from these results is as we all know Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT are the new hot topic in the business analysis space and people are wanting training on this topic. Agile has been around for years but is still a very hot topic in business analysis. People are wanting training on core business analysis skills and techniques, as well as business data analytics, design thinking and systems thinking.
Responses for Training Format are:
| Workshops (2 to 3 hours per day) | 31 |
| One Day Half-day class | 18 |
| One day Full-day class | 12 |
| Multiple Day Workshop | 21 |
| Multiple Day Half-day class | 13 |
| Multiple Day Full-day class | 0 |
Overwhelmingly, the community is saying that they want workshops (less than half-day training), one day or multiple day. We provided a day of workshops as part of our last Bluegrass Business Analysis Conference (BBAC), but otherwise have not had this format of training for our community. Half-day classes received a significant fewer responses, but the community will attend those when offered. The community seems a whole lot less interested in full day classes.
Responses for Training Timing are:
| Weekday Business Hours | 28 |
Weekday Evenings | 28 |
| Saturday Mornings | 17 |
| Saturday Afternoons | 15 |
| Saturday Evenings | 0 |
We expected to see that the community wanted training on the weekdays, and that assumption was confirmed. During business hours and evenings received the same number of responses. However, there is a part of our community that would attend training on Saturdays.
In response to these insights, the chapter leaders reached out to a couple of other training providers that can supply the different timing and format of training our community requesting. Our Partnership with Yulia Kosarenko of Why Change Consulting was announced a couple of days ago. When we finalize terms with the other provider, that partnership will be announced to the community. You have spoken and your chapter leadership has responded.
