Acorns and Boardrooms: unearth your BA toolkit

What can a squirrel teach us about thriving in the boardroom? Squirrels, by nature, are hypervigilant and maintain a hidden cache of resources—acorns stored away for the exact moment they’re needed. In many ways, a great BA operates the same way.

This talk discusses how adopting a “squirrel mindset” can help sharpen your effectiveness in meetings and stakeholder discussions. We’ll look at how to stay hyper aware of shifting dynamics in the room, recognise subtle changes in tone, and draw upon tools, insights and techniques that you may have gathered long ago - but which are exactly what the situation requires.

This is much like a business analyst - this talk will teach you how to remain hypervigilant in a meeting, understanding how to identify when the tone shifts in a room so that you can dig up an acorn that you might not have touched for years, but is the right “acorn” to steer the boardroom in the direction you need.

In this session we will:

• Leave you with a simple mindset for navigating tricky meetings: stay alert, stay curious, and always know where your acorns are buried
• Look into the science of body language and tricky stakeholders
• Understand how to use soft skills to recognise a tone shift in a room, and guide a conversation back on track
• Dig up old tools you may have forgotten about to help control a room
  

Your Hosts: Nicola Pinkney and Paul Haywood

Nicola has 7 years of experience and is currently a Senior Business Analyst at Herd Consulting. A three-time BA of the Year finalist, she's driven by curiosity and a steady supply of caffeine, with a strong track record of driving continuous improvement across complex business environments. Actively seeking out opportunities to step outside of her comfort zone in work and outside of work, she is a member of IIBA & YBA, looking to keep skills sharp and perspectives fresh.

Paul is a Principal Business Analyst working at Hiscox, described as a visionary and a pioneer in the field of AI. Paul counts innovative thinking as his business analysis superpower, and has applied this skill to assessing how business analysis can embrace the future and how accessibility to the BA role might be increased. Paul has also launched NXTGN, an organisation focused on developing business analysis tools and cultivating a thriving community of innovation within the business analysis discipline.