Work-happiness, I'm a Dolphin & Scandinavian Design...

or 2 days at The Nordic Project Zone Summit 2012...

Back in May, I was contacted by Mihaly from a company called Stamford Global to invite me to present at a Project Management conference in Denmark in November – ‘Of Course, I’d be delighted’ I said. Roll forward 6 months and I found myself on a flight to Copenhagen one Sunday afternoon. Someone had told me that Copenhagen airport has a great reputation for efficiency (more about that later)  – they were right and I zoomed through and onto the hotel!

Some dinner (biggest Caesar Salad with delicious bacon – well, I was in Denmark!) then back to my room to practice my Masterclass for the next day. Monday started with a great workout in the Gym, a healthy, hearty breakfast and conference registration. Met Mihaly and took my seat for the morning’s sessions.

First session by www.nigelrisner.com - his theme was communication and zoo keeping.  His session was very entertaining,  he’s a great speaker. Key take-away from his talk was that it doesn’t matter how you classify yourself (lion, monkey, dolphin –me, or elephant) – you need to be able to manage all the animals in the room – which really makes sense when you think about it! Then came Kevin from Airbus – another fascinating session – did you know that Airbus make 1 ½ aeroplanes a day?

When we broke for the breakout streams. I joined the BA stream – naturally. First up was Manoj who gave us a lively, interactive Masterclass on requirements on projects – lots of great examples of where requirements worked well (and lack of requirements ended in disaster!). Then time for lunch – great food at the hotel (and brilliant cakes). I quizzed the folk at my table about what makes a good session (as I was up next) and they said some hints and tips on ‘how’ to make things work really appealed to them.  So off to get ready for my session.

5 minutes to go and only 10 people in the room (phew, I thought – should be straightforward) then another 30 appeared  - crumbs, great but wow, quite a crowd. I was nervous to start but soon hit my stride. Time went really quickly and mindful of the advice from my lunch mates, I made sure that I used lots of examples in my session on ‘Building a BA Centre of Excellence’. Sharing lots of things that worked (and some things that didn’t!) I looked at clock and realised I’d been talking for 45 minutes – time really flew by.

My plan for the second half of the session was to get the guys to design their own CoE and the groups did a great job. Some fascinating discussions from ‘I’d never heard of business analysis before today’ to ‘that’s my job title and I love it!’. The time went all to quickly but I caught up with some of the delegates at the end and they had some great questions, here’s my favourite 3 (and my answers):

-          Where should a BA CoE sit in the organisation – IT, the Business or somewhere between the two? My answer – it depends!

-          Where in the lifecycle does Business Analysis sit – at the strategic level defining operating models or at the project level writing requirements? My answer – it depends J

-          What are the top 3 skills for a business analyst? Ahh – this one I did answer. For me the top 3 skills (or characteristics) are curiosity (noisiness), courage and analytical thinking.

Phew – glad my presentation was over and  I really enjoyed it. Time for tea and cake. Last session of the day was Antonio Nieto Rodriguez  - a Spanish ex-footballer programme manager who lives in Brussels. His main focus was focus! A very simple message with a very entertaining session to deliver it.

Day 2 was another great day. Started with the Gym (again) and a great breakfast (again) ready for the first session on coaching. A great re-enforcement of some of the NLP techniques that I try to master. The next session was on Agile – which was a real theme of the conference. The presenter came up with a theory about why Agile(and associated lean type techniques)   seemed to be so well received in Scandinavia. If you think about Scandinavian design – what do you think about? Sleek minimalist lines?  Functional but cool?  Does the job without shouting about it? All of which is a great foundation for agile and lean and might be why the airport is so efficient.

Some really great case studies on Agile – from Maersk Shipping (hey Wynne – thought this would be home territory for you!) and Emirates Airline (with a really cool video) before the closing speaker. Now this guy’s job title is ‘Chief Happiness Officer’ for Woo Hoo inc – which should be a clue to what he was going to talk about. He talked about ‘arbejdsglaede’ (ah-bites-gleh-the) - a Danish word for happiness at work - in the entire world; only the Scandinavian languages have a word for happiness at work.  Another high energy session and Alex had us high fiving each other, shouting awesome and talking about cool things we had done at work. A great way to close the conference.

All in all, a great couple of days with some interesting people. I learnt lots, hopefully shared lots and make some great contacts for the future. Worked out I was a dolphin, but that didn’t matter, that focus is vital for prioritisation and that happiness at work is a great recipe for success.