Webinar Recording: Business Architecture: Laying the Foundations for Faster and More Accurate Business Analysis with Thamer Miles & Andrew Roche

As BAs working on projects, one of the first things we investigate is the business context and high-level impact of the change. Often we find ourselves scrabbling around – digging out documentation from disparate sources and talking to multiple stakeholders – to understand what we do today, who does it and how they do it – and all this just so that we can work out what we need to do in the future.

What would it be like if we had that information at our fingertips?

The Whitbread Analysis Practice recently set out to create a common, joined-up ‘As-Is’ picture of our business – one that would support strategic decision-making and more informed planning and, crucially, allow the organisation to move more quickly on future change initiatives. The session was recorded and can be viewed below.

Key Learnings & Takeaways

✔️ Benefits of building a business architecture capability and how to sell them.
✔️ Reflections on artefacts, tooling and governance.
✔️ Challenges you might encounter and tips for overcoming them.

About the Speakers

Thamer Miles: Thamer is the manager of the Analysis Practice at Whitbread. She has over 15 years’ experience of helping to deliver IT change initiatives in the retail, airline and hospitality sectors. Previously a lead business analyst specialising in data, she spent the first year of her current role leading the analysis for a major transformation programme to replace Whitbread’s reservation and property management system. Now her focus is on maturing the capabilities of the Practice and developing her team of BAs and Data Analysts, who inspire, challenge and make her laugh every day. In her spare time, when she is not providing a taxi service to her two teenagers, Thamer is a keen amateur musical theatre performer.

Andrew Roche: Andrew is an experienced Product Manager, architect and change leader currently working as a senior consultant at Retail Reply, part of the Reply group. He has been working with Thamer Miles and the wider Whitbread organisation as part of the Analysis Practice. He has more than 10 years working in Product Leadership and analysis in a range of retail and hospitality settings and enjoys the challenges of cross business transformation and supporting the growth of development of businesses and teams to better meet the challenges of transformation and change in the modern retail world.