Description This is a conversation about BA Career. This session will give you the chance to interact with a panel of BA managers and a senior BA who changed his career path to be a BA. We encourage you to consider your career development plans and then join us to discuss the BA managers' expectations and how to change your career path to be a BA. ***** Panelists ***** Norman Eliaser: Business Systems Analyst at Prospect Resources, Inc. and Assistant Professor at Hebrew Theological College, applies teaching and problem solving skills to enable people to better communicate. Back in eighth grade, Norman fielded 18 classmates’ calls for help within 24 hours before an assignment on assembly language was due. Those classmates always believed he’d end up working with computers. Enabling them to understand the material delighted him. Interested in how people learn, Norman pursued his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology, focusing on mathematical reasoning. As a grad student, he also improved communication within and beyond the department by setting up and maintaining the department’s website (debuting it in 1994). Since then, with a commitment to greater understanding, quality service, and clear communication, Norman has delivered on clients' business needs and managed projects through the full software development lifecycle. He's played a large role in constructing requirements, specifications, test plans and transition criteria. His eighth grade cohort was right—-he does “computer work,” while being a solid resource enabling people to solve problems and understand how to use or build technology solutions. ***** Ted Perez: Ted has over 15 years of Information Technology experience in industries such as publishing, advertising and marketing, consumer products and financial services. He was worked as a business analyst for over 12 years. In the latter half of that time, he has focused primarily in developing and implementing standardized tools and processes within the software delivery cycle for IT organizations. Ted Perez is currently managing the Business Analysis and Product Managers at an executive recruiting company in downtown Chicago. ***** Bob Zimmerman: Bob focuses on setting teams up to deliver successfully every time. Bob's distinguished career in I.T. spans more than three decades and has been largely dedicated to common-sense best practices that innovate how technology organizations deliver business value. Bob is a specialist in creating alignment between I.T. and business objectives. He has collected best practices and delivers the Getting Predictable mantra to raise the bar on I.T. and business collaboration. Bob's uniquely practical, common sense approach to software development enables him to coach and mentor people at all levels. Throughout his career, Bob has shared his passion on software delivery with both executive and software development teams, enabling alignment and success throughout the organizations he touches.