Day 1 – Futurex Conference 2007 – Jaco Viljoen on What makes Business Analysts tick?

Jaco Viljoen from Software Futures gave one of the most unusual presentations I’ve ever seen in the last 10 years. He spoke about what makes and business analyst tick? He proceeded to explore how our brain functions and also delved very deeply into personality and psychometrics.

When you try to understand what makes a car drive, you have to look underneath the bonnet of a car, at the workhorse of a car – the engine. When trying to understand a human being, and you look underneath the bonnet of an analyst, you will find their brain. The key is actually to focus on one aspect, the temperament and forget about the personality. It’s the age-old comparison of nature vs nurture to some extent.

With assistance from Professor Smith at the University of Johannesburg, Jaco has been using Smith’s Temperament Typology (STT): Temperament vs Personality, to analyse business analysts. What makes one better than the other? In terms of the whole-brain person, only 4% of the population has this level of balance.

Using this temperament typology, other opportunities and applications in recruitment, training and further development (mentoring) arise. Success as an Analyst implies more than good process and technology tools. STT is useful for understanding people, especially analysts.

Here’s my video podcast interview with Jaco Viljoen