Event Cover Image

David Otey: The Story Factor: How Business Analysts Influence Without Authority

Oct 28, 2025 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Pacific Daylight Time

Business Analysts sit at the intersection of business and technology—facilitating collaboration, clarifying requirements, and driving decisions across teams that don’t report to them. Success depends less on authority and more on influence.
 
In this dynamic session, storytelling expert David P. Otey reveals how strategic storytelling transforms communication and connection. You’ll discover why stories succeed where data and logic fall short, and how to use them to build trust, create alignment, and inspire action across the business.
 
Through engaging examples and proven techniques, David shows how story structure can cut through resistance, bridge perspectives, and make technical insights resonate with every stakeholder—from executives to end users.
 
Learning Highlights:
  • Why storytelling is the ultimate influence tool for Business Analysts.
  • The essential elements of a story that builds credibility and engagement.
  • How to tailor stories to connect with diverse or skeptical audiences.
  • Practical tools to move stakeholders from analysis to action.
Program Level: Intermediate – for Business Analysts ready to elevate communication and influence.

Program Length: 60 minutes (customizable for chapter meetings or workshops)
 
Business Analysts can achieve greater influence, not through authority or data, but through the power of storytelling that builds trust, alignment, and action across diverse stakeholders.
 
Key Point
Business Analysts can achieve greater influence, not through authority or data, but through the power of storytelling that builds trust, alignment, and action across diverse stakeholders.
 
Bio
 
Speaker, coach, trainer, and author David P. Otey has helped thousands of people on three continents in their quest for personal and professional growth. A former engineer, Otey understands how to reach and move the quantitative/analytical mind. He is known for his highly interactive programs, both in-person and on-line, that bring his participants confidence and practical results. As a coach, he has helped graduate students get their Ph.D.'s, scientists get their funding renewed, and engineers advance their careers.
 
Otey is the author of the Speaker's Quick Guide series of books for emerging and developing speakers, including his latest, The Speaker's Quick Guide to Presenting with Confidence. His biweekly podcast, "The Power of Story and Science," explores the importance of telling the story of one's technical work in order for that work to change the world.
 
Otey holds a BA in Radio-Television-Film and Physics from Trinity University (San Antonio, Texas) and both an MA in Communication and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. A native of Texas, he currently resides in the Denver area.