Posts Tagged ‘Conference’
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011 by Gary Rush, CPF
We held our first IAF Chicago Chapter Event on December 9th. I want to thank Gerald Haman, of Solution People for donating the space – Thinkubator in Chicago – for our first event. Those of you who attended, I’m sure, found the space to be a wonderful experience – not to mention having amazing views of the Chicago Skyline (see photos that follow). I also want to thank:
• Kelly Ross and Margaret Sullivan for their efforts in setting up the event.
• Paul Collins and Dan Heck for getting the word out via the Midwest Facilitator’s Network. Paul also got us in contact with Gerald Haman.
• Lee Crumbaugh and David DeWitt for their help in setting up the IAF Chicago Chapter – legally and fiscally so that we could pay for the event.
• Sean Rush and Alvaro Rush for taking care of the venue, food, and logistics.
• The Solution People for their help with the logistics, etc. at the event.
• Everyone else for attending, participating, and bringing their colleagues.
We had 34 people attend the event. The event ran from 4:00 until 7:00 and people networked until about 8:00. I kicked it off with an exercise to gather ideas on how to ensure appropriate solutions – both from the Facilitator and from the client. Rocky Romero guided us through Business Modeling. We concluded with discussion about what we learned and about our next event. Some items of note:
• Our next informal meeting is on January 20th.
• Our next event is March 23, 2012. The topic, time, and venue are yet to be determined – we could use volunteers to help set this up.
• We will hold elections in March for the positions of President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Events Director. Send me your nominations and we’ll plan for the elections in February. All positions are for a one-year term.
That’s about it for now. I’ll keep you posted about our upcoming meetings and events. All y’all have a wonderful Holiday Season and a very Happy New Year. See y’all in 2012.
 IAF Chicago Chapter Event  IAF Chicago Chapter Event  IAF Chicago Chapter Event  IAF Chicago Chapter Event
Tags: Chicago, Chicago Chapter, Conference, Facilitation, IAF, Keynote Presentation
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Sunday, November 13th, 2011 by Gary Rush, CPF
The IAF Chicago Chapter has its first event coming up on Friday, December 9th. The event is from 4:00 pm until 7:00 pm. It’s being held at The Thinkubator Innovation Center on 312 N. May Street, Suite 6D, Chicago, IL 60607.
This event should be very exciting. The topic of the event is Creating the Appropriate Solution to Ensure Success. We will begin with an exercise to draw out ideas from the attendees about what they’ve encountered and/or done about creating appropriate solutions. After that, Rocky Romero will step the attendees through the use of Business Model Canvas to design solutions to enable you to help clients create appropriate solutions. We’ll finish with an Open Space exercise to explore the topic in more detail. This event will be totally interactive and attendees will be experiencing ideas more than just hearing about them. Join us for this exciting event.
Tags: Chicago, Chicago Chapter, Conference, Data Modeling, Facilitation, IAF
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Thursday, June 16th, 2011 by Gary Rush, CPF
It’s been a busy few weeks. Not only did we move at the end of May – and we are still unpacking, but in the beginning of June, I facilitated a panel discussion for Business Analysts at a company Area of Competency conference. After that, I spoke at two IIBA Chapter meetings – one in Buffalo, NY and the other in Rochester, NY. Then, I attended and presented at the DePaul Group Facilitation Symposium.
The Business Analyst conference was interesting. The panelists from IBM, Accenture, and Wipro answered questions about business analysis. Some of the insights were interesting. They all agreed that the best method to use was the one that fit the problem. In other words, following Agile for every project was no better than following a waterfall method. Both work when they fit. It’s much like one of the Facilitator Competencies – Plan Appropriate Group Processes. The competent BA should be able to select amongst numerous methods and select the best fit.
At the IIBA Chapter meetings, I met very nice people and enjoyed the sessions. I spoke about the BA being facilitative and the responses were good – the BAs all agreed that facilitating requirements would make their job easier and engage their clients more effectively.
The Chicago Chapter of the IAF. At the DePaul Group Facilitation Symposium, I initiated the Chicago Chapter of the IAF. Asking for interest, I had 30 plus people sign up as interested in participating in the Chicago Chapter. In late July, we’ll hold our first meeting and see if we can get this rolling. I spoke about Facilitating Change and Innovation sharing how organizations deal with change, the role of the Facilitator, and two processes that Facilitators can use to conduct innovation workshops. I also attended a session regarding using visuals – excellent – and one on involving participants using Improv – also excellent. Both concepts need to be incorporated into facilitation practices.
Well, a lot of activity in a short time. I’ll be writing about the lessons that I learned in the next eNewsletter. In the mean time, we are unpacking and settling in to our new home.
Tags: Business Analyst, Conference, Facilitation, Facilitative Project Manager, IIBA, Panel
Posted in Facilitation, Travels | No Comments »
Monday, April 18th, 2011 by Gary Rush, CPF
Hello. I just returned from the IAF North America Conference in Denver. We had almost 300 people attend the conference. It was wonderful to see friends who I get to see so seldom. One benefit of the IAF are the bonds and friendship you form with wonderful people from all over the world.
I was able to attend the conference sessions this year. For the past 3 years, I was so involved in either presenting or in chair responsibilities, that I didn’t get sufficient opportunity to attend sessions at the conference. This time, I took advantage of sessions. I attended sessions on listening, process modeling, strategic planning, and improvisation. As always, I was able to leave with exciting ideas and tips to help both my training and my facilitating. It’s always great to hear what others say and do and continue to remember that there are many ways to do something. Helen Wythe and Izzy Gessell gave me a ton of ideas to work with and I thank them very much. They both managed to get my head contemplating the many ideas that they presented.
If you haven’t attended an IAF Conference, you should plan to attend one. They are scheduled annually around the world with the next one in Bangalore, India in September.
This coming week, I’m off to Indianapolis, IN to speak at the Indianapolis DAMA (Data Administration Management Association) conference.
Tags: Business Analyst, Conference, Facilitation, Facilitative Project Manager, training
Posted in Facilitation, Travels | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010 by Gary Rush, CPF
October has been busy with presentations. I had the opportunity to fly to Pittsburgh to speak at the PMI Pittsburgh Chapter meeting on October 14th. Sean Rush, my son, a FoCuSeD Facilitator Academy Alumni, accompanied me to meet the people and continue developing his skills in project management, business analysis, and other areas relating to facilitation.
The session was well run by the PMI chapter. They have a quite a few members and they are dedicated to improving project management and the jobs of their members.
I spoke about Project Managers needing to be facilitative – use more Facilitator skills in managing projects. The response was positive. The audience understood how important the “soft” skills are that Facilitators bring. Incorporating these Facilitator skills into their project management practice will greatly enhance their project management abilities.
Tags: Conference, Facilitation, Facilitative Project Manager, FoCuSeD, PMI, Project Management
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Tuesday, October 12th, 2010 by Gary Rush, CPF
Well, it’s been a busy month. After returning from Nigeria, Millie and I took a well-deserved vacation in Puerto Rico.
We returned and drove to Madison, Wisconsin for the 2010 WI BADD (Business Analyst Development Day) conference. What a conference. Over 500 people attended – making it the largest BA event in the country and in a down economy. The organizers did a fabulous job – people like Roxanne Miller, Dave DeBruine, Nora Medina, and the others at the various Wisconsin IIBA Chapters should be commended for the work they put into this conference. It was well handled, contained many outstanding sessions, and went smoothly. We had our booth there to show Business Analysts that gaining facilitator skills will greatly enhance their analyst capabilities and their relationships with their clients.
I attended an excellent session by Barbara von Halle and Larry Goldberg regarding Decision Modeling. The decision model, along with a process model and a data model, completes the picture of a business. Capturing business logic – what the decision model does – is very helpful and makes good sense. I’m going to be investigating this further. You can check out the ideas at www.TheDecisionModel.com.
In the afternoon, I gave my presentation – actually facilitated a workshop – A FoCuSeD Business Analysis Workshop. Along the lines of the fishbowl session in April, I asked for volunteers to be participants in a workshop to define processes and data needs for Conference Attendee Management. I set up the situation, facilitated the volunteer participants (who did an outstanding job), and closed with questions from the audience regarding the workshop. It went very well (even though I had contracted Dengue Fever and was just beginning my bout with it – it isn’t contagious).
 Gary facilitating the audience at WI BADD 2010 Next year, the conference is on October 11, 2011. If you are a BA or work with BAs, you should attend. I know I’ll be there  .
Tags: Business Analyst, Conference, Data Modeling, Facilitation, Fishbowl Sessions, FoCuSeD, IIBA, Workshop
Posted in Facilitation, Travels | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 by Gary Rush, CPF
Hi,
Well, I spent last week at the IAF North America Conference in Chicago. It was a very busy week, but met a lot of people and accomplished a lot. It was also great to see people who I don’t get to see very often.
We had our board meeting on Monday and Saturday. It was a lot of work, but we managed to make some significant progress in transforming the association to position it for the future. I’ll add more as we make the information public.
I also had the opportunity to watch, participate, and facilitate in three “Fishbowl” sessions. This was a new concept this year – live action, real client, observed workshops.
Jo Nelson facilitated the Logan Square Neighborhood Association – 8 women from Logan Square in Chicago. They developed internal guidelines about how to conduct their meetings more effectively. It was interesting watching Jo – she has been facilitating for quite a number of years.
Gary Austin facilitated an “IAF Flipchart on the Future” – a workshop with 14 past and present board members developing ideas about how to make the association more relevant to organization who hire Facilitators. What made this special is that Gary was stuck in London because of the Iceland Volcano. He had to facilitate via Skype with Nadine Bell being his “avatar” in Chicago with Bernie Fredette and Tammy Adams being the mechanical parts to move the laptop so Gary could see and to hang flip charts. It went remarkably well – both the workshop and the last minute use of technology. It will become a pattern for future conferences. The ideas from the workshop were brought to the board and will be incorporated into our planning.
Then I facilitated the IIBA chapters from Wisconsin in developing a plan for their 2010 Business Analyst Development Day (WI BADD) in October. I had 15 participants (all business analysts) define the purpose, audience, expectations, tracks, and potential topics for the event. All this in 2 1/2 hours! It was quite a session and all enjoyed it. It was also the first time that my parents were able to watch me work. I also had Sean document and Alvaro and Millie watched with my parents – just a bit of pressure! I wouldn’t have missed it.
Well, off to continue working. By the way, if you have any old pictures you wish to share, please email them to me and I’ll post them on the blog .
 Gary facilitating a Fishbowl Session  Gary's Family
Tags: Chicago, Conference, Facilitation, Family, Fishbowl Sessions, IAF
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Newsflash
We are a GSA Contract Holder!
On May 31, 2011, MGR Consulting was awarded a GSA Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) contract to deliver our on-site classes and provide Facilitator services to any Federal Government or Department of Defense (DoD) agency. In addition, if you are a Federal Government or DoD employee, you can more easily register and attend our public classes. Please Contact Gary for additional information.
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