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 
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