Bellevue College

Building NWCET, Conference Lecture Hall Room N201

BABOK V2.0 Seattle Chapter Study Group, First Session September 12, 2012

Do you want to familiarize yourself with BABOK® Guide version 2.0? Do you plan to attain Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP®) or Certification of Competency in Business Analysis (CCBA™) status? Do you want to earn up to 17.5 Professional Development hours to satisfy CBAP® or CCBA™ exam prerequisites? If so, let's join forces to increase your BABOK® Guide familiarity! It is essential to become familiar with A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® before attaining CBAP® or CCBA™ status. See the recent announcement for more information

Mission

• Advance the role of Business Analysis as a recognized profession

Objectives

• Support learning opportunities for Business Analysts to advance their skills through network with seasoned peer practitioners and industry leaders
• Promote certification (CBAP® and CCBA®) and continuing education aligned to the IIBA "Business Analysis Body of Knowledge" (BABOK®)
• Encourage and sustain membership growth and member participation throughout the state of Washington
• Create corporate support by demonstrating the value of Business Analysis and the IIBA® 

• Each board member is the owner of their own domain
• The board will be able to operate seamlessly in the event of a board member is unavailable. This is accomplished by a shared understanding of duties, documenting processes, and cross training.
• We evangelize Business Analysis and the IIBA® 
• We actively network at meetings so participants, new and previous, attendees
• We recognize the need to spend money to make money

We had a large group of volunteers working to host our first Washington Business Analysis Day from December until April. We accomplished a lot under the leadership of Keith Saddoris and Bob Ramsdell. Unfortunately, when April 1st rolled around we determined that we did not yet have a good feel for feasibility of pulling off an event for May 19, 2012 with the caliber we intended to make a mark on the Pacific Northwest for the IIBA® Seattle Chapter. The decision at that time was to postpone the event indefinitely. Keith further took action by proposing a motion to add a new board position of Vice President of Special Programs and Events to lead the next effort to bring a professional development day to Seattle. Cathie Groesbeck was elected to the position in May.

The full vision and strategy for this position or the event is yet to be fully defined. One valuable lesson we got from the previous effort is an understanding of just how big and complex planning a major event is. We will be taking extra time to make sure we have a full understanding of the effort, lead times needed for getting speakers and marketing to attendees, and alternatives to ensure the best use of resources for the best results. Stay tuned for more information.

My apologies for being so long in getting my first newsletter out. Somehow, I wasn't quite prepared for this task of President.

I recently participated in a discussion about chapter newsletters where frequency of publishing was discussed. Our newsletter is published quarterly (well almost). What I am hearing is that best practice for the members is a monthly newsletter.

I see two huge advantages to a monthly publication; opportunity to promote events within the newsletter and keeping the Seattle IIBA® Chapter in front of membership more often. The drawback is the amount of work it takes to write, edit, and publish the newsletter on a monthly basis.

We are creating a non-board volunteer position for a Newsletter Editor. This will spread the work out and help create some accountability for meeting expected deadlines. It will provide an opportunity to engage members in our chapter administration.

The other thought is "does the newsletter need to be 6 plus pages long each time." I would expect some standard features continue in going to a monthly publication (e.g., letter from the President, upcoming events, the return of "Dear Julie" or comparable, IIBA® International news, and one learning article.)

This is your newsletter. I want to hear from you what currently makes this a valuable resource for you or what we can do to increase the value. Please email me at president@seattle.iiba.org with your ideas and suggestions. I would also be excited to hear from anybody that would like to volunteer in helping with the newsletter in an Editor position or other capacity.

Get your own byline. I welcome submissions from our members.