Hi:

Business Analysis is primarily  performing analysis to discover the as-is business processes.  This is hard for alot of BA's to gasp in large part because:

*  The need for the as-is is often discounted

*  Current "hot" technqiues such as BPMN, Use Cases, and Activity Diagrams are weak in terms of supporting process discovery.

Tony

kmajoos:

I think it was Craig Brown who was to attend the talk.

Why data flow diagrams?  Gathering and verifiying the data flows is tough work.  As-Is data flow diagraming, propely done, can involve rapid-fire personal  attacks like nothing else one can imagine.  This is a primary reason why no one does it.   If we want the data flows, especially for larger scale systems, we must be single mindedly, hard headedly, and fervently focused on the data flows - an use a technique that is like focused.   If not, I can gaurantee you we will postone data flow analysis and divert our attention to other  issues - like implementation issues.

Tony