Today was the last day of the Building Business Capabilities conference in Las Vegas.  Wow! It was a crammed 2 1/2 days, with lots of great presentations.   I am energized and exhausted (if such a thing is possible)

There was one session today that I really thought was outstanding.  It was simple, yet powerful, and described a method of eliciting requirements that makes real sense.

John Bethke  gave a dynamite presentation on the use of business events as the focal point for business analysis:

An analysis approach based on business events defines the who,
what and when of an enterprise or business unit. You ask: What is the triggering business event? What causes a customer or business  person to do something? Who or what does it? You also want to address work flow state – When does it happen? What business objects are created or consumed? What is happening and why?

There are two really cool parts to this.  First of all, people can understand business events.  A question like “what causes you to start doing that?” will usually result in a pretty detailed answer, AND when you drill just a little, business rules, processes, and requirements fall right out.  Very cool