We have all heard “This is the golden age of data” and “Data is the new oil” but that does not necessarily mean your senior executives are anxious to participate in Conceptual Data Modelling / Concept Modelling. The speaker recently had an interesting exception to the reluctance of senior executives to participate in data modelling. Led by the Chief Strategy Officer, a group of C-level executives and other senior leaders at a mid-size financial institution asked Alec to facilitate three days of Concept Modelling sessions.

Fundamentally, a Concept Model is all about improving communication among various stakeholders, but the communication often gets lost – in the clouds, in the weeds, or somewhere off to the side. This is bad enough in any modelling session but is completely unacceptable when working at the C-level. Drawing on forty years of successful consulting and modelling experience, this presentation will illustrate core techniques and necessary behaviors to keep even your senior executives involved and engaged.

Key points in the presentation include:

• What got the executives interested in the first place.

• How we prepared for and structured the sessions.

• How we communicated with the executives before, during, and after the sessions.

• An angst-free framework for developing definitions.

• How the Concept Model evolved, and the crucial findings.

• The executives’ reaction during the retrospective.

One-sentence description:

How we engaged a group of senior executives at a financial services firm, at their request, in preparing for and developing a robust Concept Model over three partial days of facilitated sessions.