A big focus during the first couple of days at the conference has been on Business Analysis Centers of Excellence (COE).  There have been a number of sessions where the speaker has shared their experiences with setting up and maintaining a COE.  There is a desire among BAs at an organization to have a community where the analysts can share ideas, create standards, develop best practices and document templates, and learn about what it takes to be a better BA.  There were some instances where management iniated the creation of the COE, but in most cases it started as a grassroots effort among the BAs in the organization.  

The purpose of a COE is to setup processes, controls and templates for the business analysis community within an organization to follow.  More and more companies are realizing the necessity for this and are looking for ways to implement it.  There are a few important things I learned during the conference about setting up and managing a COE.