The Art (and Science) of Diagramming: Communicating Effectively Using Diagrams
DAMA Australia is delighted to offer this one day course on producing effective diagrams. This has been previously presented at Enterprise Data World in Tampa, Florida, the DAMA International Symposium in Boston the IRMAC in Toronto,  the DAMA Europe Conference in London and DAMA Scandinavia Conference in Stockholm. It comes highly recommended by the current President of DAMA International (Dr. Peter Aiken), Past President of DAMA International (John Schley), David Hay (author of “Data Modelling Patterns”) and Steve Hoberman (author of “Data Modelling Made Simple”).

The role of diagrams in IT practice

Diagrams form an important part of the “language” of IT practice: they are used in all areas and all levels of practice, from strategic planning to circuit design. They are the basic tools of our trade, the lingua franca we use to communicate among ourselves and with our customers. Yet surprisingly, IT practitioners typically receive no training in how to produce “good” diagrams.  As a result, most diagrams produced in IT practice today do not communicate effectively: although they are intended as a way of communicating with business users and senior management, they more often act as a barrier than an aid to communication.

What you will learn from this course

This goal of this course is to teach you how to produce cognitively effective diagrams: diagrams that are optimised for human understanding and problem solving. It defines 7 principles for producing effective diagrams, summarised in the “fishbone” (cause-effect) diagram below.

These principles are not based on intuition, opinion and experience like those currently used in practice, but on theory and empirical evidence drawn from a wide range of fields, including visual perception, cognitive psychology, graphic design, typography and diagrammatic reasoning. The course is designed to be highly interactive, with a range of examples and exercises used to give participants first-hand experience applying the principles.

Topics include:

- What is a “good” diagram and how can this be measured?

- Common mistakes in diagramming practice and how to avoid them

- Principles of graphic design (dimensions of the “design space”): how to represent information graphically

- Principles of visual perception and cognition (the “solution space”: how diagrams are processed by the human mind

- Principles for cognitively effective diagrams: how to produce diagrams that are optimised for processing by the human mind

To see a pdf brochure about the course please click here.

What you will learn from this course
This course describes a set of principles for producing “good” diagrams (defined as diagrams that communicate effectively). These principles are based on scientific evidence drawn from a wide range of fields, including visual perception, cognitive psychology, graphic design, cartography, typography and diagrammatic reasoning. The principles apply to all types of diagrams, from formal diagrams used in application development and enterprise architectures to informal diagrams used in presentations and reports. The course is designed to be highly interactive, with a wide range of examples and exercises used to illustrate the principles.

Speaker Biography
Dr. Daniel Moody is a Senior Consultant with Ajilon Australia in their Strategy & Architecture practice. He holds a PhD in Information Systems from the University of Melbourne (Australia’s top ranked university) and has held senior IT positions in some of Australia’s largest private organisations. He has conducted consulting assignments in 12 different countries, covering a broad range of industries: banking, airlines, law enforcement, television broadcasting, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, manufacturing, healthcare, education, utilities, transport and forestry. He has also held academic positions at universities around the world, including in Australia, Brazil, Czech Republic, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, and Spain.  He has published over 100 scientific papers and has chaired a number of national and international conferences. He has been President of the Australian Data Management Association (DAMA), Australian Representative for the Information Resource Management Association (IRMA) and is listed in Who's Who in Science and Engineering. He speaks fluent English but can say “hello”, “thank you” and “cheers” in at least 10 different languages.

Schedule and Catering
Registration is from 8:30am with tea and coffee available on arrival. The course runs from 9:00am to 5:00pm. There will be breaks for morning and afternoon tea as well as lunch. All meals costs are included in the course fee.  If you have dietary requirements please contact the host or email damacanberra@gmail.com.

Venue
The venue is Hyatt Hotel, Commonwealth Avenue, Yarralumla.

DAMA Membership included
Non members and ACS members will receive 12 month membership in DAMA for no charge. This membership usually costs $100.

How to pay
Click the bright orange 'Order Now' button higher up on this page to pay my credit card.  There is also the option of being sent an invoice.  Any questions please contact damacanberra@gmail.com.