A little over three years ago I had my first exposure to Choosing By Advantages Decisionmaking. Three colleagues were working on the California Prison Receivership hospitals program. CBA had found its way to that program from the Sutter Health Cathedral Hill project in San Francisco. There, John Koga, AIA had introduced the CBA Decisionmaking System and Process to design teams that were undertaking concurrent set-based design.

One thing led to another, the CPR team was trained in CBA, other colleagues got exposure to CBA at the LCI Design Forum and then we held a CBA Sound Decisionmaking class for our staff and some of our clients. Jim Suhr, founder of the CBA system, was our instructor. I couldn’t attend, but my youngest son who had just graduated from college attended. When he returned his mother asked, “How was the training?” He answered, “It changed my life.” Well that statement changed my life.

I have completed 16 days of training in all of the CBA public courses plus a special Master Class that three colleagues and I attended with clients Jeff Loeb and Jeff Murray from CH2M Hill, Alan Mossman and John Koga. We are now introducing all our clients to sound decisionmaking the CBA way. While CBA has been very useful in the design of buildings, we’re seeing great results throughout the design and construction process.

You can learn about CBA at this year’s Lean Construction Congress in Pasadena. My colleagues and others in the CBA Master Class are putting on a one-day sound decisionmaking class on the day before the Congress. Enroll in the CBA session along with the balance of the Congress. In addition to the class materials, attendees will get Jim Suhr’s two short books Sound Decisionmaking the first & second essentials.

It might change your life too!