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Barb Deming

Senior Management Consultant

Barbara Deming has worked as a consultant with Management Analysis and Development since 1990. Barbara’s experience includes broad agency assessments and strategic planning, interagency change efforts, and other facilitation services. She has training and experience with Appreciative Inquiry as a strengths- and success-oriented way of managing change.

Consulting focus

Throughout her career with MAD, Barbara has worked on various types of organization development projects: 

  • Facilitating interagency groups, including diverse committees addressing the coordination services to children and youth with disabilities across agencies, ways to improve onboarding of state job candidates with disabilities through the state’s Connect 700 program, and developing performance measures for a state plan addressing workforce disparities and demand-driven workforce development.
  • Leading strategic planning efforts that engage organizations in identifying the changes they hope to influence in the future and crafting practical strategies for achieving them. Clients range across state and local governments, ranging from the Department of Agriculture to the Teachers Retirement Association to Capitol Region Watershed District. 
  • Training in and leading projects using Results-Based Accountability and Appreciative Inquiry, and teaching MAD’s Facilitation Skills Course to mixed public classes as well as in-house, customized training for agencies like the Board of Water and Soil Resources.
  • Organization assessments and reviews in many state agencies and public higher education organizations, ranging from agencywide assessments to division-level improvement efforts. 

Client and project highlights 

Recently Barbara led efforts to redesign MAD’s Facilitation Skills Course to deliver it online during the pandemic, including shifting from two full in-person days to four shorter online days, and creating an interactive workspace online where participants could view materials and participate in group activities. 

She has also served as MAD’s champion for Appreciative Inquiry, providing training and exploring ways to build research into “what works” into consultants’ approaches.

Other unique projects include developing a strategic planning approach and training in leading strategic planning for Department of Health nurse consultants serving local public health agencies; facilitating a long-term interagency team (Departments of Education, Human Services, Health, and Employment and Economic Development) in developing a pilot project to promote person-centered, interagency facilitation of IEP meetings for students with disabilities; and working with a colleague to design and facilitate processes to lead volunteer governing board members in a process to hire an executive director at the Commission of Deaf and DeafBlind Minnesotans.

Educational background

Barbara holds a bachelor’s degree in Russian and International Relations from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

Barb Deming
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