In anticipation of his co-presentation at Building Business Capability in Vegas, Nov. 2 – 6, 2015, we asked Aaron Burns, Director of Enterprise Business Architecture at Asurion, a few questions about pursuing business excellence. Check out his interview in relation to his BBC co-presentation entitled, EBA:  Influence with an Impact.

Q: How is your organization advancing the pursuit of business excellence and how does it impact your business units/departments?

A: We are seeking to enable business agility; the ability to sense and respond to business environments efficiently and effectively. ~ Gartner.   I would add the step of analyze between sense and respond.  Most of our work centers around building assets and muscles within the organization to accomplish this.  In our earliest phases we focused solely on establishing common language to create more clear and efficient communication. We have expanded that into building understanding, in ever increasing levels of complexity, with the models we have established.

Q: Can you describe the challenges you face or have already overcome in establishing a more cohesive and productive company or organization?

A: The two biggest challenges we face are establishing a clear communication of value and a sense of urgency.  We have spent an extensive amount of time honing our value message and people readily agree and express the desire to achieve the values we are striving for.  They are also often willing to give small slices of their time to help, but as our company is currently very successful, getting a true sense of urgency has been the larger challenge.  It’s easy to convince the passengers they need a patch when the boat is sinking.  It’s a much harder influence to get them to upgrade engines because the ocean is going to get choppy over the horizon.

Q: What are your near term goals for creating a more agile organization at your business or company?

A: We are looking to achieve business agility in a number of short and long term ways.  The most immediate goal is to continue establishing a single language for the company.  Communication is a huge inhibitor of agility.  Every business unit, product domain and region seems to have its own vernacular.  We have been working hard to break these communication barriers and empower the business to move more agilely through any and all of their operating models.  To do this, we have focused on two modeling initiatives, capability modeling and business entity modeling.

Q: What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned in 2015 thus far? What’s the most important goal/trend for [pick one or two: business analysts, business architects, business process managers and/or business rules managers] to keep in mind?

A: We are learning so much.  It’s hard to distill it down to a single item.  Here is the first that comes to mind.  Business partners don’t care about how we make the sausage.  We have spent a lot of time in the past defining, in precise measure, how we will go about achieving a goal or executing an exercise.  This bores them to tears.   They really just want to know “what’s in it for me” and “what do I need to do.”  Some of our more strategic thinkers get excited by explanations of how this will move the business forward, but not all.  I am learning to keep the architecture talk down to a minimum and dive right into the work.

Q: What’s the latest method/process/tool you have implemented to help your organization or business run more efficiently and effectively?

A: We are currently refining our ability to perform capability based assessments of strategic objectives.  This is a process of identifying the key capabilities associated with a strategic business objective and then assessing those capabilities across the dimensions of people, process, technology, security and information.  The results allow us to establish clear scope, risks and level of effort in a way that can be correlated with other strategic objectives across the enterprise.  This adds value to the individual effort and helps break down the current silos that exist within the organization.

Q: If you could give your five-years-ago self-insight and advice about this industry, what would you say? 

A: Give as much attention to learning how to interact with people as to learning the discipline.  Little of what I do is solely dependent upon me.  In order to have transformative impact, I am constantly working to build relationships within the organization.  Being an expert in Business Architecture will yield very little without the ability to influence others.  Also, a group of intelligent trusting people can build a better solution than I can build on my own.  Learn to work with others.

Q: Sneak preview: Please tell us a take-away that you will provide during your talk at Building Business Capability?

A: Useful is better than perfect.  I am convinced that Enterprise Architects fail so often because they refuse to understand that insisting on perfection is often the enemy of being able to add value.  We constantly have to seek a balance between what will add value and enhance our ability to influence and strict adherence to an ideal.  There should be a constant tension between the two that allows you to adapt without sacrificing your end goals.

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Don’t miss Aaron’s presentation, EBA:  Influence with an Impact, at Building Business Capability on Wednesday, November 4, 2015 from 10:25 to 11:25 am. Click here to register for attendance.