In anticipation of his presentation at Building Business Capability in Vegas, Nov. 2 – 6, 2015, we asked Bob Whyte, Systems Consultant, Enterprise Architecture at Unum, a few questions about pursuing business excellence. Check out his interview in relation to his BBC presentation entitled, Operational Decision Agility:  Dramatic Gains Require Cross-Discipline Solutions.

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

A: This is a large fortune 500 company and there are ongoing initiatives in many areas and disciplines, in methodology, tools and training. My department is both affected by change driven by other areas, and in turn is driving change in functions and areas we support. We are introducing new tools and methods, always with the goal of enabling the business to be more effective, efficient and responsive in our market.

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

A: A perennial challenge in a large company is to overcome obstacles raised by specialization.  Every individual or group in an organization of significant size must specialize to significant degree. For example, accountants and engineers have their own areas of expertise. Specialization is necessary for excellence, but it also creates hurdles to institutional excellence because multiple specialists must act together as a team and this is difficult in a bureaucracy.

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

A: This company is always working to make internal processes more effective, and this is ongoing. In my department one way we are trying to build better business agility today is by reducing compartmentalization of expertise, not just within our own family of specialists, but with all of our partners.

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: A renewed conviction that the greatest gains are found at the boundaries between specialties.

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

A: One example is that we have used a combination of technology, business modeling and governance to dramatically improve how we manage an automated decision.

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

A: Keep at it, despite the frustrations. There’s gold in them there hills!

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

A: Agility is really just common sense. One player cannot make a team agile – the team members can only be agile as a whole.

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Don’t miss Bob’s presentation, Operational Decision Agility:  Dramatic Gains Require Cross-Discipline Solutions, at Building Business Capability on Wednesday, November 4, 2015 from 3:10 to 4:10 pm. Click here to register for attendance.