In anticipation of their co-presentation at Building Business Capability in Vegas, Oct 31, – Nov. 4, 2016, we asked Brett Larter and Spencer Riley, Sr. IT Associate Business Analysts at Lowe’s, a few questions about pursuing business excellence. Check out their interview in relation to their BBC co-presentation entitled, Recruiting, Growing, Retaining, and Maximizing Your Millennial BA Workforce.

Q: In what ways do you see your group helping your organization pursue business excellence?

A: Our organization uses a combination of a BA Community of Practice, group trainings, peer reviews, and mentorships to grow BA skills and the BA practice. Through this, we increase the quality of the business capabilities produced in our projects.

Q: Can you describe the challenges you face or have already overcome in establishing more robust business capabilities for your organization?

A: One of the biggest challenges we faced was onboarding our business partners into an agile environment for the first time. Once we earned their trust with our first release, which came much earlier than they were expecting based on their past experiences with waterfall, it was easier to earn their buy-in on how much of their time we would need each sprint to deliver the software that their teams need.

Q: What are your short-term goals for becoming more agile?

A: Lowe’s creates business analyst standards and practices which we try to follow on all of our projects. At the moment many of these practices are better fit for waterfall projects, and although the end goal is similar between waterfall and agile projects, the individual project checkpoints and BA deliverables can vary during each stage of the SDLC. We need to rework some of those business analyst standards and practices so that BAs on all projects can implement them.

Q: What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned in the past year?

A: Since running a College Talent Program to hire millennials to flesh out your BA workforce is a long term investment, this past year is when Lowe’s has started reaping the benefits of the group of BAs hired in June 2014. These returns have made it easier to justify the costs of running the program, and will encourage its growth in the short and long term.

Q: What do you see as the most important goal or trend for business analysts and other professionals to keep in mind?

A: The millennials you hire today will likely be the people leading your organization in the coming decades, so it’s best to hire them out of college so you can shape their mindset and outlook of your company.

Q: What’s the latest method/process/tool you’ve implemented to help your business operate more effectively? Have you seen any results yet?

A: Our College Talent Program has recently shifted the onboarding process from three six month long rotations to two nine month long rotations. This process shift has made it more worthwhile to the individual projects who spend time and energy onboarding their temporary BA, and gives the new hire a deeper view of each team they join.

Q: If you could go back 5 years in time and give some professional insight or advice to yourself, what would it be?

A: If I could go back to give myself some advice during my sophomore year in college, I would talk about how there’s always more than one right answer. A lot of times in college it can seem like you work on a project or write a paper to make it acceptable to the one decision maker. In the corporate world, there could be several solutions to one problem, and each member of the team might have a different perspective. The Lowe’s peer review process helped show me this in action, as I saw senior BAs and how they approached situations differently than my mentor, my manager, or other senior BAs.

Q: What’s one question you wished you were asked in this interview but were not? And how would you answer?

A: Question: How do you see the business analysis field changing in the next 3-5 years?

Answer: Every year, the crop of BAs graduating from college have had access to computers earlier and earlier in their lives. There will be a time where the worst technology a BA has ever experienced will be an iPhone or newer. Because of this, I believe many younger BAs will have grown up in a world hearing about start-up culture, and will have a heavy focus on user experience. The companies that best leverage those focus areas will thrive.

Q: Sneak preview: Please tell us a take-away that you will provide during your talk at the Building Business Capability (BBC) conference this year?

A: Our speech is unique in that we have a perspective not present in previous BBC Conferences or elsewhere at this year’s. Spencer and I plan on sharing experiences on the hiring process from a perspective that many other BAs have not had recently or at all. We also plan on sharing our insights on how your company can effectively hire and extract value out of millennial BAs as a method of filling out a BA workforce and sustaining it for the long term.

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Don’t miss Brett and Spencer’s co-presentation, Recruiting, Growing, Retaining, and Maximizing Your Millennial BA Workforce, at Building Business Capability on Thursday, November 3, 2016 from 3:20 to 4:20 pm. Click here to register for attendance.