In anticipation of their co-presentation at Building Business Capability in Vegas, Nov. 2 – 6, 2015, we asked David Windeler, BSA Manager at Deloitte and Ganapathy Kiriyamada, Sr. Business Analyst at Deloitte, a few questions about pursuing business excellence. Check out their interview in relation to their BBC presentation entitled Debunking the Myth that Agile Only Works When Teams are Co-located!

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

A: The pursuit of business excellence is an everyday occurrence for us. Through leadership support, the organization made the decision to adopt agile and move away from RUP. This allowed teams to be better positioned to support the ever changing business needs. It also led to faster time to market and increases the collaborative nature that the project team has with the business (example: participation in backlog grooming, design iteration etc.)

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

A: Given the geographically dispersed nature of our project teams and stakeholders, in-person collaboration, though preferred, simply is not possible. To accommodate for this, teams have implemented the scrum of scrums concept to allow for in person collaboration within the same time zone. Our organization also heavily relies on technology to conduct video conferences as required. Additionally, screen shares are heavily utilized in lieu of email communication. Technology provided through our communication forums also provides virtual whiteboards, and allows teams to collaborate without being in the same room.

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

A: Having already implemented Agile, the teams continue to strive to improve each and every sprint. To do so, we are now looking at enhancing our efforts towards both continuous delivery and continuous integration. Wherever possible, we look to establish best practices and leverage them within all teams. We also look to Application Lifecycle Management solutions that provide test automation, automated build and deployment capabilities. The goal of utilizing these technologies is to march towards achieving zero downtime for mission critical applications. This is also supported with proactive monitoring solutions to identify issues well in advance of them being detrimental to the system.

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: At the onset of Agile adoption, the role of the BA appeared to be reduced, given their relegation to a team role. However, as time passed, the BA role was restructured and it became very apparent that more opportunities presented themselves than in the RUP methodology. Many of our BSAs have become product owners and scrum masters, and play a vital role in leading several of the Agile ceremonies (e.g. backlog grooming, planning poker).

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

A: Within our organization we rely heavily on Microsoft virtual collaboration tools. Additionally, our laptops are all equipped within built-in hardware to support virtual collaboration from anywhere in the world. We also utilize an IBM ALM solution to support our project delivery. We have also centralized our Non-functional requirements and implemented standardized project (consistent product, release and sprint backlogs) and artifact templates (e.g. user stories and acceptance criteria) to ensure our solutions support the successful implementation of Agile methodology. We also strive for consistency across all projects from an automation framework perspective.

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

A: Though we did a great job implementing Agile, it would’ve been greater to see this accomplished even earlier. Knowing how many opportunities this methodology provides to our BAs, providing this information at the onset of formal roll-out would’ve gone a long way to minimize the required change management activities.

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

A: During our presentation, we will highlight the benefits that Agile brings to a Business Systems Analyst as compared to a Business Analyst working in projects that utilize waterfall.

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Don’t miss David and Ganapathy’sco-presentation, Debunking the Myth that Agile Only Works When Teams are Co-located! at Building Business Capability on Friday, November 6, 2015 from 10:10 to 11:10 am. Click here to register for attendance.