BBC 2017 Speaker Series – Consultant: Michael Callahan

In anticipation of his presentation at Building Business Capability in Orlando, Nov. 6-10, 2017, we asked Michael Callahan, Partner at AgileLayer Services Corporation, a few questions about transforming the business. Check out this interview in relation to his BBC presentation entitled, Value Networks and the API Economy.

Q: In what ways do you help your client organizations handle business transformation?

A: In our capacity of helping enterprises adopt an Interdisciplinary Capabilities-based Planning approach, we participate in a number of Business Transformation programs.  Most frequently we’re involved in working with clients to apply our Capabilities-based modeling & ideation methods and tools to their Digital Innovation and Customer Experience Management initiatives.

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

A: The biggest challenge that we’re tasked to address pertains to the creation of new operational alignment and governance models to support enterprise or near-enterprise level transformations. Connecting the various cross-cutting organizational disciplines & functions to the often silo-ed Lines of Business can be daunting at most mid to large enterprises.

Q: What are your top suggestions for companies looking to become more agile?

A: There’s a large (and mostly untapped) opportunity to leverage the “Agile” software development methods within the Business, which needs to be led from the Business side and not become a “copy & paste” of what IT has implemented with respect to Agile.

Another agility opportunity pertains to leveraging Value Networks & the API Economy to support innovation and time-to-market imperatives (Anthony Hill of Kaiser Permanente and I will be speaking on this at the conference).

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

A: The importance of narrowing the focus to the very high-leverage innovation and transformation opportunities. There is so much opportunity for transformation and change now that we need to ensure that we’re identifying and honing in on those 3-5 year “change the game” endeavors which are invariably intertwined with new or emerging partner eco-systems.

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

A: With the emergence of Capabilities-based Planning and Business Architecture disciplines, we see an opportunity for Business Analysts to move to an “Early and Up” position in the overall Strategy-to-Execution process; becoming engaged earlier in the process and operating at higher levels, organizationally.  To effectively leverage the Capabilities-based Planning and Business Architecture approaches, strong Business Analysis skills are essential for performing Capability-level Assessments, Ideation Workshops, Needs Analysis, and Target-state Blueprinting & Roadmapping.

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

A:  We’re using our Capabilities-based Planning Software-as-a-Service and the related methods & best practices to define and manage customer Operating Models, Business Architectures and the associated Roadmaps.

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

A: Be more aggressive about taking on the “high risk” inter-disciplinary leadership roles, both internally at AgileLayer and in our customer engagements.

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

A: “What is the ‘sweet spot’ for leveraging Business Analysis skills over the next 3-5 years?”   My answer (no surprise): “Leverage the Capabilities-based Planning/Business Architecture disciplines to move the BA role ‘Up & Early’ in the Strategy-to-Execution process.”

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: How to “jump start” your company’s creation of Value Networks that leverage the API Economy.

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Don’t miss Michael’s presentation, Value Networks and the API Economy, at Building Business Capability on Thursday, November 9, 2017 from 3:20 pm to 4:20 pm.  Click here to register for attendance.