BBC 2017 Speaker Series – Consultant:  Michele Maritato at PMProgetti srl

In anticipation of his presentation at Building Business Capability in Orlando, Nov. 6-10, 2017, we asked Michele Maritato, Business Analyst, Scrum Master at PMProgetti srl, a few questions about transforming the business. Check out this interview in relation to his BBC presentation entitled, Merging Project Management and Business Analysis into One Role: the Project Business Manager.

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

A: We teach them Business Analysis and how to use it for analyzing, challenging and innovating their Business Models. We also support them in thinking “Agile” in implementing business transformation.

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

A: Mainly the culture of the Business and the culture of IT, still difficult to change. Agility is not for everyone. And another challenge is coming from the C-level, which often are not prepared or willing to change their leadership style to support agility.

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

A: For a company that wants to start applying Agile, I can suggest finding robust and experienced Scrum Masters, don’t do it on their own; the risk of failure is very high. For companies that want to improve their Agility, I can suggest using Scrum Masters with strong BA competencies (better with a CBAP certification); they will know how to change the capabilities of the organization.  And of course companies must be open and supportive to agile, sponsorship is vital.

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

A: Agility is not for everyone and the importance of human resource factor is becoming more and more important.

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: Have done Agile transformation using Scrum in some companies, and the results are evident: increase in focus to achieve better objectives, increase of motivation of the team, increase delivering value and removing the non-value added activities.

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

A: Understand agile sooner, use certified BA’s in my projects sooner.

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: I will speak about the next generation of Project Managers: the Project Business Manager (PBM). This role includes a mix of PM and BA skills to improve the engagement of the stakeholders, understanding and defining the value the project is supposed to deliver even before the project is approved and then manage the project accordingly, and when the project is finished the PBM still stays with the client to evaluate and improve the project deliverables to maximize the value delivered. We have done some experiments, and this new role has produced interesting benefits both at business and project value.

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Don’t miss Michele’s presentation, Merging Project Management and Business Analysis into One Role: the Project Business Manager, at Building Business Capability on Wednesday, November 8, 2017 from 3:10 to 4:10 pm. Click here to register for attendance.