In anticipation of her presentation at Building Business Capability in Vegas, Nov. 2 – 6, 2015, we asked Michelina DiNunno, Sr. Business Architect & Consultant, at arSensa Inc., a few questions about pursuing business excellence. Check out her interview in relation to her BBC presentation entitled, The Lean BA – Using Lean Principles to Reduce Requirements Cycle Time.

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

A: In my career, I’ve been very fortunate to work with some amazing teams.  The mandate of one of those teams is to improve the way the organization delivers projects – faster, better, cheaper – with a focus on experimentation.  We experimented with agile, Lean IT, Lean Start-up and business architecture.  By purposefully experimenting with different approaches, it allows different departments to select what works best for them. As a result, team engagement, productivity and quality improve.

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

A: Initial change efforts tend to be met with resistance. We overcame this by identifying early adopters and getting out of their way. Teams were self-selected and took ownership for the change.  The teams experimented until they found something that worked best for them.  In partnership, the transformation team worked to remove organizational impediments, develop coaching and education programs, and create community guilds and forums to support the teams.

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

A: Continue to improve fluency levels of agile teams and understand value streams at an organizational level.

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: One size does not fit all!  What works for one team or organization may not work for another.  For business analysts and managers, this means what we work on and how we work drives value in our organizations.  The better we are at identifying value-added work the more likely we are to work on the “right” things.

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

A: I am a big fan of DevOps – the processes, the tools and the approach to work.  Although often synonymous with agile, it’s been my experience that once you get DevOps working effectively within your organization all teams benefit – not just the agile ones.  After all, who wants to wait around to deploy software to customers if they are ready now?

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

A: As business analysts, we build skills that require us to embrace change – whether we like it or not!  The more comfortable we are with change the more obvious it becomes that we can be change agents.  If we can unhinge ourselves from traditional ways of working we can shape a culture of continuous improvement. Our value lies in figuring out how our organizations need to change and to help propel that change forward.

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

A:Learn how Lean practices can help you focus on value and get rid of waste in the requirements life cycle.

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Don’t miss Michelina’s presentation, The Lean BA – Using Lean Principles to Reduce Requirements Cycle Time, at Building Business Capability on Thursday, November 5, 2015 from 4:50 to 5:50 pm. Click here to register for attendance.