In anticipation of his presentation at Building Business Capability in Vegas, Nov. 2 – 6, 2015, we asked Rodrigo Neves, RBN Consulting Director, RBN Consulting and Training Chapter President, IIBA Minas Gerais Brazil, a few questions about pursuing business excellence. Check out his interview in relation to his BBC presentation entitled Strategic Business Analysis Office – Integrating BA, Project and Process to Achieve Business Results.

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

A: Talking as IIBA Minas Gerais State Chapter (Brazil) President, and owner of a consulting and training company (RBN Consulting and Training), we intend to pursue business excellence by changing the traditional way to see the business, questioning established standards, and implementing an environment that allows innovation. It’s a cultural change task that needs to be done on a day by day basis, and Business Analysis is the key to do so.

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

A: Once again, the cultural change is the biggest challenge to overcome, and since Business Analysis is still very young at Brazil, the growth of the IIBA is very important to getting people together to exchange experiences and learn with each other in order to see BA with more trustful eyes. To do so, our next step is to make our local IIBA Chapter (Minas Gerais State Chapter) chartered in 2015.

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

A: With a local IIBA chapter established and running, our next step is capacitation: train people, implement certification programs in BA, maintain events with programs like what we have in Brazil: Webinars, BABOK Study Groups, BAForums and the BABrazil. For that, partnership with US companies such as Watermark Learning and BiZZdesign has been very important in order to bring top of class content to our BA community.

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: For business analysts, the most important trend I see is about innovation: the BA is the key for innovation, and the Business Analyst is the professional with the more complete package of tools, techniques and abilities to think out of the box with a disruptive mindset, bringing new solutions to the business and making it more agile to respond to the market changes.

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

A: The Business Analyst as a strategist. The BA as a link between Strategy, Projects and Processes, allows a more agile way for organizations to transform ideas in results. It’s even more evident when PMI recently recognized the importance of BA as the recommended professional to make the alignment between the business and the project and programs objectives.

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

A: My first contact with the IIBA was six years ago, and I found the missing piece for my consulting work in BA, and it changed my career and business. Today, I think we did a lot so far, but we are still at the very beginning of the journey, and the best and bright days are ahead. We are still showing people and organizations in Brazil what BA is, but when I see the same smiling face I did when I saw the BA for the first time, I have the confidence that we are going the right way, and we will continue to change peoples’ careers and businesses for the better.

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

A: My presentation will be almost biographic, since my career in a certain way followed the development of business management. From an engineer with a passion for processes, to a project manager focused on delivery, to business analyst thinking on how can we make the business better, I naturally came to the concept of the SBAO (Strategic Business Analysis Office). So I will show how BA is the right piece that can put together Strategy, Projects and Process in order to bring results to the business.

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Don’t miss Rodrigo’s presentation, Strategic Business Analysis Office – Integrating BA, Project and Process to Achieve Business Results, at Building Business Capabilityon Thursday, November 5, 2015 from 8:00 to 8:50 am. Click here to register for attendance.