Episode 342: Organizational Innovation is Driven by Business Analysis (Free)




The Project Management Podcast show

Summary: Play Now: This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast. Earn 37 PDUs:: Cornelius Fichtner and Elizabeth Larson This interview with Elizabeth Larson was recorded at the 2015 PMI Global Congress in Orlando, Florida. We discuss her paper and presentation "I Don’t Have Time to Innovate: I’m Too Busy Doing Business Analysis" (Co-written with Richard Larson). Here is the paper's abstract: Everyone seems to be talking about the importance of organizational innovation, as well as what it means for practitioners of business analysis. Are business analysis and innovation even compatible? This paper answers this question affirmatively: yes, they are. But what is innovation and how can business analysis practitioners help organizations innovate? Innovation may include process improvement as some have suggested. It also may include doing root cause analysis to identify problems and then finding solutions to those problems as others have claimed. And it can certainly include doing projects agilely, changing the features of the product being built as needs become known. However, although each of these is an important factor in developing creative solutions, each by itself is probably not enough. Innovation requires us not only to spot all manner of opportunities, but also to use our influencing skills to convince the organization to seize them. Episode Transcript Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only. Podcast Introduction Cornelius Fichtner: Welcome back to Orlando, Florida. You are listening to the Project Management Podcast at www.pm-podcast.com. And we're coming to you live from the 2015 PMI Global Congress. I'm sitting in the Exhibit Hall and next to me is Elizabeth Larson. Hello, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Larson:   Hi, Cornelius. Cornelius Fichtner:   Good morning. How's everything? Elizabeth Larson:   Everything is great. I really am delighted to be here. Cornelius Fichtner:   Wonderful. Elizabeth Larson:   Happy to be talking to you. Cornelius Fichtner:   So our key note this morning is all about innovation. You and I, we're going to talk about innovation. This is a wonderful mind-meld here today. But my first question for you, what is the 2016 trend that you see coming our way? Elizabeth Larson:   As far as project management is concerned, I see the fact that project management skills will always be needed. Whether we're working on Agile projects, whether we're working on traditional projects, we need the project management skills. But the trend that I see is more towards a distribution of the role. I see the titles are going to be less important so maybe the title of project manager will be less important in some organizations than it's been in the past. But the skills will still be needed. So that's the trend that I see. I see other people may be picking up parts of what we now might say as a project manager role. And I see that the project manager may be asked to pick up and do some other things, but the skills are still going to be needed. Cornelius Fichtner:   Excellent. I Don't Have Time To Innovate, I'm Too Busy Doing Business Analysis is the topic of your paper & presentation. Why this topic? What got you interested in it? Elizabeth Larson:   I'm very interested in business analysis. And when I say business analysis, I do distinguish between business analysis and a business analyst by the way. So I'm talking about anyone that practices business analysis. I'm also very interested in innovation and its effect on organizations of all sizes. And I thought, this would be kind of a fun topic that, boy, some people think it's an either/or thing. That either we're doing business analysis, I’m so busy, I don't have time to do anything else or I'm busy innovating. And my central theme really is, i