"We have talked a lot about BPM as a product, but we have not discussed much about BPM as a methodology to successfully delivering high value applications."
How have you had success delivering BPM projects?
What types of techniques do you recommend?
What type of talent development has been required?
Garth BPM Guru LinkedIn
Yes to delivering successfully BPM projects, with case studies and reference sites to substantiate the measure. And enough exposure over the years to understand the ingredients in the primordial company and environment mix to best ensure this outcome. I will focus on one aspect for this post.
BPM is like an elephant in the room for many organisations. They cannot refute the logic and benefits, they can see the signs and symptoms of poor process in the business. BUT the opportunity looks like an elephant, too big to consume, and so most organisations freeze. We see analysis paralysis, they do not know where to start. Issues arise from addressing too much, too little, lack of or unclear prioritisation, false starts. This can become more acute once a business sets expectations about improvement.
So how do you find those big ticket items, again and again? How do you apply a consistent, consensual strategy that prioritises and delivers the returns desired? How do you eat an elephant?
Firstly budget for improvement. Set targets, set aside funds. This very notion creates an impetus.
Commit. Make the vision known, organise and engage in the process. Our highest performing clients do this.
Proritise. Determine from all the ‘chatter’ what is high value and which projects take precedence.
One of the key techniques we use to do this is process improvement road mapping. The aim is to minimise the time to value for identifying a process opportunity, approving a business case, and ultimately delivering the improvement into your management framework.
Using the road mapping techniques you can define critical success factors, identify and rank opportunities, define business cases and assess implementation considerations such as complexity and risk. It is a vital technique that can be used iteratively to filter in and out candidates for action based on real and agreed rationale. It builds understanding and consensus and makes efficient use of senior management and stakeholders' valuable time.
