<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=1907245749562386&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Event_bg

The Leonardo Blog

All Posts

Creating a Process Mindset Using Everyday Process Thinking

17_Think_Process.png

Many of our customers find the implementation of a Process Mindset one of the most challenging parts of operationalising BPM. The whole organization  should ‘think and breathe’ the process in all they do. It can be daunting to both know where to start and how to achieve a Process Mindset within the organization.

Think Process

There are many strategies that can be used to develop this ‘think process’ approach. A few of these are:

  • Regular ‘community of interest’ meetings
  • Process improvement project discussion groups
  • Process innovation jams
  • Idea submission schemes

Where to start?

When the organisation starts the BPM journey, what do you discuss in the first sessions? How do you make sure the whole organisation sets off in the direction of ‘think process’ with the same mindset? How do you ensure that people are not scared by the concept of ‘think process’?

Everyday process

It is helpful to emphasise that ‘think process’ is a normal part of daily life. Everything we do in life is a process, but we don’t think about it consciously because that would make day-to-day life tiresome. However, when we deconstruct our lives ‘behind the scenes’, it is processes that run the show and drive us from moment to moment.

Take buying a house as an example. The process starts with the thinking and dreaming about buying a house and ends when a house is purchased, or perhaps a decision is made not to purchase, i.e. the process may terminate early. The process steps might look something like this:

  1. Start thinking/dreaming about buying a house
  2. Talk to your partner about the options.
  3. Dream about type of house
  4. Dream about location of house
  5. Arrange bank mortgage
  6. Decide type of house
  7. Decide location of house
  8. Visit open houses
  9. Visit auctions
  10. Buy house at auction
  11. Finalise mortgage
  12. Finalise paper work

The following process steps are also possible:

  1. Start thinking/dreaming about buying a house
  2. Talk to your partner about the options
  3. Decide not to buy a house but travel

Other variations are possible. If you have no partner, that step might alternatively be talking to your friends or family. Maybe you are a very practical person and instead of dreaming and consulting with someone, you go straight to the bank to get a mortgage because you know what you want and just need the money. This example shows a daily life process. Think about other processes that you might have in your life:

  • Getting yourself ready to go to work
  • Your everyday commute
  • Preparation and celebration of family holidays
  • Decision process on buying a new car
  • Loading and unloading the dishwasher

By using everyday examples in the first process mindset sessions, it is easy to see that ‘think process’ is something that we all do on a day-to-day basis. Connecting the everyday is crucial to developing a process mindset and a good start tooperationalising BPM in the organisation.

Download free chapter of Reimagining Management

Lucienne Van Hilten
Lucienne Van Hilten
Senior Business Process Management professional with international experience across various industries in BPM, Business Analyst and Change Management roles.

Related Posts

UST Acquires Leading Australian Process Transformation Company Leonardo

UST Acquires Leading Australian Process Transformation Company Leonardo - Strategic acquisition further strengthens UST’s position in the dynamic ANZ market Melbourne, Australia, 21 February 2024:UST, a leading digital transformation solutions company, has announced the strategic acquisition of Leonardo, a leading provider of business process improvement, automation, and integration services in the ANZ region. The acquisition by UST will empower Leonardo to expand its market reach and enhance its service offerings for clients, combining Leonardo's in-depth process expertise with UST's technology leadership, digital transformation capabilities, and global credentials, and strengthening UST's position in the Australian market.

How to Present Business Process Models to Stakeholders

Has an audience member ever interrupted in the middle of a presentation about process analysis to ask, “Can you show us the process models in a simple PowerPoint slide?” – or, ”I don’t want to look at the green and purple boxes, just show me the flow!” Perhaps you then felt that you had wasted some of your efforts in modelling the process with too much detail or in the wrong way. Embarrassed and demoralised, you must have wondered how else could these models be presented. Well, you are not alone! This is a common dilemma when there is a need to present process models to a variety of audiences. There is both art and science in presenting the right level of process detail to the right group of stakeholders, especially if they are not familiar with the process modelling language. Effective presentation is even more critical in larger and complex end-to-end process improvement work and in new automated business model implementations. You may need to use multiple model types to describe the same business processes to various audiences. Hence, it is very important to understand who the stakeholders are and what they would like to see before your audience with them. This article proposes an approach to the effective presentation of business process models based on three key elements: understand, organise, and communicate.

What Are The Most Important Questions In Business Process Management?

She who dies with the most answers wins. We seek the truth. We want to know the answers. Paul Harmon started me thinking recently when he invited members of the BPTrends Discussion group on LinkedIn to “describe the purpose of Business Process Management in 160 characters, including spaces and punctuation.” Not easy to do – have a go at it yourself. It felt like I was crafting The Ultimate BPM Answer, which, of course, begged The Ultimate BPM Question. That got me thinking that The Ultimate BPM Problem is that we have plenty of answers and not enough questions. So put all the answers aside for a moment and help me to work out what are the most important questions in Business Process Management?