Written by Gilles Morin On August 4, 2016
In life there are things that you cannot control, like the weather or the release of the next iPhone. Fortunately enough, there are things that you can, like process models. Imagine a world where everyone creates process models and there are lots and lots of people who submit in all this data into a central location. What you're gonna end up with very quickly is a mess. You don't have to imagine this. It happens right now. I share with you three very simple steps you can undertake to ensure that you've got a robust governance structure to handle this mess. In the world of process modeling, it's often the case that a lot of people create lots of good content. Everyone has the right intention. They want valuable models, they want useful stuff, and most importantly, they want to contribute. However, very quickly, when there's a lot of people involved in creating process models, you end up with a big mess. One way to handle that big mess is to understand some structures and place some measures that you, as a leader, in this space can ensure that the content that is produced is still valuable, useful, and well-understood by everyone who use it. So here are the three steps that you can undertake to ensure good governance across process model creation.
CIO, CXOs and middle managers that face major challenges – like: going digital; implementing a ‘customer experience’ program; planning a major new business technology platform; wanting to beef up innovation; or reducing unit costs. They know what must be done, but are looking for ways to increase the probability of success. They are fully aware that there are more failure examples than success stories. We all have doubts about past recipes. What are we missing? How can we break away from the past? How can we avoid falling into the trap of doing the same things, over and over, and hoping for different results? How do we balance this when everyone is time starved and must generate results fast?
Every single process model that you create is part of a larger ecosystem, an ecosystem of dependency and relationships. It definitely is because in real life, your processes are related to one another. In this video, we talk about what that ecosystem framework is, and how to place your models in there. Every single model tells a story of the organization, a story of how processes deliver value. However, on its own, it may not fully describe what's going on. More specifically, it may not describe the relationships and the dependencies, which means that each process model that you create on its own may not be able to show you an impact cause at the start of the process, and its effects downstream.
In my last post, I used the blueprint analogy to explain what a business architecture is – a visual business model used to facilitate or accelerate coherent decision-making. Another way to look at it is to view it as an insurance policy against siloed thinking and management. In this post, I thought it would be important to explain how build a valid process-based business architecture. First things first – from KYC (know your customer) to KYS (know your stakeholders) Your business architecture has to be valid from a business-strategy perspective. Your model must be anchored on a good and shared knowledge of your key stakeholders’ needs, and from which you derived your core strategic intents. This is the first, and one of the biggest by far, traps that management or executive teams fall in to. We are often tempted to race through this, either because we think this is day-dreaming and not about real life, or because we think we know all about our strategic priorities, our stakeholders and our stakeholders’ needs. More often than not, this is not quite true. As CEO, you may think that your organisation’s strategic plan is known and understood, and that it means the same thing to everyone. Well, surprise, it does not! Your business architecture is a key governance tool, and ought to be purpose-outcomes driven, not just a pretty picture of what your organisation does.
Leonardo drives continuous process improvement through technology and has worked with many leading enterprises in APAC to enhance the performance of their business processes through architecture and automation as well as integrating their applications, platforms and data to enable disruptive technologies.
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