The Leonardo Blog

Regardless of the industry, sector or market, every regulatory sector contains a wide range of participants, each with different motivations and drivers that influence their intent, behaviour, preferences, reactions, and willingness to comply with rules and policies. For regulators of these industries and markets, maintaining a balance between the interests of the industry, and the interests of the consumer has always been a perpetual challenge. Arguably, the bigger challenge for regulators has been an inability to adapt their strategy and approach to address differences in human behaviour and intent within the applicable industry. These agencies have struggled to understand who their stakeholders are and how they are motivated today in this market.

All businesses have processes, from payroll to patient admissions. Often, the larger the organisation, the more unwieldy its processes can become.

What's it all about? If you google "what's it all about" you get 4.5 billion results. Seems that we are keen to answer that question. Of course, it would be much more useful if there were just one answer. I have a similar experience when I ask people what they understand by "business process management" and related phrases. [2.5 billion, in case you were wondering.] It would be of significant benefit if there were just one answer here also. Good news! There is just one answer. The bad news is we all agree with that but have a different version. The great news is that we can solve this problem — if you all repent and agree with me!

Processes deliver Every organization makes promises to customers and other stakeholders. Such promises are its reason for existence and are shaped as value propositions in the organizational strategy. Traditional management follows the organization chart with most management activity directed up and down that chart. But how do we get work done? How do we deliver on those promises? We work in collaboration across the organization, not up and down. Is there any box on that chart that can, by itself, deliver products or services externally? No there is not, that’s not the way it works. Processes deliver on our promises.

The simple existence of a problem is not enough reason to invest in fixing it, perhaps not now, perhaps not ever. Organizations need a systemic approach to define what good looks like, assess current performance, and make evidence-based decisions about which performance gaps to close. The Tregear Circles replace random acts of management with a metamodel for continuous process improvement. I have recently encountered several examples of the idea that higher process performance target scores are obviously better than lower ones, just because they are … well … higher; that setting a target of, say, 95% is, without doubt, better than a target of 88%, and in striving for improvement we should go 'as high as possible'.