The Leonardo Blog

So you’ve created your As Is models. You’ve spoken to the stakeholders, drawn the diagrams, collected the data, documented the problems, and discovered some opportunities. You know how things are done now, and have a good understanding of all the problems with the current processes. You know everything you need to get on with improving the processes, to create the To Be, and establish a new and better As Is. Or do you …?

As a business person, you usually hear these two modelling notations tossed around in meetings and conversations around ‘process’, or from your process-oriented colleagues on the other side of the ‘fence’. Unless you are a business process management (BPM) professional, or have done modelling in the past, the difference or similarity of either one is not apparent. At the risk of being on the receiving end of a detailed discussions on the merits of each, you may just choose to smile and nod your head politely while appearing to vaguely understand the ‘lingo’ of conditional flows, logic operators, events, and FADs, etc. However, it would be good to have some knowledge of both to understand how either could capture the set of requirements you have – the artefacts may add value to your business far beyond their cost of development. If only we lived in a unified world – all driving on the right side of the road and using only 240V; no choices between ‘soccer’ or ‘football’, Coke or Pepsi, and so on. It can be pretty frustrating when we travel to discover we have brought the wrong adapter, or find out that our favourite beverage is not available in a restaurant. However, the market dictates that familiarity, applicability and experience demands personal choice. The same can be said for process modelling.

Business Process Management and Governance Risk & Compliance Management: two separate worlds? Reading a newsletter of Leonardo Consulting you would not be surprised to find the word Business Process Management (BPM) in the headline. Not that common is the topic Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), which is indeed becoming more and more important: Quality standards (e.g. ISO 9000) in various business areas as well as laws and regulations that have been introduced and are binding. This article puts a spotlight on both Management areas in order to illustrate, how they are linked to each other.

It is a rare enterprise that has not undergone some degree of change in structure in the past five years. As internal and external circumstances change, enterprises must change themselves to better suit those circumstances, most commonly by changing their organisational structure, hopefully to some kind of conscious design. Conscious or not, employees and managers alike will attest that restructuring or redesigning (or recovering from change which has been imposed without a design) can be one of the most difficult, stressful work experiences, full of uncertainty and difficult decision-making. However, as the drivers for these restructures are increasingly seen as just part of the normal business environment, the redesigns themselves can be seen as expected, regular events in the life of an organisation.

We’re all familiar with the symptoms of organisational failure. Your luggage was lost during that never-ending stopover. Your order was mixed up with another at your favourite restaurant. Your internet still isn’t working after numerous phone calls to your telecommunications provider. These various nuisances are all the result of poorly managed processes, but not just any processes, critical ones (i.e. they impact the customer directly). This post will explore critical processes; why any process that interacts with a customer could be seen as critical. I will then ask you to rate your organisation’s management of customer interactions. We’re interested in your thoughts, so feel free to offer your perspective at the end of this post.