The Leonardo Blog

It proves to be easy for those closely involved in the theory and practice of process-based management to confuse the delivery of nicely crafted artifacts with delivering real value. We can too easily get wrapped up in the development of the (very necessary) diagrams, models, spreadsheets, presentations, posters, methodologies, information databases, role descriptions, modeling conventions, project plans, and the many other realizations of business process performance and concepts, and lose sight of the real purpose.

I get it. When it comes to process performance improvement, everybody wants quick wins. We want impressive improvement with as little effort as possible, and by Thursday of next week. And we’d like to win the lottery as well. Of course, there are quick wins and we must seize them whenever we can, but, by definition, there won’t be many of them. We get stuck in, sort out the quick wins, and then…and then… then what? That’s it? Job done, everything is perfect and we can get back to business as usual? Seems unlikely. Every organization needs a systematic approach to genuine continuous and measurable performance improvement based on continuous ‘problem finding’. That’s the first hurdle. Surely every organization would be happy to espouse continuous improvement; perhaps not so happy to continuously find and acknowledge problems. When was the last time you went to an office celebration put on because someone found a new problem? The ‘continuous’ part of continuous improvement conflicts with the idea of quick wins; one suggests an ongoing effort and the other assumes a short-lived focus on the obvious and easy-to-fix problems. For many, process improvement doesn’t have a good track record. Frustration with the non-performance, or at least under-performance, of process-improvement projects over many years has understandably led to suggestions for ‘rapid process-improvement’ approaches of various kinds. Strip out the waste from the process of process improvement and get on with delivering real improvements rather than just fancy methodologies and vague promises. The main thrust of these approaches is to make short, focused projects that will deliver change in a fixed timetable, for example, five or twenty days. Such projects that have minimum costs and maximum return are a welcome change from projects that take a long time, cost a lot, and deliver little. However, rapid doesn’t necessarily mean continuous. Focused, effective process-improvement projects are a significant improvement, but they are not, alone, the systematic approach that is required to achieve genuine continuous improvement.

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’?

Every quarter, the team at Leonardo Brisbane take part in the Brisbane BPM Roundtable – a group for like-minded BPM practitioners to network and wrestle with the big questions of process management. At the recent roundtable meeting, we talked ‘process mindset’, and asked people what their biggest challenge was when it came to implementing mindset at their organisation. What is Process Mindset To ‘do process’, an organization, and its people and their teams, need to ‘think process’. In a process centric organization employees are conscious of their roles in the execution of a range of processes. They think beyond the activities described in their own job description to see their role in the bigger picture of creating, accumulating, and delivering value to customers and other stakeholders. The unrelenting emphasis is on conscious, proactive, cross-functional collaboration—and that is often different and challenging for individuals and functional units in an organization. Tools and techniques are critically important, but they are not the main game. Having the right IT and other tools is necessary, but nowhere near sufficient, for success. Tools and techniques alone won’t create a viral spread of the idea of BPM. Hearts and minds are also needed. Figure 1: Process Mindset Challenge 1 – Natural human resistance that the majority businesses have on top of busy BAU Many organisations share the situation of not having enough capacity to look at how to create more capacity. What tends to be successful is to start small and simple. Simple ideas that make the day-to-day a little easier are easy to implement and will have a positive result.

Too many BPM initiatives fail. We’ve got to do better.