the next big thing… Realtime ROI Analytics

Businesses often build Business Case ROI projections to justify their operational improvement or IT projects.
Q: What percentage of those companies KNOW what their real return on investment is on their capital appropriations?
A: Less than 1%

Q: How many of the largest companies in the world actually go back and attempt to measure benefits attributed to projects after implementation?
A: Less than 40%

Q: Is there a way to track actual Goal Attainment and ROI – continuously, in real time?
A: Yes, Bizappia has the solutions to help you attain true operational performance and ROI attainment tracking – Realtime ROI Analytics.

Learn more by clicking here.

Don’t be a Wiseguy, Be a Why’s Guy. A Simple Technique to Game Changing Discoveries.

Use the term “wise guy” and you are likely to conjure up an image of an irritating smart-aleck, or maybe a character acted by Joe Pesci .   However, there’s a homonym term that if you were called, should be treasured and revered: “Why’s Guy”.

In attempts to improve a business, the ability and freedom to repeatedly ask the question “why” can often yield amazing transformational results.  These questioning skills seemingly are inherent in children, and are discouraged and removed from our behavior as we get older…perhaps for fear of looking foolish.   If you have children, you know exactly what I mean.  Remember how annoyed you were as a parent when your five year old drilled you with why questions?  Why the sky is blue, daddy?  “Because” wasn’t good enough.  “but, why daddy?”… “because the sunlight prisms through the atmosphere…”,  “why does it work like that?”….”because that’s the way God made it!, now stop asking me why!”.

Change is hard.  Opening up long standing practices, relationships, sacred-cows, and politically sensitive subjects is also hard.  Process improvement projects often open up a Pandora’s Box of issues that executives and mid level managers would rather not debate.  In a recent client project, we discovered significant profit benefit potential across numerous aspects of a process under review, ranging from how workers do their job, to how a company unit is structured.  As these potential benefit areas were introduced and vetted, significant resistance was met from the P&L and execution leaders of these areas.  Asking “why”…repeatedly, often revealed significant opportunities that CxO’s never would have uncovered.  However, obtaining answers didn’t come without overcoming immense skepticism and tension.  Resistance was met in phrases such as,

“We could never meet our service levels if we altered our process in the methods you are describing”

Why?   “Because there’s too much work to perform prior to the service window hours”

Why is there so much prep work?  “because we have to individually prepare …”

Why do you have to individually prepare…?   “Because there is a law prohibiting us from using….”

Why can’t you change your organizational structure and license to permit you to…”

“well, I guess we could …. it would be disruptive….but, it would save us a tremendous amount of time and resources….”

The net result is that the company is dramatically adjusting and transforming their service process and restructuring their company to enable it to yield significant bottom line EBITDA improvement, and secure new revenue business without additional labor.

Is the change difficult and disruptive?  Yes.

Is the company and employees better off for it?  Absolutely.

But, if the process analysis team had simply asked the “why question” once and accepted the initial answer, those profit generating AND competitive enhancing benefits would have been undiscovered and unattained.

The method of asking Why (the 5 Whys) was developed by Toyota during the evolution of its manufacturing methodologies in order to derive the root causes of defects encountered in their manufacturing process, and is now a common discovery technique described in BPM and Six Sigma methodologies for any type of process improvement.  However, you don’t have to be a Black Belt to use the discovery approach with successful results.

Go on, be a Why’s Guy.

Now, a few other questions.

Do you develop a business case and credible ROI analysis for your proposed projects?

Roughly 80% of surveyed CxO’s say they do create “some form” of ROI analysis; however, many concede a lack of confidence in the analysis.  Why?

Do you measure the real results of your implemented projects against your projected ROI?  Sadly, 65% of surveyed of CxO’s say they DO NOT measure results after solution implementation.

Why?  “It’s too expensive…too difficult…. too nebulous…. too dependent….too impossible…”

Why?

The difference between successful, profitable change, a failed solution investment, or simply an underperforming effort may start with your ability and honesty in repeatedly asking “why” until the truthful (not easy) answers are revealed.

To learn more about Bizappia, search here.

Go on, be a Why’s Guy.

Where’s the Beef? A CEO’s ROI Lament.

In the mid-1980’s, a Wendy’s television ad showed a little old lady angrily exclaiming, “Where’s the Beef?” when provided a giant bun containing a small hamburger patty.  The ad adroitly pointed out that competitor’s hamburgers were not a good value and conversely, Wendy’s product was a comparatively big value.  The phrase, “Where’s the Beef?” became a pop-culture favorite for questioning the substance of any idea, proposal, or product.

In 2010, C-level executives are asking this question of their organizations for all investment requests.  In fact, the scrutiny on evaluating projects has intensified to the point where corporations are literally value bubble-sorting projects to determine which, if any, projects are approved.   If you are a CIO, Call Center Manager, VP of Process, or line P&L manager, you know the pressure and scrutiny being placed on accurate ROI analysis for your proposed projects and budgets.

Incredibly, research is showing that executives still do not have the discipline, measurement, and succinct business case analysis to support their requests.   Over and over, we hear executives plead for help in presenting credible, empirical, ROI presentations to help get their proposed projects approved.

• Where’s the Beef?
• And, why is your project of higher economic value than competing projects?

CxO execs want to know how your proposed project supports the corporate strategy, what credible, time-based, ROI is expected from taking on this project, what cash flow impacts the company, and where is the level of confidence and sponsorship support for the project.  Remember, somebody in your organization is going to have to “own” the revenue enhancement, or operating budget benefits you are proposing, which often is not you alone.

Business Process Management (BPM) is a discipline embraced by enlightened companies to identify and continuously improve the enterprises activities and processes.  BPM practitioners routinely advocate the resulting benefits of executive visibility, process measurement, analytics, and improvement.

Sadly, the world of BPM, Six Sigma, and Lean still have some proving to do.

This month, BPTrends released a business executive survey report, “The State of Business Process Management 2010”.  Without divulging the specifics of a detailed and valuable research report, I found a few gems to be quite revealing and amazing:

On Modeling Business Processes

• Almost half say they rarely or never document their processes or keep them updated and current.  A small percentage say they do.

On Measurement

• A whopping 50% say they never or rarely define Performance Measurements for evaluating the success of major processes..

• And, a stunning 65% say that “dedicated” process managers never or rarely use data to measure the success of their process execution!  Only a sliver of respondents say they do routinely use performance data to measure their processes.

• Over 60% say they do not have process improvement programs in place to identify and improve problems and defects…..   Isn’t that the point of BPM?

On Obstacles to Widespread Acceptance of BPM

• 1/2 say, “too many processes or projects compete for attention.
• 1/3 say, “senior management is not focused”.
• 1/4 say, “management wants ROI estimates we can’t produce”.

These findings shine a bright beacon of light on where attention is needed.  If you wonder why BPM hasn’t been embraced by the company, or why you haven’t seen the results you expected, look here first.

For you to improve your company, with or without BPM, you must answer the question, Where’s the Beef?

We engage in 1) disciplined BPM, 2) with analytical monitoring tools, and 3) a linked & living ROI business case analysis engine.  We submit that without these three integrated approaches, you will not improve your business, nor understand or capture the economic benefits associated with improvement.

Over the next few months, we will post more ideas, insights, and real experiences on these three areas, and help shape your thoughts on how to present the financial case for your projects and BPM.   You can also contact Bizappia to learn more.

Here’s the Beef.

For Successful Employees, the Day Stacks Up Differently

Graph Source:  http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/31/business/20080801-metrics-graphic.html

Where do you spend your time every day?

Do you know that the US federal government tracks where Americans spend their time every hour of a day?  It’s true… well, sort of.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics conducts the American Time Use Survey which estimates how, where, and with whom, Americans spend their time.  The annual survey process has collected information from over 85,000 interviews conducted over the last five years.  Thousands of Americans are annually asked to recall what they do every minute of a single day.  The resultant data is used by a wide range of economists, strategists, lobbyists, and government agencies to provide supportive data for their analyses and interests.

In July 2009, The New York Times published an article, “For the Unemployed, the Day Stacks Up Differently” , accompanied with a compelling, interactive graphic (shown in this post) that illustrated the differences in where time was spent by the employed, unemployed, ethnic, and age categories.  For any category, you are able to point to a specific time and activity and display the percentage of Americans engaged in that activity at that time.  It is quite revealing when shifting between categories to see where different categories of Americans spend their time.

It’s also quite powerful to compare your own work and habits to various category summaries.  Of course, the underlying information is based on the integrity and accuracy of surveyed Americans recalling what they do every minute of a single day.  I don’t know about you, but I would have a hard time with a precise accounting of all the things I do in a 24 hour day.  I’m not Jack Bauer of the TV show, 24; but I admit to days of many multi-task, time compressed hours.  Still, even as anecdotal data, the information in the American Time Use Survey reveal profound differences in classes of peoples.

Imagine… if businesses could capture and analyze where their workforce spent its time. What activities are requiring the most time?  Which systems or applications are in most use?    Where are employees having the most difficulty in accomplishing their tasks?  Which segments of employees are performing better than others,… and why?  And, what cost savings or revenue increases would result from improving any of these areas?

What if employees could anonymously and privately see how they compare with other employee groups, or better yet, compare against national or global peer groups?  What if management could, in real time, compare their workforce to other industry or non-industry groups? With empirical data, these insights would be powerful, and productivity potential could be transformational.

This capability is coming in a new generation of Business Productivity and Process Activity Monitoring Management tools.  Bizappia has been on the forefront of creating a next generation productivity tool, called BizBAM, providing insightful, empirical analysis, significant productivity improvement, and measurable ROI, especially when linked with a BPMS environment.  The software is simple, yet yields powerful results.  Since activity is stored in a secure, cloud database, results are anonymously aggregated to provide rich comparative analysis on individual performance versus prospective departmental, company, industry, non-industry, national, or global categories.  Individuals use the tool as a productivity enhancer.  Companies, especially those using BPM or Lean Six Sigma, leverage BizBAM to identify areas of process workflow improvement, motivational encouragement, and strategic advantages.

And, think of this power… Instead of solely relying on engaging teams of consultants/analysts and dedicating significant time to map out how you think business is done, ending up with inaccuracies and misconceptions (anecdotal), BizBAM can extract your company’s real processes occurring and expose real inefficiencies and bottlenecks (empirical) to augment, or shorten the analysis time of, process discovery.  Simply put, you cannot improve what you cannot see and continuously measure.

Successful people use their time wisely, measure their performance, and make corrective adjustments in their work. Are you interested in learning how to improve your use of time?  For yourself?… for your company?

Learn more and download a Free Version of BizBAM.  Or, email us.   We welcome your input, comments, and feedback.

The day stacks up differently for successful employees, and for successful companies.

How does your day stack up?

- By Craig Lashmet, Bizappia

Just Give Me a Couple Minutes…

We generally don’t think of two minutes as much time.  Really, what can you accomplish of any significance that quickly?  But, let’s think about it…for a couple minutes.  What can be accomplished in two minutes?

A couple things come to mind.  First, consider a horse race?   The Kentucky Derby is known as ‘the most exciting two minutes in sports’.  The simple objective is for your horse to make it around that fabulously manicured oval faster than all the other horses.

That simplicity however, masks the tremendous cost and effort required to successfully execute in the coveted ‘Run for the Roses’.  Trainers and owners are singly focused on one thing…winning.  Their professional lives are devoted to ensuring every aspect of their business is tuned to ensure their horse runs those two minutes faster than any other team’s.

And, your horse has to accomplish this feat in 1.25 miles.  No more, no less.  You can’t argue that your horse has more stamina and could win with a little longer track.  It is what it is and you can’t change the rules.  You have to plan and train for winning in that distance.

How about the two-minute warning at the end of a football game?  The scenario here is your team has only two minutes in which to score, or prevent your opponent from doing so.  You can’t ask for more time.  That’s it, that’s all you get.  When the two-minute clock runs down, it is game over.  You have either succeeded in taking the ball over the goal line or prevented your opponent from winning.

Professional football teams train their special teams hard and long for those two minutes.  They are keenly aware how often in that two minutes games are won or lost.  Millions of dollars (not to mention careers) often hang in the balance in those two minutes.

So, what does this have to do with business?  What can we learn from these examples?  Think about your business and the interactions you have with your customers.  How much time do you have with them?  The answer is often not much, especially during the crucial first contact.

A customer, or prospect, contacts your business to place an order or request a service.

The contact can be in person, by phone, your website, whatever.  When that initial contact is made, your two-minute clock starts.  You have a very short time in which to succeed. How you handle that time is largely determined by how well prepared and focused your team is to execute your game plan, assuming you have a plan.

If your customer finds the experience pleasant, simple and more appealing than your competition most likely you will win their business.  On the other hand, if your customer service people are not well trained and prepared to execute your plan in the time they have or your website is confusing and difficult to navigate, your chance for victory diminishes dramatically.

I recently upgraded my satellite TV service to high definition.  I contacted my current provider thinking the process would be simpler and I would get a better deal, since I was already their customer.  I had done my homework and knew how much their competitor was charging for HD service.

I reached the first representative after dialing the 800 number.  Their two-minute warning clock started ticking.  He gave me the standard costs and explained the details of the new equipment.  I pushed back and said “Your price is not as good as your competitor”.  He said “That is the only price I’m authorized to give.  I can transfer you to the Installation Group and they can probably give you a better price”.  Tick, tick, tick.

The next person was pleasant, explained the installation process again, but gave me the same price.  Again, I pushed back and was told the Customer Care department could give me a better price.  Clock’s still ticking; better check your play book, only time for one more play.

The third team encounter required yet another round of push back.  After which she said she would be happy to remove the additional charges that were quoted, making their service the same price as their competitors.  What a coincidence!

Fortunately for them, I’m patient and gave them every opportunity to complete their play to a successful end.  In this ridiculous scenario, I coached their team to victory, a role most customers don’t want to play, but are forced to all too often.  The call lasted over 30 minute, hardly a winning ‘Run for the Roses’.  It should have taken only the time I spent with the third representative, minus my coaching time, about 2 minutes.  She had my current information.  All that was needed was coordinating an installation date and confirming that I wanted the same programming package.

Not all customer interactions can be completed in two minutes.  But, regardless the time it should take, when the customer contacts you, the clock starts and you only have a limited time.  You will succeed or fail, win or lose in your allotted time.  You may not get another chance, nor should you.  If you are not prepared to win, taking full advantage of the time you have, your business will get what it deserves, and it won’t be Victory Circle.

Customers have more power than ever before.  When customers decide your time is up, you haven’t satisfied their request, or you are too difficult to work with, you can’t ask for more time.  It’s ‘game over’.  They make the rules and call the shots.

Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi once said “You don’t do things right once in a while – you do them right all the time”.  Anyone who has participated in a sport knows a fundamental rule of coaching is to ‘always focus on the basics’.  The basics, in business, are ensuring your entire organization, your strategy, systems, everything, are aligned to win and your playbook explicitly covers that critical two-minutes with your customer.

How prepared is your team to win the prize, to push across the goal line against extreme competition?  If your organization is not prepared to ensure successful customer outcomes every time, no matter what, maybe it is time to revise your play book.

- By Howard Webb, Bizappia

Creation vs. Evolution (a business process perspective)

Let’s take a giant, theological step back in time to when the earth began.  Two obvious questions come to mind.  Is earth and life as we know it, the result of a single, spectacular event…a divine intervention?  Or, have we evolved to this point over many millions of years?

Which side of this often heated debate you are on depends largely upon your theological perspective.  Each side (the creationists and evolutionists) can bring substantial bodies of evidence to support their cases and argue them ad nauseam.

Suppose we take those two controversial questions and apply them to the world of business process management.  Are great businesses, those leaders of industry emulated and admired by others, a result of an evolution that has taken place over many years?  Or, have they achieved their place at the front of the pack, through a spectacular change that has left the competition in their wake?

Once again we find ourselves in the midst of a great debate.  Should we undertake dramatic, often radical change within and across our organization?  Or, should we move forward more slowly, taking care not to upset the status quo, satisfied with incremental improvements?  While not theological in nature, this debate can be every bit as robust and emotional.

Let’s take a look at the two sides and see if we can draw some conclusions.

Business Evolution

Most organizations tend to follow the evolution path, focusing on continuous process improvement within the confines of traditional organizational structures.  And certainly this approach has its merits.  It makes us feel like we are accomplishing things; changing, restructuring, even introducing innovation, all the while taking care not to cause too much commotion with management and co-workers.

The evolutionary approach can provide business improvement.  No argument there.  Much of the change can come from grass-roots efforts with little or no executive management involvement.  There is no need for lengthy project approvals or finely honed slide presentations justifying the work.  Changes can be safely slipped in beneath the corporate radar.

Business moves along, everyone busying themselves with their departmental initiatives, content in their belief they are helping to ensure their companies future and their own job security.  Even the occasional departmental restructuring and organization chart redesign can give the impression that big things are happening, boost morale (at least temporarily) and shake up the daily routine.

When business is good, or perceived to be good, evolution can appear to make perfect sense.  Why risk mucking around with compensation, department hierarchies and silos of disjointed work activities when it does not really seem necessary?  Just focus on improving what we currently do.

But what happens when things are not so good?  What if market share starts slipping, customers become less satisfied and worker morale is not where it should be?  Is evolution still the answer, or is it time for a more dramatic approach with the help of some ‘divine intervention’?

In today’s economy of rapid product innovation, increased competition and greater customer demands than ever before, it is unlikely any business, no matter how good, has the luxury of waiting for evolution to run its course.  It is much more likely the evolutionary enterprise will find itself lost in the dust of time while innovators charge forward with new and creative ideas that dazzle and excite their customers.

Business Creation

It has often been said, especially when it comes to information technology, “We don’t need bells and whistles.  We just need a system that works.”  Any longer, simply having only a system that works is not enough.  Customers are demanding so much more from their products and services that now all those bells and whistles, once avoided, are becoming essential to help ensure differentiation in a market of sameness.  The challenge with bells and whistles is they require considerable creativity and innovation to make work.  Not only are they difficult to come up with, they take significant project management discipline to bring to market.

In his book, A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink points out the significance of creativity, or right-brain thinking in the changing business landscape.  His point is that as we move beyond the information age, the age of the knowledge worker, concept and creativity will become much more a significant component of business success.  He notes “The main characters now are the creator and the empathizer, whose distinctive ability is mastery of R-Directed (right-brain) Thinking.”¹ In this new customer-centric world, it is clear that without creation and the resulting innovations, businesses that continue to practice incremental, evolutionary change will find it increasingly difficult to maintain a competitive edge; no matter how good things might seem at the moment.

Merriam-Webster defines ‘create’ as to bring into existence, to produce through imaginative skill. Creation is dramatic and artistic.  Producing something that previously did not exist is a challenging but exciting endeavor.  And the results can be dramatic.  Remember when you first held an MP3 player in the palm of your hand and marveled at its size and the innovation of its creators.  How marvelous it is to now be able to so easily edit our own digital photographs, no dark rooms, no messy chemicals.

MP3 is not an evolved vinyl record.  Digital photography is not made possible by advancements in celluloid film.  These are new creations, based on knowledge and past experience certainly, but not evolved versions of the same things.

Industry leaders do not rely solely upon improving existing processes.  They succeed because of their innovation.  While others, most others are focused on improving and optimizing the same processes they have always executed, the innovators are at work challenging the norm, shaking up their organizations, creating something which previously did not exist.

Incremental change rarely generates much excitement or fanfare at the corporate level, particularly when business is not so good.  Seldom do customers rally around a product or service merely because its provider has made subtle, incremental improvements to their internal processes, or modified their organization charts.  They do get excited however when that provider offers something different, something never before available which can’t be found anywhere else.  And the service they receive is so spectacular they leave wanting more.

Divine Intervention

Business process management is about change…changing the way we view our business, our customers, and our world.  Business change, significant, creative change requires powerful forces within an organization willing to mobilize, encourage, and empower its people to use right-brain thinking to break from the norm.

Fundamental organizational change, changing the core business processes, will not likely succeed as a grass-roots effort.  Senior level management commitment will be necessary to mobilize the enterprise and foster an environment of creativity and innovation.

Without intervention ‘from above’, creative change of any significant magnitude will not likely happen.  Creation and creative thinking is not easy.  It takes practice, effort and right-brain aware senior management willing to support and nurture it.  But the rewards are great.  Look around, who is creative and who is not?  The innovators are easy to spot by their produces, services and efficient customer-sensitive business processes.

Conclusion

Dramatic business change requires dramatic actions.  Dramatic actions can only occur when current business processes are challenged, when creativity and innovation are encouraged and when management makes a commitment to intervene and become the ‘divine’ agents of change.

Good times or bad, no business or industry is immune from competition.  The good times, when resources are available are perhaps the best times to look beyond evolution, business as usual, and consider the reward possibilities afforded the creative enterprise.

Business process management requires reexamination of how businesses operate and most significantly, how products and services are viewed by customers.  Put on your thinking caps and kick that right brain into gear.  It is after the creation of new business processes, products and services our efforts should be focused on evolutionary, continuous improvement, not before.

Howard Webb, Bizappia

Can your Company become “Self Aware”?

Self Aware Companies?

A common theme in many science fiction works is the idea of “sentience” or “sapience”, where machines or non-human entities develop a cognitive awareness, an ability to feel, perceive, learn, and act strategically.  Evidence The Terminator movie series where the computer network, “Skynet” became self-aware, and enacted a planned lethal future for mankind.  Or The Matrix, where a sophisticated, networked, alter-reality world of integrated processes and intelligence is revealed opening up all kinds of philosophical and woven intricacies.

While science fiction generally focuses on fearful consequences, wouldn’t it be interesting to work towards evolving a company to become “Self-Aware” producing positive, productive, continuous improvements?

A self aware company would have systems that monitor what processes and activities actually occur, identify where inefficiencies and bottlenecks are occurring in real time, assess the productivity of the enterprise, recommend solutions, and even take corrective action.

In today’s world, a business deploys its analysts, or hires consultants, to interview its managers and workforce, and observe how work is performed and conducted, leading to developments of interpreted models and workflows to help illustrate and communicate to the organization the “As-Is” processes, and to articulate where efficiencies or improvements can be made.  The key word here is “interpret”.

Investigative analysis often can be skewed based on filtered, biased, or misinterpreted information captured and lack of visibility to actual activities underlying a process.  In these cases, proposed solutions could fail to improve the business, and could in fact negatively impact downstream business functions that were unobserved during the discovery phase.  Another key issue is Time.  It takes a lot of time to conduct an effective investigation and review of business processes.  Speedier time to market, faster time to effect positive changes, are all key attributes of successful companies.

In tomorrow’s world, a company’s core processes will be derived, even extracted, from actual captured workforce and eco-system activity. The company’s systems will learn and recommend improvements to optimize productivity.

Tomorrow’s world is being developed today. Bizappia is engaged in building BizBAM, a simple, yet powerful monitoring tool that captures all the activity a workforce is engaged in, and provides a means to create the REAL business process models versus interpretation, or “what you think is happening”, process models.

BizBAM is a cloud-subscription tool that enterprises can deploy to understand where the individual, group, or enterprise are spending its time and attention.  Since this data is securely hosted in the cloud, the ability to generate comparative analysis on how an individual, group, or entire company are performing relative to its industry or broader sample sets is possible.

The real power of the BizBAM tool; however, is the linking of BizBAM activity results and reporting with leading BPMS tools.  The combination produces powerful analytic insights, optimized organizational orchestrations, and agile and adaptive automation.  You can learn more about BizBAM, and even download a trial version, on the Bizappia website.

Self Aware Companies?   Yes, it is closer than you might think.

-  Craig Lashmet,  Bizappia

BPM – Seeing is Believing

We’re in the Business Process Management business. Yet, for those not in the vernacular, it is sometimes very difficult to articulate what BPM is, or how it can improve their business. It is a challenge.  I’ve heard career luminaries of BPM attempt to edify senior executives only to come off sounding verbose and nebulous.

Today, I met with a friend who happens to be the president of a large financial bank. We were talking at length about his business challenges,… and in this economic climate there’s a lot of challenges.

In discussing his operations he made this statement, “We have a good technology system for transacting business, but I have no visibility for all the people involved in conducting the business. I’d like to know what is going on out there, like a Dashboard for People Activities”.

Although he had never heard of BPM, this is exactly where BPM can help… orchestrating the organization, leveraging the systems, databases, and technologies that are in place, and weaving in new solutions that may be needed. It is also reassuring to know that BPMS and other analytic tools, if used, would not displace or disrupt what already exists, but instead make it all run more smoothly and transparently to the organization.

One of our clients said they did not really understand the value of BPM until they actually saw a BPM solution implemented with dashboards of monitored Key Performance Indicators and pertinent operating and financial metrics.  But once they experienced it, they believed.

In essence, the value of continuous process measurement and improvement and orchestrated workforce and technology, wasn’t fully understood or believed until it was seen and experienced.

Companies are transforming themselves into high performance enterprises leveraging BPM disciplines and solutions.  We’re determined to find ways to articulate with clarity the value of BPM disciplines and solutions.  If you have some effective methods, share them with us!

Craig Lashmet
Bizappia

If you can’t measure it, it isn’t real.

Too often business executives make declarations of “we’re taking on this initiative to improve customer satisfaction”, or “we have to reduce the costs!”  BPM practitioners can “feel” that they are identifying better process, but… what are the metrics to back that up?   What are the downstream consequences of changing a process?

Equally as often, BPM-ers simply model the As-Is process, define the Proposed Process, identify KPIs, only to have the analysis become shelfware once the new process is implemented.

If you can’t identify and measure the efficiency or productivity gain, with empirical ROI analysis, what’s the point?

“Improving operational efficiency” without real-time, continuous operational and financial performance feedback, across the ENTIRE process, is simply not good enough.  And, when considering the entire enterprise process stream consequences, could be potentially more destructive than beneficial to the company.

If you are engaging BPM discipline in your company, then you need hard data, visibility into what is actually going on in your specific processes, in your workforce, in your eco-system.  Do you think that’s impossible? Too difficult?  Then, your company is headed for a steady decline.  Winning companies are able to see the activity within a process and measure its economic impact.

Perpetual process analytics is where its at.

The winners are measuring everything.

Are you?

Craig Lashmet

Bizappia

Better when they’re together – BPM, Lean & Six Sigma

“It’s always better when we’re together” – Jack Johnson, “Better Together”

BPM, Six Sigma, Lean?   The economic challenges of the past year have forced most companies to engage in the review and assessment of every process and system, seeking greater efficiencies and economic advantage.  In F1000 companies, hotly contested debates have occurred over which discipline is best to organize, design, and orchestrate the identification and measurement of prescribed improvement tactics.   The disciplines of Business Process Management (BMP), Six Sigma, and Lean are getting a lot of attention, and creating their own philosophical zealots as to which is the best discipline to deploy in an organization.  Much like much political discourse on 24/7 news programs, polarizing sides are taken without listening to, or acknowledging, the merits of the other, nor fully understanding the issues.  But, which is really better?

In fact, BPM, Six Sigma, and Lean are complementary and compatible, and “better when they’re together”.   Each of these major disciplines have inherent strengths and weaknesses, and when used together result in an environment that can actually deliver their promises of positive and productive change within an organization.  However, based on our experiences and observations, it is our assertion that BPM provides the overarching orchestration disciplines that provide an environment and context for Six Sigma and Lean to achieve success.

“Come together, right now, over me”. – The Beatles

We contend that BPM provides the holistic foundation, an orchestrating framework that bridges organizational, operational, and technological silos that often exist in larger companies.

While debate over these disciplines will rage on, the fact is that Six Sigma and Lean, implemented in isolation, often fail to attain the claims of their lofty ideals.  When combined with BPM, we submit that companies can finally attain AND sustain, real, measurable and continuous improvement.  Why?  It’s based on context and emphasis.

Both Six Sigma and Lean focus on improving specific parts of an overall process.  Useful, but with such a narrow goal, can create negative consequences when isolated improvements impact other downstream processes.

Six Sigma focuses on improving an activity or series of activities towards attaining a specific goal.

Lean focuses on assessing a few activities and identifying the ones providing the least value and eliminating them from the operation.  Both of these disciplines, while important, are narrowly focused and take their eyes off the prize – the strategic and enterprise emphasis.   As a result, Six Sigma and Lean tend to produce temporary and unsustainable results.

BPM, on the other hand, focuses on enterprise PROCESS,… how work is really accomplished within an organization, and how these processes link to corporate strategy and objectives.  Using BPM as an overarching discipline provides for an enterprise and cross-functional perspective, as well as the structure for system and performance measurement across the company.

If BPM is accepted at the enterprise level, a powerful framework for measurable change is the result.  BPM is most effective at this point as it provides a common language and metrics for organizational alignment, application and system linkages (including legacy) well understood and automated, all orchestrated under a common execution model.  A “building block” of knowledge and metrics emerges that allow the enterprise to leverage enterprise knowledge and feedback mechanisms, instead of isolated, parochial knowledge.  With BPM, contributors and influencers are visible to all; breaking down barriers, and promoting inclusion and collaboration.

So, where is the value in integrating Six Sigma or Lean disciplines?  The value lies in the rigor Six Sigma forces in metrics and analytics, and the emphasis of Lean to find and reduce wasteful practices.  By introducing these practices into a BPM approach, a company creates an environment, language, and culture to effect positive, continuous improvement.

“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative”  – H.G. Wells

Only those who are capable of adapting quickly and effectively to change will survive.   It’s easy to say, and difficult to do.

Over the past few years, sophisticated software suites have emerged that provide the ability to model critical business processes, engage owners and contributors, identify and access existing technology solutions, create new interfaces, and provide real-time operational metrics and performance indicators, all managed under a common framework.  Using these type of solutions can make the job of change easier.  All information becomes an enterprise asset.  BPM tools enable the enterprise visibility to corporate process and KPI’s, confirm executions, simulate changes, refine or redefine processes and see the entire value chain impact.  In the best implementation, nothing “falls through the cracks”.  Imagine business executives and analysts creating new applications and process improvements, tracking activities, and evaluate performance without significant IT burden.  It is possible.

Result:  Speed, agility, efficiency.

Implementing a BPM discipline augmented with a BPM suite, empowers the enterprise to quickly change inefficient processes, rapidly build new applications, and ease data access and analysis.  What used to take months or years, now can be created and deployed in days or weeks.  The discipline, agility, and speed of BPM is the difference maker as Six Sigma and Lean techniques are used to augment the continual focus on improvement.

BPM provides the needed foundation to deliver the models and information on the business, the rules, governance, metrics, applications, and the data orchestration that allows it to be properly applied.  BPM then gives context for Lean, and immediate feedback of the benefits of any proposed change.  And, BPM provides the framework for Six Sigma by providing a holistic view of the measured activities, activities, and individuals in the process, and gives context to Six Sigma statistical measurements.

It’s time for the polarizing, unproductive debate to subside.   Each of these disciplines add immense value to an organization, when used appropriately.  The use of BPM provides a better climate for Six Sigma and Lean initiatives to succeed.

Yeah, it’s always better when we’re together”

- Jack Johnson

Craig Lashmet

Bizappia