Published on June 05 2006

Approached correctly, BPM will deliver lower costs, improved service levels and better management information (MI). However, if you start the wrong way, the benefits are immediately compromised.

A typical approach to undertaking BPM projects starts with the IT team talking to department heads to identify cost reduction opportunities. They document existing processes, look for areas of inefficiency and try to make them work faster by implementing workflow systems to increase automation. End of story. Sound reasonable?

Taking this approach immediately reduces the potential benefits, perhaps by as much as 75%. So where do they go wrong? Why do so many projects start by severely limiting the potential benefits? Well there are three key aspects that have been overlooked. Let's start with the cultural issues.

Executive Sponsorship

Senior executives throughout the organisation need to be champions of the BPM initiative. Executive strategic intent must be aligned with project objectives, deliverables and measurable targets. The word 'measurable' is very important and I will explain why and how below.

A process-centric culture is required, breaking down traditional functionally-aligned departmental boundaries. A classic error is to take a departmental view, e.g. "How do we make the credit team go faster?" while not tackling their interaction with the sales force and new business administration teams. Viewing the entirety from a process perspective may well reveal that processes can run in parallel, or that by reassigning responsibilities between teams the customer is better informed and fewer handoffs are required. Executive sponsorship will be required to overcome the damaging turf wars that may arise.

Measurement

Secondly, let's consider not just efficiency and cost saving, but also the customer view of quality and value. BPM and workflow are excellent mechanisms to improve the quality of service as perceived by the customer, but many businesses fail to ask them for their views. Measuring quality can be hard, and requires a different set of analysis skills, but doing so will undoubtedly help to ensure that your newly implemented, efficient processes deliver real, long-term value. This information may need to be drawn from multiple sources, not necessarily from your brand new solution alone. Staff and customer surveys that assess the impact of change can provide useful feedback into your processes and approach, just as well as process performance figures.

Most BPM solutions include reports that inform about key task flow metrics. Rarely do they provide a measure of how well a task was completed. 'Work' is timed and counted, and this is valuable, but we shouldn't stop there. In reviewing our systems and processes, we should also take a look at other areas such as system functionality in the execution of work, staff training and incentives, and customer reaction. MI reporting should be a core focus and delivery of any workflow implementation, not just for measuring workflow performance but also for understanding the quality of task delivery.

The Long View

Finally, consider BPM as a movement for continuous business improvement. The benefits of a one-off exercise will erode over time as business priorities and customer demands continue to evolve. The business environment does not stand still for a minute, and neither should your processes. We need to instigate a cultural change that rewards staff for asking "How could this be done better, for our business and the customer?" Workflow applications are the vital plumbing that makes this practical to achieve.

So approach BPM and workflow the right way. Gain sponsorship and support from the highest levels. Break down internal boundaries. Be clear about what you want to achieve and who is accountable for delivering it. Ensure that you define measurable success criteria and include the customer's view of quality and value in your assessment. Put in place tools that continually monitor your quantitative and qualitative successes. Finally make BPM a revolution rather than a one-off project. Your customer and your bottom line will feel the difference.