Access and Feeds

BPM: Guidelines to For Improving Processes

By Dick Weisinger

Since the fall of 2008, as the economy started tanking, analysts advised companies to increase cost efficiencies by improving their business processes.  The potential benefits of BPM include ‘lowering risk’, and ‘getting more out of what you already have’.

Gartner has predicted in 2010 that there will be a renaissance of interest in BPM and “that companies will finally begin to recognize that process management is not just about automating routine, repetitive, well-understood structured parts of work, but more importantly, about supporting knowledge workers whose work is much less structured.”

In a followup report, Gartner has identified seven guidelines that companies should follow in order to be successful with BPM.  The guidelines as bullet points include:

Start small.  Pick a limited scope project, not an end-to-end solution.  Try to roll it out quickly — within 60-90 days

High Impact.  Pick an area to invest in where the potential payback can be great.  A ‘low hanging fruit’ type approach.

Make a link with current business goals.  Recognized success will be greater if the BPM effort relates to business goals that are high on people’s lists.

Identify the goal.  Everyone should agree on what the goal of the effort is and potential benefits will be.

Use metrics.  Come up with a way to measure success of the effort, a way which is easily understood and allows a before and after type comparison.

Identify a business champion. Find a sponsor or champion within business management who will support and enthusiastically promote the BPM project.

Give users ownership.  Without user buy-in, the project will not succeed.  Let them see how change can help them and encourage their involvement during the project planning.

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