This podcast discusses the intersection of BPM and transformation projects, the development of processes for business process management, understanding process inventory and dependencies, the importance of measures and dimensions in evaluating business processes, the importance of communication in BPM-focused initiatives, and key considerations for transformation projects.
Understanding the current state of the organization and aligning the strategy with industry best practices is crucial in process planning and strategy for a transformation project.
Designing and modeling new processes, analyzing current processes, and defining performance measures are key aspects of the innovation phase in a transformation project.
Implementing and continuously monitoring processes, ensuring governance, process ownership, and executive alignment are vital for the success of a transformation project.
Deep dives
Process planning and strategy
During the podcast episode, the hosts discuss the importance of process planning and strategy in a transformation project. They emphasize the need to understand the current state of the organization, identify challenges, and align the strategy with industry best practices. They also highlight the role of enterprise architects or solution architects in guiding the strategy and ensuring alignment with business goals and objectives.
Designing and modeling innovation
The podcast hosts talk about the importance of designing and modeling new processes as part of the innovation phase. They stress the need to analyze current business processes, understand the end-to-end flow, and identify improvement opportunities. They also mention the role of solution architects in creating solution designs, such as process diagrams and application landscapes. Additionally, they highlight the importance of defining performance measures and objectives to drive the improvements.
Implementing and monitoring for performance
The hosts discuss the implementation phase of a transformation project, impacting both processes and the organization. They mention the need to transform the processes, whether through system changes or organizational changes, and emphasize the role of BPM experts in driving and supporting the implementation. They also highlight the importance of continuous monitoring and performance evaluation to ensure the effectiveness of the implemented processes. The hosts stress the need for governance, process ownership, and executive alignment in this phase.
Importance of Measuring KPIs and Responding to Results
The podcast emphasizes the significance of measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) and promptly responding to the results. It highlights that these two aspects are crucial for effective governance, optimization, and improvement of processes. While many organizations focus on implementing dashboards and monitoring tools, they often fail to take the next steps in refining and optimizing their processes based on the feedback received. The podcast suggests treating measurement and response as integral and interconnected phases to drive continuous improvement.
Considerations for Successful Transformation Projects
The podcast explores various considerations for successful transformation projects. It emphasizes the importance of organizational alignment, including rationalizing roles and responsibilities to support the desired process outcomes. Additionally, it highlights the involvement of IT professionals in understanding the application landscape and dependencies. The podcast stresses the significance of documenting process definitions, creating process inventories, and establishing standards for improved reusability. Cross-functional alignment and understanding process dependencies are also discussed. Furthermore, it addresses the critical role of change management, training, and ongoing support to ensure successful implementation and adoption of new processes.
We had a couple of episodes where we discussed the Solution / Process Lifecycle, but this time we look at it from the perspective of Business Process organizations. What we see is a distinction between the different disciplines that are needed to deliver a full solution and there are organizations that see a "them" and "us" between those. Unfortunately, I see a lot of these organizations also display a "mercenary approach" ("I am just here to create this artifact") and don't show the ownership of their part of an solution architecture and the following implementation, roll-out, and monitoring steps. This hinders them being seen as valuable parts of the team that changes the larger organization, the IT landscape, the capabilities of the enterprise. And I have seen BPM orgs struggling because of that lack of acceptance by others.
