Book Review – Mastering Your Organization’s Processes

 

Mastering Your Organization's Processes: A Plain Guide to BPM

 

by Jon Pyke, John O'Connell, Roger Whitehead

Edition: Hardcover

Price: $47.50

This is the book that most people thought would never be written. So many people have been urging Jon Pyke for so many years to get down on paper what he really thinks. Of all the people in the process space, Jon is probably the most widely misquoted! It has been all too easy for people to say "Well, what Jon actually meant was!" and then turn it to suit their own purpose, now we can all get to find out what Jon actually thought!

This book is a veritable treasure trove of information, every page fact with some fact or factoid of note. There will be those in the BPM community who may find aspects of what Jon has to say hard to swallow. But, Jon more than most has the right to state his views and give corrections to the origins of some of the terms. As CTO of Staffware from 1992-2004, potentially the only truly successful vendor of the workflow era, Jon was in effect the father of workflow and by that fact the de facto father of BPMS - not that some would like to acknowledge that fact.

The book although jam packed with information, is a very easy read and, in the opinion of this reviewer at least, is probably the most complete, logical and digestible explanation of what process are and why they are important I have seen.

Full of tips and tricks on what to do and what to watch out for as you - in the name of the title - Master your Organizations Processes. The book does not set out to be a cook book, but instead guides your thinking and provides plenty of checklists to help you on your way. This approach is to be applauded, as all too many a good book on process has been spoiled by the first you do this, then you do this approach. The reality is that one size really does not fit all.

Its nine chapters are strongly focussed on success in business and never do you get the sense of technology for technology's sake - pretty good going for a former CTO! The chapters also contain lots of good case studies which certainly help and are easy to relate to.

If I had one criticism of the book it is that by its definition of BPM as technology it propagates (in my opinion) the lie that BPM is technology rather than using the more widely accepted term BPMS for the technology to support the management philosophy that is BPM.

The book is an absolute must read for any business, systems or process analyst in order to make sure that they stay focussed on what is really important - business results. It's non-jargon, non-technical style means that for any Manager it will serve as a great introduction to process management and will prove invaluable to them in the selection of processes to improve, tool selection and technology selection..

Now of course all we have to do is wait and see where Jon pops up next, it is now 2 years since his departure from Staffware, Jon what are you up to, when we will we be seeing the latest from you in the process space?

Book Review – More For Less

 

More for Less: The Power of Process Management

by Andrew Spanyi Edition: Hardcover

Price: $21.86

 

 

 

 

Andrew has a way with words that makes his books very accessible to all levels of reader. As with "Team Sport" Andrew is focusing on the needs of business leaders to take control of their organizations and to lead from the front. Andrew provides many good examples of companies who have achieved great things through the power of process; he also identifies some of the key attributes that set them apart from their peers. Although it will be executives that will gain most from this book, business managers too would do well to read and learn what it takes for them to help their organizations prosper in the years ahead. Thanks Andrew

Free 8 Omega Video

Although there are those that knock the 8 Omega framework, the fact is that over 2,000 people downloaded information and presentations about it from the BPMG and hundreds of people around the globe were trained in how to use it during the past 3 years. So the fact is that there are quite a few people who are finding it useful, and in the coming months I know we will see more about it and how it can apply to you.

In the meantime, while we still wait to see what finally happens at the BPM Group, I thought it might be helpful to make some of the resources I have available to people. In the first instance I have a video, (not brilliant, but hopefully, acceptable quality considering how much was paid to do the work!) that was taken at the Global Business Process Forum a couple of years ago.

The video is quite long and talks through the principals of the framework and how it is used as part of a BPM approach. Although the thinking and detail has moved on since this was done, it still provides good background information and some ideas on making it work for you.

Despite the quality I hope that it proves a useful refresher to those that might have done the BPM Certification class, while acting as a more detailed introduction for those who have only see some of the pure slide ware. You can access the video by clicking here

While next week I hope to be able to provide you with some insights from the business perspective of my recent trip to India. For anyone interested in seeing how I found India from a personal perspective are welcome to download a new article as a PDF from here

NLP in Business and Process Management

In my BPM and Process training classes and seminars I use a lot of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). As anyone who has ever been trained in NLP will tell you. You can't help it, once you learn the skills and your brain is wired with the techniques they come naturally. Of course the more you practice then the more natural they become.

I am often asked why, in a world where for some people NLP used to be seen as bad, that I talk openly about it and the techniques that I use. I usually explain that the aim of classes where I reach is to be able to coach others in learning how to make changes in people and processes. Not something that happens if a "magician" waves a magic wand and generates the wow factor, but instead something that happens after the trick as been performed by explaining how simple it was and letting people try it for themselves.

Now, this puts me at odds with other trainers I know, they, rather like the magicians want to use the techniques to create the wow factor and make themselves look good. Don't get me wrong, I like to look good to! but I don't feel that the techniques should be used just to impress people with clever use of language. Instead I think it is better for people to feel good in both knowing what is happening and how it can work for them as well.

My belief is that this also helps to dispel some of the myths that have grown up surrounding NLP.

So how does NLP relate to Process and to Business Change? Below I have listed just 5 of the things where there is an obvious overlap and in fact where NLP has a lot to give in terms of providing techniques for more successful analysis and design in process.

1.    Working with reality - The "Map is not the Territory" is talked about in process, but is actually a core fundamental of NLP, and one that is rarely fully or properly explained in process or analysis training.

2.    The As-is To-be Trap- NLP works on the concept of taking "Current State" and moving to "Future State", this is far more powerful and useful than the failed concepts of "As-is" and "To-be" still used in process and systems analysis. For me the concept of As-is leads to a blame culture. You start a project and someone takes out the As-is map from 2 years ago and immediately someone says, "well why are you not doing it this way" or "if we have a map the we don't need to do the As-is" again." In other words we start blaming people. The reality is that the map was created based on the perceptions of the time and the knowledge of the people that created the map then. Over time we get new information that was not available at the time or things change, so we need to start from where we are today – the "Current State" Think of the fields of science and medicine, how many of the things that were taught or drugs that were prescribed 100 years ago have changed today? So starting out with "well we used to…." Is not especially helpful. Instead it is better to start with where we are and what we know today.

3.    Change - In any business or process design project or program there is assumed to be a requirement to "Change", yet traditional techniques talk about changing others or the behavior of others. In NLP you learn to first change yourself, then you can assist others to change. You will learn that actually changing yourself may actually cause others to change without anyone even realizing.

4.    Communication – A key element in any analysis, design or change project, but how much do you really understand about the language you use and the effect that it has. The NLP meta-model provides a deep understanding of how to: Get at the information you need, change people' perceptions on any subject, and to be more persuasive in communicating with them.

5.    Modeling – A major premise of NLP is if you want to be the best, then you model the behavior of the best, and as you see through their eyes, hear through their ears and feel what they feel you will notice the little things help to make them good at what they do. Once you have done this you can bring back with you new incites to assist you and adopting some of their behaviour. This of course has been the holy grail of people looking at best practice for years, yet in NLP it has proven more effective over the past 30 years than any of the traditional approaches to analysis and design used in process or IT modeling.

Successful NLP is based upon experiential learning, the more we learn the more we experience, the more we experience the more we retain, the more we retain the more we learn. If you are not sure about this then just take a moment to think about the 5 points above.

Now, I don't know just how much these words have changed your thoughts, or how many of your own experiences you could think of when you were reading them. But, you will have thought of your own examples, where a change in behavior could have driven a new and more positive result, or maybe you could think of times when people we so busy arguing about the past that they forgot to look forward to the future, a future that looked much brighter. However, think about those things now and imagine that you are able to use language differently, to exude alternative behaviors and to act differently. As you do so, just a take a moment to reflect on how much better it feels when you replay these scenes with their new outcomes.

We are not together, we are only communicating across the ether, so I can't know just how much of a change has taken place inside you, but I do know that you are now party to by 2007 goal to get people to "Think Differently", for you see it does not matter how much you agree with me or my words, you are already thinking differently and that is all that I hope for, to give people the chance to be able to think differently and to have more choices over how they act in situations, the more choices we have then the more flexible and adaptable we can become. Which of course brings us full circle in why NLP is as good for business and process as it is for people – It provides us with choices that enable us to become more flexible and more adaptable, in other words it becomes a strategy for survival.

If you are not yet convinced about the differences it can make, then perhaps you might like to read some of the testimonials on my web site, here you will find the source of my greatest pride. Some testimonials from people who suggest that while they came to learn business process, they learned process and more importantly in some cases processes that they tell me have helped to change their lives, that to me is what teaching and coaching is really about. Helping people learn how to help themselves – and others.

Will You Make The Changes Before It Is Too Late!

Over the past few months I have written about major initiatives underway at both Boots Plc in the UK and at Volkswagen Us. In both cases the companies were looking to use Business Process or Business process combined with Enterprise Architecture as a guide to managing change. In what might become an expensive lesson for those who believe that it is not appropriate for them, this month sees the news that Volkswagen US have dipped into the red for last year and do not see profit re-appearing for another year, while Boots plc, despite reporting some good sales for the last quarter is now coming under attack from the UK's leading supermarket chain, Tesco.

In both cases it would appear that the boards of both companies might have left it too late to make the changes required in order to remain competitive. The long term future of both operations must now be in great doubt. Boots must surely become a takeover target very soon, and will probably find itself the subject of some kind of break-up. While car workers in the UK know only too well that things can get difficult when foreign management sees that their traditional style of management is not working so well abroad and although not easy to sell it is very likely that we will see operations scaled back in the very near future.

The interesting point in both of these examples, and a salutatory point for others who might not consider that they need to invest in programs of change, to re-align their businesses or to take stock of their strengths and weaknesses, is that in both of the above cases the company management started the initiatives as a response to impending problems.

Of course by then in their cases, and in others, it may already be too late, the actions may simply slow down a slide of prolong potential agony. The worst thing of all though is that as a result of such stories it may be that others pick up on the idea that Business Process Management (BPM) or Enterprise Architecture do not work. Of course such approaches, can and do work, but, it is true that they cannot be used to perform miracles.

In many ways corporate change projects such as Business Process management are the exact opposite of what marketers see. In marketing it is the company who has the vision and strength to continue to pour money into marketing during an economic downturn that truly cashes in when the market takes an upturn. In this case, these companies recognize that a) they can very often buy their marketing at significantly reduced cost and b) realize that they get much greater exposure as there tend to be fewer advertisers to compete with and so they get far greater awareness, leading to greater sales when buyers return to the market.

In the case of Change programs the very opposite is true. It is the companies who are constantly striving to improve themselves while seemingly strong that win out in the long term. Such companies are always moving the barriers and making it harder for others to compete with them. On the other hand companies who wait until they have serious problems before undergoing such change will more often than not run out of either time or money before the positive effects can truly kick in.

An example of this in the UK would be Marconi, the former electronics and defense giant. The company had for years been seen as a stalwart British company, no one could ever have imagined it going under. But, sure enough after a couple of wrong moves the company was in trouble. Pure speculation of course but, if the company had made changes faster, recognizing the changes that needed to be made while it was still strong enough to act it may well have survived. To be accurate of course many would say that the company is still alive and continuing to do business, true, but the shareholders lost most of their money in the refinancing and most of the staff lost their jobs too.

Now, I would be wrong and a fool to suggest that companies in trouble can't successfully undertake change and survive. But, as in the case of Marconi, the cuts and changes have to be far more dramatic than they might otherwise be and I think it is true to say that whilst such companies might "survive" very few attain the heights from which they might have fallen.

Many reading an article such as this will undoubtedly think yes well that is for them it does not apply to me or my company. That would be a grave mistake. The last 20 years have shown that all companies large or small, new or long established are vulnerable to both new competitors and of course the new world economy. Nothing is the same now and nothing will remain the same in the next 5 or 10 years. All companies need to have a clear idea on what their value chains are and how their business processes operate and are managed, without such knowledge it will likely prove impossible to be able to make or respond to change quickly enough, it will likely prove impossible to work out how to reduce cost without reducing capability and it will likely prove impossible to satisfy regulators that you actually understand how your business operates!

Note: This article first appeared in January 2004 on Mark McGregor's "Postcard from Europe" Series of articles on BPTrends

Book Review – Human Interactions

Human Interactions

The Heart and Soul of Business Process Management

By Keith Harrison-Broninski

304 Pages published by Meghan-Kiffer Press ISBN 0-929652-44-4

This book offers a refreshingly different perspective on BPM. Instead of the thinly veiled system approach of many other books Keith reminds us that managing and controlling processes is what we are ultimately trying to achieve. He also reminds us that whatever people may say or think the fact is that most work processes (and the hardest ones to control) occur between people (rather than between computer systems). The book puts forward some very powerful ideas to support these new ways of thinking about processes and the systems that support them. These suggestions and arguments are supported by a great deal of thought and theory.

If Geary Rummler is to be remembered for "Managing the White Space" on the organization chart then surely Keith will hope to become known as the man who set forward the agenda for "Managing the White Space" in the process map!

The central idea of the book is that the issue is less to do with understanding and automating individual processes and more to do with managing and controlling the literally thousands of processes that go to make up an organisation. This of course cannot be carried out effectively without fully understanding and managing the Human Interactions of which most work is comprised. As Keith points out "Many organizations have yet to realize that they are sleepwalking into a world where we simply move from a set of legacy applications to a set of legacy processes and swap a set of functional silos for a set of process silos." In that respect this book is a must read for Process Professionals and Systems Analysts alike.

In essence the book has four elements to it – and they do not necessarily appear in order – they are;

1. That Human Interactions form the basis of most of the work in an organisation.
   
2. An explanation of the science and psychology behind how such interactions take place.
   
3. The argument that current approaches to capturing and modelling these interactions are unsuitable.
   
4. That there are lessons to be gained from Role Activity Theory that may help.
   

 

Items a) and b) are very well covered (although it might have been nicer if they had been specifically separated out), whilst items c) and d) are a matter of perspective.

In his arguments on modelling Keith quite rightly asserts that for most business users current notations and tools are hard to follow and onerous in use. However from a personal perspective I suspect the alternative modelling approach suggested in the book may suffer from the same fate. But, as Keith points out, the issue is not about which notation one uses to model the interactions – it is more about the fact that they need to be captured and managed in a structured way. As ever the challenge is that almost any kind of model suitable for constructing a system will be constructed by specialists using some kind of specialist notation. Whereas business people are actually quite comfortable with the concept of flow charts to describe what they do (and because they use them for illustrative purposes they are not overly concerned by rigour and detail either.)

The great thing about this book is that instead of suggesting that all previous approaches to process were wrong and offering a new panacea, it tries to borrow and build from what has gone before. In this way hopefully a larger audience should be able to engage with the ideas and theories presented. In particular he suggests that a blend of both Petri nets and pi-calculus be used in order to provide a formal underpinning to process management and permit its potential systemisation. This approach is sure to cause great debate among purists and Keith has certainly positioned himself well for debates with just about everybody!

As with many other books by technologists or vendors, this one too concludes with detailed advice on how to develop and deliver better systems for the business, which whilst it may be useful, is a shame. I say this because the book provides much good information around the theory of how people work together and if that was blended with the desire of businesses to focus on successful customer outcomes, then I think the message could be even more powerful.

In summary I would suggest that this is a great book for Process Specialists and those wishing to gain deeper insight into why in many cases the current technological approaches fail to catch the imagination of business people. It may also appeal to some Business Managers and Business Analysts, as the theory presented in the first three chapters is sure to be of interest, but the technical nature of latter parts of the book may prove to be a slight struggle for some such readers. I also hope that Keith is able to continue to build upon this initial work as I believe that the essence of what he is trying to achieve here is extremely important, and in the world of process truly new ideas are hard to come by.

First Telelogic, Now Proforma Corp?

It seems that once again we are seeing a round of consolidation and roll-ups in the Modeling Tool market.

Firstly we see IBM bidding for Telelogic, a deal which most observers are expecting to close soon – which has to be good news for the poor Telelogic sales people, who are seeing sales stall as customers wait to see what happens next. Indeed I think we might all wonder at what IBM plans to do with all those modeling tools and how it will present a coherent view to the world. With System Architect, Rational Rose, Holosofx, and Tau – as well as other parts in the portfolio, it seems that IBM themselves might be spoilt for choice. But, as well all know too much choice makes it harder for customers to decide.

Then just last week we saw IDS announce that they were setting up direct operations in Australia and in the UK Proforma announced that they had purchased their UK distributer and thus created a direct presence. This last move has been well overdue, in order for Proforma to be seriously credible they have long needed to build a stronger direct international presence and so this moves is logical, although the timing is very interesting.

I suspect that the timing may have to do with another deal that we are yet to hear about. I think we may see that Proforma themselves will be acquired in the next few weeks. Oracle have long been rumored to be looking to make an acquisition in the space and were seen as suitors for Popkin prior to the Telelogic takeover. But for my money HP may be seen as a more likely acquirer of Proforma. HP have clearly stated that they intend to grow the software side of their business and to do so through acquisition.

HP and Proforma have a historical relationship going back several years and indeed the ProVision tool was used to assist HP in the HP Compaq merger, the tool being used in the clean room to help set up the new organization. Whether HP, Oracle or someone else, Proforma would be as good fit, with its relative ease of use, good installed base and rich functionality, whoever wants a fast leg up in the modeling market will be interested.

If as I suspect such a deal goes through, this will pretty well leave MEGA International along with IDS as the only two real players in the "independent" modeling tool space. Which then poses the question is there such a market?

As ever only time will tell, but interesting times ahead of that we can be sure.

Looks Like The End Game is Approaching for BPMG

It would appear that the end may possibly be nearing for the BPMG, and that end would appear to be a very sad one. Yesterday BPMG Chairman Stewart Ashton put out a statement on the situation.

In it he says "The report that I have presented on June 29th 2007 is confidential to the board and shareholders of BPM Ventures Limited but I can indicate that it identifies certain matters that may well become the subject of legal claims in the future. My task in this matter was to try to resolve the matters as quickly as possible in the interest of the members and clients of BPMG. Having provided my report to the board and not being able to resolve the position I have no desire to continue in this role and I have therefore resigned my directorship in the company although I remain a shareholder.

At the same time our Administration and Finance Manager Rose Butler has also resigned. She will no longer be able to answer BPMG members or clients queries. In addition, David Lyneham-Brown has also resigned his roles and directorships of BPMG. With David being the prime technical developer of the BPMG training and development approach this is regretful. Imre Hegedus has stepped down as our Global Director of Chapters and the principal organiser of our autumn conference having done a sterling job in both these areas to date. We have already advised people that we cannot run the conference because like our other web sites Process2007 has been entirely under the control of Bennu Group LLC and we have had no access to it." – You can read the full statement at www.bpmgroup.org

So it seems that despite the attempts to try and breathe life into the patient, it has not responded. I guess it remains to see whether Steve and Bennu are going to try and resurrect something. But if the conversations I have been involved in are anything to go by it would appear that too much damage has been done and too little respect shown to the very people who actually made the BPMG what it had become – the customers and members.

It does not matter who claims to have built what at the company, or who claims to own what, the fact remains that it became what it was due to the tremendous trust and support placed in it by so many people around the globe. Without that support it would have been very much a small UK based group.

I would also like to add my thanks to the many trainers who I have had the pleasure of working with while I was at the BPMG, they too played a big part in ensuring the quality and the breadth of the training was maintained and delivered throughout the world. Many of those trainers I am sure, like me, will continue to provide a quality BPM training product and will continue to do their best to help any of those that require assistance as they go along their BPM journey.

I have never hidden from the fact that although I have been disassociated from the BPMG for some 9 months now, I remain a shareholder (although who knows to what value!) and in this capacity I have seen the final report that Stewart Ashton presented to the board. Whilst I cannot share the details with you, I can tell you that it made astonishing reading and seemed to suggest a whole catalogue of financial mis-management and other things.

My final hope is that members of the BPMG community are able to find new "homes" and vehicles through which to communicate with each other and other training programs that enable them to continue to develop as individuals.

Book Review – The World Is Flat?

								The World Is Flat?: A Critical Analysis of New York Times Bestseller by Thomas Friedman by Ronald Aronica Edition: Paperback Price: $16.47
"I did not have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one" goes the Mark Twain quote. Well unlike Friedman, Aronica took the time to deliver stronger more concrete messages in a more concise format. Aronica also took the time to do the research and look at the facts rather than just talk to his friends. If you have already bought the Friedman book but not read it, do yourself a favor, buy this and save yourself the time. If you have not bought Freidman, then you don't need to, this great little book will give you all that you need. The book is well written, punchy and to the point. It contains great insights and provides a strong motivation to change what we are doing before we get run over by a steamroller!

Architecture or Folly?

This week sees me down in Bangalore at the Architecture World 07 conference. The two concepts of BPM and Enterprise Architecture are to be very related, success in both owes a lot to maintain an important mantra "just enough!"

I always have fun speaking with groups of IT about Enterprise Architecture as invariably they do not mean Enterprise but IT when they use the term. So in my quest to get them thinking differently I thought I'd introduce them to the term folly.

I am sure many of you can recollect pictures or sights of buildings that seem to serve no purpose or remain unfinished. How about Howard Hughes plane, the Spruce Goose? I am sure that "architects" were employed on many of these projects.

So what is a folly?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a folly as: "A popular name for any costly structure considered to have shown folly in the builder,"

While Chambers' Dictionary says it is: "A great useless structure, or one left unfinished, having been begun without a reckoning of the cost."

Hmm... sounds a lot like the description of many Enterprise Architecture projects I have come across in the past few years.

On a (slightly) more serious note with the advent of Service Oriented Architecture, the word Architecture has once again been given prominence. In fact for some it can be fun to count just how many Architectures you need in IT – Model Driven Architecture, Service Oriented Architecture, Client Server Architecture... and so the list goes on.

With each new architecture fad comes more talk of why the business don't get it and why people in the business don't recognize the value of architecture.

Of course the answer to that question is to my mind very simple. The explanation can also be given using the very analogies that are used to try and explain architecture, namely the examples of buildings and aircraft.

Buildings are built to last for many years, in some cases they can last for thousands of years, these days some only tens of years. For aircraft they are built for at least 20 years of service and to be maintained for often much longer than that.

So in these cases some degree of architecture is justified, but even then sometimes we are really looking only at rigorous design. However in both cases any "overhead" in design is spread over many years of useful and hopefully profitable service.

Now, when we come to IT business people are being asked to constantly reequip, systems lasting it seems no more than two to five years. Small wonder then, that it can be challenging to persuade us of the value of Architecture. Perhaps then it would be easier to just explain that what is really meant is good design, you would like to build our systems using good design principles.

I think perhaps the French had the right idea with the concept of City Planning as being the base point for Enterprise Architecture. The idea that as with a town, you need to lay out "zones" for different activities and to make sure that the equivalent of the basic infrastructure is in place and that systems use appropriate interfaces. This is providing a longer lasting value and is using architecture at an appropriate level and then letting designers do the design. Saves on the overhead of architecting the design – which has always sounded like a bit of an overhead to me.

So it will be interesting to see and talk with the architects and designers down here in India and find out how they will be using architecture to help create agile, customer centric organizations that deliver greater value for the stakeholders in the business.

Professional Mind Maps with iMindMap

Those that know me will know that I am a fan of Mind Maps. They will also know that just because I am a fan does not mean that I am any good at them!

For those less familiar with the technique, it was developed by a Brit named Tony Buzan and is a technique for capturing information in a diagram in order to make it easier to remember and to explain to others. ("The Mind Map Book" by Tony and Barry Buzan was published by BBC Books). Through the use of branches like a tree and good use of color and shape you can create some stunning memory aides.

Mind maps are in use all over the world and have been adapted for many purposes, particularly in the planning and presentation fields.

There have been several attempts (some very popular) at producing computer software to construct these maps. I have products from Mindjet, Mind Mapper, and Mind Genius. To be honest my results have been at best mixed and at worst useless. This is not a reflection on the products but as much as anything on my ability to create them.

Then recently a friend of mine, Phil Chambers, invited me to attend one of his mind mapping courses. It was immediately apparent what the problem was. The mind mapping software did not follow the real principles behind mind mapping. Just as with so many software packages the interface forced you to work in a certain way, and a way that actually meant not follow the rules!

It was then that I discovered a great new product iMindMap from Tony Buzan himself, it is a really great way of creating maps for yourself on your PC or Mac, I have been using the beta version on and off for a few months and have to say from a personal point of view it knocks the spots off of anything else I have seen. You can try it free for 30 days or you can purchase for less than £60 – including 3 years of free updates - that is what you call future proofing!

By the way if anyone is interested in learning about how to mind map then I would of course recommend Phil Chambers, who is a former world memory champion, an expert in the areas of mind mapping and accelerated learning and creating a better memory. During my course he made me rather sick, I gave him a gift of the Daniel Pink book "A whole New Mind" and in no time at all he had sent me back a mind map of the book, which with permission I reproduce here.

I have posted the larger version on my web site and you can access it by clicking here.

If you too would like to see just how professional looking mind maps should look then you can see more of Phil's work by clicking here but be warned, if you think the things we produce in software are good you might be in for a big a surprise.

As people who have attended my classes will testify I am fascinated by mind maps and there use in the process world, mainly because the holy grail ahs to be to find a way to express and share processes that people can readily understand. I don't mean through technical notations or clever words, I mean that people can just intuit.

Mind maps have a particular value in that they are now being taught to children at school as a means for them to revise for exams and to remember information. I have a belief that if this is what today's children are learning then it is a technique that tomorrows business leaders will be using, therefore the sooner we work out how to use them effectively for process then the sooner we will all be on the same page.

Finally I think that iMindMap takes us one step closer to being able to realize that ambition.

Ethics in Business – Not in BPM

Judging from some of the emails I have seen lately, I am not the only one who is really starting to question the position with regard to "ethics" in BPM. Hardly a day seems to go by at the moment with being able to read or hear about something that brings into question the ethics of business.

I don't even want to consider the issues surrounding BPMG (and who thinks they invented what!), but they are not alone. Only recently I was asked by a conference organizer to help them put together a program for an event. I explained that this was how I earned my living, but that as part of a deal including speaking at the event then I would of course be happy to help. They assured me that this would be the case and the financial side would not be a problem. Now as the program finalizes and they have everything they need, surprise surprise! They don't have the budget to cover the expenses. This in turn of course means that I won't travel. So be aware, trust in the conference space is not there either.

While on the subject of conferences, it is perhaps interesting to note that very few organizers are getting repeat visits or additional delegates from companies at repeat events. Yet despite this lack of repeat business they don't think to question whether they are really focused on successful customer outcomes – do they really care enough about the experience of delegates at the event?

IQPC, by way of example, have a very specific model and many of you will have noticed that they rarely have industry experts or guru's at their events. The reason is very simple, their business model is to a) sell as much sponsorship as possible b) sell the opportunity to provide workshops to vendors and consultants c) sell the opportunity of chairing the event and d) charge the delegates to attend. Then when they can see the revenue they then ask as many end users to speak as they can (no costs attached to that) usually against a title and bullet points that the organizer puts together.

I must add here in defense of IQPC South Africa, that this does not appear to have been the case with them, they do appear to have approached things differently and when last I heard as a result they have seen their own BPM event grow each year for the past three years.

The business model is of course very profitable, except when delegates stop returning and start talking about the lack of professionalism around the conference. There will always be a few good sessions and IQPC rely on this to keep them ahead of the chasing pack. But is interesting that in the BPM space their US and UK conferences appear to be failing to generate bigger audiences and it is getting harder to interest the sponsors. All of which suggests that perhaps yesterday's business model is still being applied to today's problems. As we all know this is a sure way of causing a business to fail.

I should point out that that IQPC are not alone in this respect and that conference organizers who focus on the delegate experience first are in the minority.

Then we come to the vendors! Well marketing is of course key to them, but some of the things that are being said are just untrue. Only yesterday I read a statement in a press release from a vendor claiming that they were the "only pure play BPM vendor" in a particular geographical market, which is simply false, in the market they are talking about there are at least two locally well known players in the space. How are users supposed to work out who they can trust if people stretch the truth to such limits, or beyond.

These examples do not of course apply to every vendor or conference organizer, but sadly the number it does apply to is too big. Don't get me wrong I am not talking about a bit of spin on messaging, which we all know is an everyday part of our lives. I am talking about those who blatantly seem to set out to mislead people.

In reality this apparent lack of ethics may explain the relatively slow revenue growth in the BPM sector, as buyers if we don't know who to trust we trust no one and keep our money in our wallets!

New Video Resources – Why BPM is Critical

As ever the challenge in getting management buy-in for BPM is very often dependent on being able to get your message across. It seems that people are more and more looking to add richer content through the use of video. (Indeed I hope to be able to share some of my own with you very soon)

Two weeks ago I was sent a new video by Peter Fingar "Shift Happens", it discusses and details the shifts that are occurring in the economy and how the world is changing, you can view it by clicking here, then this morning I got sent a new adaptation of Peter's video by Jon Pyke of the Process Factory, you can see Jon's version by clicking here.

Both videos are based on an original by Karl Fisch that was looking at education, but as you can see from the work of Peter, the parallel with the need for BPM is too great to be ignored.

I thank Peter and Jon for making these resources available, I hope that you will agree that they are very thought provoking and will help some people in persuading that the time for BPM is now! Of course there will still be others who choose to put it all down as nothing more than a stunt, but alas many of those organizations may not be in business long enough for us to worry about them!

Passage to India

As I prepare for my next trip to India in a couple of weeks time, I thought it might be a good time to republish an article I wrote after my first trip to Bangalore in 2005, it is going to be fascinating to see what has changed and how attitudes may have altered. It is also going to be interesting to see how Indian companies will continue to succeed at a time when I hear they are cutting back on their training and people investments – will I find them on the start of a slippery slope?, but for now let's just remember the first time I was there and my experiences of Wipro.

How one Indian IT company is looking to change for the future

Following his recent visit to Bangalore in India, in this article Mark McGregor shares with us some of the insights gained into the issue of where next for the Indian IT Industry. Perhaps more importantly he also finds that the issues of BPM are generating much interest and hears that the giants in India may be about to start seriously moving up the consulting food chain and leveraging the lack of BPM Professionals available in the market to gain a toe hold in more strategic consulting projects.

Last week I was fortunate enough to be able to make my first visit to India. After being involved in and around the fringes of IT for so many years and more latterly writing about and commentating on the risks and benefits associated with outsourcing to Asia, I guess it could be seen as something of a pilgrimage to what appears now to have become the spiritual home of IT.

The first thing that strikes you as you land in Mumbai is just how crowded the city is, but also you know you are in for a different kind of experience when you hear English being spoken all around you - in fact no-one I came across at the airport from airline personnel through to bus and taxi drivers through to Porters and cleaners did not speak English and indeed ALL the signage was in English too. So, on to my destination of Bangalore - again English everywhere, but a curious mix of East and West. Alongside the modern shopping malls and office blocks, there are many apparently run down looking buildings, I say apparent, because when you step inside these buildings you find more shops in which you find everything you would expect in any other shop in the west – just as brightly lit and laid out to the same neat attractive standards as you would expect. The only difference was the level of service, a subject that we will come back to later in the article. The thing that lets Bangalore down, as any of the locals will tell you is the road infrastructure, despite the improvements underway the slowness of the work is something that infuriates the people there.

It was interesting to note that despite the amount of work sent down to India by Western companies from all over, there was a definite lack of western faces (even in the top hotels). My hosts tell me this is not unusual, in fact they go on to say that it is very rare that American companies doing business will actually travel there to meet with their suppliers, even when signing large contracts, the British on the other hand do tend to visit on the odd occasion at least. This lack of personal interaction is a shame, for at one level they are missing out on visiting a wonderful city with a curious and eclectic mix of old and new and east and west. On another level they are failing to understand some of the cultural and services differences in India, and as we shall see this may yet be there undoing.

The purpose of my visit was to deliver the first BPMG 5 Day professional training class in India. The class was delivered in a modern purpose built training centre for what I now know to be one of the most forward looking consulting firms in the world – Wipro Technologies.

This firm having seen all the buzz around BPM and recognizing the tremendous business opportunity afforded by BPM has decided to expand its capabilities in this area. This in itself is not unusual as many vendors and consulting firms are doing just the same. Such firms are preparing their strategies, gearing up their marketing and setting out to win business with varying degrees of aggressiveness and success. But, in India they have a different approach, one which must surely start to ring alarm bells in western IT and consulting firms very soon. Their approach is to set up a BPM centre of excellence and begin the task of training their consultants, although perhaps educating is a better term – they tell me that they have looked at the market and decided that simply training staff in BPM is a bit of a "me too" approach, especially when they look at the number of successful BPMS implementation projects they have already carried out. Instead they want to educate their staff and have them become professionally accredited. Yes, they of course realize that this provides them with a key differentiator in the market, but more than that they recognize that professionally trained staff will be better able to assist their clients in achieving some of the operational and organizational transformations that they seek to obtain via BPM. The market for staff in India and in Bangalore in particular is extremely competitive and by providing further education the companies sees that it can also increase motivation and reduce staff turnover.

(To give you an idea of what is at stake when it comes to staff turnover. When the company released its quarterly figures last week, it announced that in its BPO division it had recruited an additional 2,000 staff, while at the same time acknowledging that it had also lost 2,000 staff – so it is not hard to see the "size of the prize")

The BPM CoE at Wipro consists of a core team of seasoned professionals with expertise in process management and implementation technologies (such as EAI, BI, DW and BPMS). The team through alliances has particular expertise with tools such as Ultimus and Savvion. The CoE has set some aggressive targets for itself and aims at carving a niche for Wipro's BPM services – process consultancy, package implementation and customized development, in this promising BPM market place. All that was missing was the rounding out and expanding of their wider BPM expertise and hence the reason for being there.

The class itself was somewhat different to the usual teams we train. In a class of 15, all the participants had at least one degree and most had two! Several had an MBA as well. All had already been involved in implementation projects using one or more of the leading BPMS tools. They were there to a) get professionally qualified and b) to find out how they can help their clients better manage and implement change. They all felt that the implemented systems they had been involved with could have been better if taken as part of an overall BPM strategy.

I have to say that I have never come across a group of such intelligent and smart people so willing to learn and have their existing practices and belief challenged – and as anyone that knows me will testify, if you are going to try and come at from a pure systems perspective, I will challenge you! By the end of the week they tell me they had learned a lot and found the techniques and tools to be both easy to apply and powerful in use. But, they were not the only ones that learned from the experience. I too learned a great deal, both about the IT people and approaches in India and of the underlying culture that drives these people to success.

During the course of the week the company insisted that I join the General Manager responsible for the BPM CoE, Anurag Seth for lunch to learn more about how the company sees BPM. Anurag told me "that it was seen as both a natural progression for the company as it sought ways to increase the value they can deliver for their customers and as they moved toward higher margin consulting work." He went on to explain that "Education has always been an important part of the Wipro philosophy, right from the very staff. Wherever possible we want our staff to be the best in the business and that means ensuring that the training they receive is the best we can find for them." My hosts were extremely disappointed that I was not going to be able to meet with their Chairman, Azim Premji – this was on the basis that while we were on campus who was rather tied up with the AGM and Quarterly results.

Earlier on I mentioned that I would come back to the "service culture". I think that this service centric culture, based upon providing the customer with what they need and being attentive to ensuring that the work you do is centered on creating successful customer outcomes, will provide the backbone on which Indian companies like Wipro will build their BPM success. In the West we appear to have largely forgotten that this is what successful business is all about. If you focus on these then revenue will grow, customers will remain loyal, staff will be happy and motivated and costs will be controllable. These are indeed the goals and objectives you should set when measuring the overall success of a BPM project.

The culture issue though, does not all flow in favor of the Indian and other Asian companies though. As has been seen in Japan with the car industry, Asian companies do seem to have challenges around the issues of creativity. And I am sure that the people at Wipro won't mind me sharing the fact that this was their biggest hurdle during the course of the training.

Coming back to my meeting with Anurag, I was also interested to hear that the company also saw that the BPM CoE with its professionally trained Process Consultants was also likely to add value to the companies BPO operations, as the company sought to add value to what (despite its BPO nametag) has largely been functional outsourcing – payroll, recruitment and back office functions. At least in my opinion this too has to be a step in the right direction.

At the end of the week I caught up with Bhaskar Maddala, Manager of the BPM CoE and my host for the week and asked him how he came to select this particular program for his staff, his reply was that "In addition to the BPMG visibility, their principals have a world-wide reputation as experts in the field and are known for the quality of their delivery. Therefore for a company like Wipro, so focused on quality, it was common sense to go for the best. Having joined my team for the class last week I have to say that we were not disappointed. Indeed my team were all highly impressed with the value we got and felt it was way beyond what might have been expected. If "seeing is believing" then we can now see why you have the reputation you have - it is very well deserved." Kind words indeed, he went on to add "We here at Wipro look forward to now being able to expand the training efforts and working with you to see how we might offer the training to our clients as well as our staff. We firmly believe that by better understanding the full value that true BPM – that is understanding that they will not get the true "Value of Investment" if the implementation teams fail to scale beyond the software tools and get involved at the process analysis and design level - then our consultants can better help our clients in leveraging the benefits of BPM and the capabilities that Wipro brings to them."

For my part, I of course wish my new found friends at Wipro well (having conducted their training I have a personal stake in their success!) and look forward to seeing them again in Bangalore very soon. But perhaps more importantly, it will be interesting to see how Indian companies staffed by a people whose whole culture revolves around the twin concepts of successful customer outcomes and respecting human values, can potentially change the face of BPM and how we see it.

Note: This article first appeared in July 2005 on Mark McGregor's series of articles on BPMG.org

Great Value Toolkit For Process Improvement Projects

Quality Companion from Minitab

I wanted to tell you about a new piece of software I have been playing with and that has impressed me greatly. Those that know me will know that tools in the process space do not easily impress me!

If you have not already come across it yet, then I would advise you to take a look at Quality Companion 2 from Minitab Software. Minintab are most widely known for being the de facto standard for statistical analysis in Six Sigma. This new(ish) product has a more universal applicability and provides a whole host of features that make it very useful to anyone working in the BPM or Process Improvement arena.

But, before discussing the tool, it is worth mentioning just how low the cost of the product is. Depending on the number of licenses you need the price varies from £180.00 to £280 per user, a price that makes it easy to provide copies for all members of the team.

In terms of tools contained in the product I am only going to focus on the ones that might apply outside the Six Sigma arena.

On the organizational side of things the product comes with: Presentation Tools, Project Roadmaps, Project Charters and, Project Prioritization.

Then we move onto an amazing list of techniques/tools for the actual project work these include: Process mapping, Brainstorming, Cause & Effect, Balloting, SIPOC, Value Stream Map Comparisons, Stakeholder Analysis, Project Risk Assessment, Financial Analysis and Control Plans.

Quality Companion 2 also comes pre-packaged with a set of "coaches" to help guide you through the "how to" in using the various tools and techniques. However, in larger organizations will tend to write or create their own "cookbook" or methodology and this is where Quality Companion really scores highly by allowing you to write your own hints, tips and coaches and attach them to each of the techniques.. This customization should make it very easy to adapt the product to suit your environment.

It may just be me, but I found the tool very intuitive and easy to use. It seems to be one of those tools that you really can just pick up and run with.

Of course the process mapping can't match the best of the modeling tools, but then again those tools would probably struggle to compete with breadth/focus and ease of use. Of course modeling tools also struggle to compete on price. The nearest price competitor has to be Visio and I would say that Quality Companion offers better value for those working on process projects.

All the while I was using Quality Companion I was struggling to classify the product, it seems to offer "light" functionality from a whole number of areas including Modeling, Project Planning and Management, Analysis, Presentation. The light being in reference to the fact that they seem to have extracted the most relevant pieces and left some of the "bloat-ware" behind?

If you want to take a look and see just how easy it is to use then you can get a free trial here

The Real Motivation Behind BPM

To simply talk of improving quality, managing process thinking, changing organizations, or automating existing processes is to miss the real motivation behind BPM. In discussing such topics, we can gain understanding as to why (despite increasing sales) BPM is not truly embedded in our management thinking and our boardrooms. Such topics act like painkillers for a headache and appeal to our sense of reason.

Would it not be better to take a more holistic approach? To try and eliminate the cause of the headache as in holistic medicine? Or, in this case, to appeal to the intuition or desire of people and companies?

To understand what I mean, consider the works of two of our accepted experts in the area of human, corporate, and societal change, Alvin Toffler and Charles Handy.

Of those that have read them, few would argue that Alvin Toffler's Future Shock and Charles Handy's Age of Unreason give a pretty good account of the changes going on in our lives, our companies, and our societies. But, of course, while many of the changes they predicted are proving all too accurate, they both got one thing seriously wrong – They both underestimated terribly the pace of change, the levels of confusion, and the amount of disruption caused by such change. But for many people these books are considered old hat or esoteric management thinking with no real relevance to today's society.

So consider instead, Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale, two Swedish experts who have written a more up to date book describing similar issues but using modern references and using readily accessible analogies. Before rushing off to the bookshop however, you need to be aware that the book is somewhat unconventional in style, content, and the language used! The book Funky Business pulls no punches when dealing with the challenges we face as societies and as people.

Like others before them, Nordstrom and Ridderstrale assert that conventional approaches to business are dead. Further, they also assert that companies as we know them are dead; they put forward some very strong arguments for a new corporate order (or in their case disorder) and detail how this may look moving forward.

It may not seem it at first glance, but having just read their work and having pondered the earlier work of Toffler and Handy, I think that both of them have captured the essence of the real motivation behind BPM. It is not about the cheaper, faster, better paradigm that so many companies are still chasing. It is not about finding new ways to manage staff and monitor activity – such techniques still belong to old style corporate monoliths.

It is about bringing together all the assets of a company in a logical catalogued fashion such that they can be broken apart and reassembled in new ways, innovative ways such that our companies can create new products or services and address markets that our competitors have not even thought about yet. Look at Levi's and their ability now to sell custom fit jeans designed especially to fit you – you being a customer of one. Would this be possible in your industry?

Maybe someone is already contemplating it. People talk about Processes or Business Processes as constants; they suggest that the procedure (the "how") might change, but that the Process itself will remain for longer. But what if that were not the case? What if the key process was changing every year, month, or day? What if the only constants were people, knowledge, and customers?

It is about recognizing that knowledge is the key asset in the organization, along with ensuring that the company has the structure and flexibility to bring that knowledge to bear in a quick and focused way to capitalize on an opportunity— and to then be able to dismantle that structure and reassign people and assets when the steam runs out, all the while changing and adapting. Funky Business suggests that this is all about creating "temporary monopolies" or "niches" and then moving on to other more profitable markets when the competition catches up.

When looked at like this, it is perhaps easy to see why people have trouble convincing us to use a BPMS. The technology is fine, the problem they solve exists, but within companies we still do not have sufficient intuition to recognize how fast things are changing, and we do not really have the desire to change fast enough. We are still living in a state of complacency and denial. Vendors in the BPM space still rely on appealing to our reasoning, which, of course, is difficult if people are in denial. What if people, instead, appealed to our intuition and desire, and talked more about what we want or what we feel.

Further study would be required, but this might explain much of the continuing issue surrounding the business/IT divide. Is it that technology is being sold and marketed to our "reasoning," whereas business people work far more with "intuition" or "desire"? How often do you do something because it just feels right or because you just want to?

Something else, perhaps more interesting when talking about desire, came through in Funky Business. They talked about how other initiatives, such as BPR, TQM, JIT, etc., have all failed in the past, but only for those companies that chose to wait until they were well established before getting involved—by which time the early adopters had already milked the gains and moved on.

In closing, I would suggest that there are two key lessons: Firstly, for colleagues in the boardroom to ask whether they truly desire to be successful—for, if they do, then they had better get involved quickly before the true leaders move the goalposts again. Secondly, for those wanting to promote technology inside or outside their company, ask yourself, does what I am proposing appeal to the feelings and desires of those I am looking to sell to?

Note: This article first appeared in May 2004 on Mark McGregor's "Postcard from Europe" Series of articles on BPTrends

BPMG Saga Looks Set to Run & Run

What about the Customers?

Another day and more twists and turns in what can only be described as the BPMG "Soap Opera". First out of the blocks was former CEO Steve Towers with an email including a link to his "open letter" (you can read it here). It is interesting to note that Steve states "I am doing everything in my power to ensure not only BPM Groups survival but its ongoing growth and success." this would be good news to customers, members (and shareholders such as me), however today I also discovered that Bennu LLC, who list Steve Towers as nothing more than an associate (see here), may be being a little less than forthcoming with the truth. It seems that Steve Towers is in fact an officer of the company (click here and follow the link to "Officers And Directors Information").

So if I am reading this right, a company in which Steve is a Director has removed the BPMG website from another company in which he was a director and shareholder. At the same time preventing members/customers of one of his companies from being able to access the services for which they have paid. Confused? Well I certainly I am. Hardly seems like the actions of someone with the interests of members, customers and shareholders at heart.

I have no idea how this is all going to play out, what I do know is that it sounds like great business for the lawyers and bad news for the rest of us.

I stated earlier that I cannot be totally "impartial" on this being both a shareholder and a creditor (and former employee). But, I can say that these hardly seem like reasonable actions, which is why (as some clever people will already have figured out), I offered a temporary domain to the company and facilitated the setting up of email accounts for the company, in addition I "own up" to assisting the company in getting its message out to those parts of the membership who they still have contact details for. What I have done is of little consolation to those who have been denied service, but perhaps at least allows people to communicate with the company directly in the hope of having their issues dealt with.

It seems likely that the saga will run and run, and as many people have pointed out to me, there will be no winners here, just losers all round and a great deal of sadness.

When all any of us want to know is who really cares about the customers, not with their words but by their deeds. I humbly wish to suggest (actually perhaps "plead" would be better) that the website service should be restored immediately and that the rest of the laundry goes back into the laundry room. Whatever the issues with the company (and boy do we all now know there are issues!) the customer does not care.

Successful Customer Outcomes – The customer does not care about your problems, your supplier's problems, your engineering problems or any other problems you have. The customer simply wants what they expect in the agreed timeframe and to the quality they demand for the price they paid.

Customer Expectation Management – When a company creates an expectation in the market and fails to deliver on that promise, the customer who is king will vote with their wallet.

Moments of Truth – Let's not even go there!

 

 

 

 

 

BPM: When Management Take the Lead

Most observers of Business Process Management agree that to really make the changes required for an organization to see the full benefits BPM can bring the top management team need to take the lead. There are many tales of people dreaming of getting senior management engaged. For one such organization those dreams came true. They like many of you had organized a BPM presentation and workshop to introduce the subject, the speaker was organized and the audience size was agreed, 30 people for the presentation and 15 for the workshop. Then the CEO agreed to send an email out to potential attendees and this was the result;

"As you are aware I am sponsoring the presentation "Why BPM?.. and Why BPM for Us?" The reason I am doing this is my belief that the difference between good and great companies is the systems which are driving them. I believe that the presentation and workshop that follow will give all of us an insight into the management techniques used to analyze and optimize our business processes. As managers this should be a fundamental part of what we do everyday. The reality though is that we get bogged down in day to day details and do not detach ourselves enough to look at the reasons why we do things the way we do them and consider doing them differently. We do not manage business processes, we let the processes manage us.

I am hoping that this presentation will be an eye opener in this area. I am also hoping to increase awareness as well as give you a view on how as a company we want to take our management to a higher level by instilling BPM as a core activity and competence within the business.

I appreciate your commitment to attend and your further commitment to go through the change process which BPM can deliver."

Imagine then if your own BPM initiative was heralded by an announcement like this. But even if it was do you think that the top 150 managers and executives would give up a day of their time, would the CEO be in it for the entire day to listen learn and laugh along with everyone else?

In this case the message was sent by Sayga CEO Ihab Latif to his management team. The result, as you can see from the picture here, was the result. (Taken during my recent trip to Sudan). Not just the top team of the Sayga decided to come along, but so did the top team of their parent company and many of their other subsidiaries. 150 of DAL Group's top management assembled for the day and even agreed to switch their phones off! The event was a momentous occasion for it turns out to be the first time that such a gathering has occurred at the company, and the topic that they were so keen to learn about was BPM and process improvement. What a signal it sent out to the rest of the organization. Management was not leading with words, but was leading by example.

As anyone who has consulted in the BPM arena will tell you this was the opportunity of a lifetime, and boy I knew the pressure was on me to deliver for the CEO and his BPM team who had invited me and to ensure that I fired the group up with the same passion for BPM as Ihab had shown.

There can be no mistaking the vision and foresight of a CEO like Ihab Latif. Consider you own organization and the challenges you may face in getting BPM up on the agenda of top management. How much harder would it be if your company's profits were still growing nicely and you were in the enviable position of having close to a 70% market share. For this is the situation in which Ihab has decided that the time is right for BPM. In conversation with him he explained to me "It is no good waiting until we are on the way down, it is while we are on the top of our game that we need to make the changes. For at that point we still have the time and resources to make sensible, rational choices, rather than having to rush into things in the vain hope that it can save us after the fact." A brave man and a true visionary.

Brave, because we all know it is hard to persuade people of the need for change when all appears to be going well. Visionary, because as well we all know there are all too few CEO's that are willing to both recognize and publicly do something about it.

Despite what may be seen from the array of papers being shown by part of the audience here. I am happy to report that as the day wound down the Sayga and DAL Management teams were indeed all back on the same page. They are a company that I will be watching for in the future, as the feedback at the end was very much, what can we do to help and what are the steps we need to take in order to make sure that we follow up in an effective and timely manner.

Now I can't speak for you, but for me, that is the feedback that tells you that you have really made a difference and got them to "Think Differently"

A few days later we held the two day process workshop for the 15 people, well we thought it would be 15! In the end we were physically turning away people as the number grew to 30. The experiences of that workshop and the details of how some of the follow up is being managed is the subject for another article.

Is IT Outsourcing Right For You?

Whilst the challenge of business process outsourcing may still seem a leap too far for many businesses, IT outsourcing continues to generate much interest among companies in the UK (Europe is still quite some way behind the UK in this area and it is by no means certain that they will make the switch, instead they may simply leapfrog to BPO or beyond).

Perhaps it is the lure of being able to reduce back office costs by around 3%, or being able to contain, what for many, was the out of control upward spiraling IT costs that drove initial interest. Post 2001, however, many companies saw it as a quick way to raise cash – selling of their IT assets and then in effect leasing them back, and reducing headcount of non-core people at the same time.

Whatever the driving factor, there are many lessons learned, that would be clients for outsourcing would be wise to study before making the leap into the relative unknown. Unknown? Yes, for any of the hard lessons are buried deep and it can be hard to get beyond the hype.

Whilst there is much new interest in IT outsourcing, there is also a great deal of antipathy towards it and will be until the scars and the corporate memory of the failures fade, especially among those who tried it early. Many are now realizing that among the coal they sold were hidden diamonds, diamonds which are proving very expensive to get returned.

Of course the papers are full of new and ever greater contracts being awarded and won. But, it is not that long ago that we were reading about contract after contract being terminated with great acrimony all round. Indeed only in the past month we hear that the Inland Revenue are about to attempt, what for many observers could well be, the impossible, to switch providers after years of service. Many will be watching this transition with interest, if it works, then we can look forward to many more firms trying to make similar switches.

A couple of very quick lessons that have come out of contracts to date; there was too much emphasis on short term cost savings and not enough focus on improved quality or delivery of service. Those contracts were written in haste by people who were not really sure what was expected, with the result that many of the savings did not materialize, that there was not enough flexibility and that they did not take into account changes in the business. t To achieve real "step change" in terms of cost savings requires the outsourcing to go "off-shore." Taking outsourcing off-shore though provides other interesting communication and logistic challenges, and don't assume that just because India and Singapore are where everyone else is going you should be too. It is likely that in the not too distant future we will see Russia and Eastern Europe taking centre stage, before perhaps we look towards China.

The most important question to consider when looking at IT outsourcing is just how important technology and systems are to you business? If you think that through the intelligent application of technology that you can gain competitive advantage (or that others may gain against you!) then the probability is that you need to think beyond the original types of contracts, which basically saw firms give up all control over their systems. To outsource software development (assuming that you do not just use packages) makes sense, not many companies want to be in the software development business. To outsource the maintenance of hardware and systems along with the associated helpdesk makes sense. But, to outsource the decisions on what systems you can or will use and what software you may or not run in your environment probably makes no sense today.

Perhaps the biggest mistake that many people made was that they outsourced entire functions or departments, thus not only losing equipment and systems, but the knowledge of the staff that understood the "how" and "why" regarding those systems.

One American company, Volkswagon, had sold off and outsourced their IT functions to another group company Gedas. They subsequently re-hired business analysts to document and own their business processes and analyze why there were using so many different and duplicate systems. The results were pretty astounding; they are reporting 20% reductions in their outsourcing costs, greatly improved quality of service and increased customer satisfaction. While on the other side, Gedas, are having to admit that the new contracts and reductions in costs associated are reasonable, although I am not sure that they like the transparency of the new arrangement or that Volkswagon is taking more responsibility.

As we look to the future we are going to see great confusion in the marketplace. Not convinced about pure cost savings companies will look to ways of increasing quality and productivity, and here is where the cross-over with Business process outsourcing comes in. Of course some will look to business process outsourcing as just a means of taking those back office savings from the 3% to the 5-7% that some analysts suggest.

A recent survey by IDC suggests that over 60% of organizations are looking at Business process outsourcing and that over half of those believe that business process outsourcing is now an accepted practice. They see that Business Process outsourcing helps them create "virtual enterprises", accelerate organizational change, improve processes and to focus on revenue generation opportunities.

It is this mix of trying to sell/buy IT outsourcing contracts and then trying to leverage the Business process outsourcing benefits that will lead to the confusion. The two are not compatible! You can't expect to give everything away and then manage it remotely. You have to decide first and foremost what is important to the business you are in or wish to me in, then work out which aspects might lend themselves to being outsourced, only then can you select which type of outsourcing is appropriate. Something made all the more difficult with suppliers positioning themselves across both camps.

In summary, IT outsourcing is not right for as many companies as people think. Business Process outsourcing is probably a flawed concept and just a new way of trying to make functional outsourcing appeal to a broader audience. The two biggest assets in any business are the people and the processes, in both cases the management and responsibility has to remain in-house. Only "support" tasks/activities/functions should be outsourced and only then when you are able to explain to your potential supplier the processes you wish to have supported and the flexibility you need to be in a position to guide and drive your business

Note: This article first appeared in 2003 on Mark McGregor's series of articles on BPMG.org and in Finance Today Magazine

At What Pace Can You Manage Change

There is no doubt that the pace of change in society as a whole is relentless. This of course means that in business we have to strive to improve the ways in which we operate ever faster too. But what approach should we take to improvement? Continuous Process Improvement as suggested by the TQM approaches of old, Step Change improvements or just go for the "Big Bang" approach"?

This is the question nagging at the minds of many in the area of Business Process Improvement and it all boils down to two points. Firstly, the level of disruption you or your market can take and secondly, what your perspective is. As we shall see strong corporate performance in the future is likely to be based on your ability to manage all three at the same time, both inside and outside your organization.

The pace at which we can manage change will vary according to company culture, people and markets. The challenge will be in understanding and being able to apply such understanding in the smartest way possible.

Perspectives

At a recent conference I found myself in quite a heated debate with another delegate over the difference between a "Big Bang" change and a "Step Change". After a long discussion it turns out that we both did in fact agree with each other, it was just that we were talking about completely different things! They were using "Big Bang" in the context of a project causing a switch from process A to process B and were meaning that "Big Bang" was referring to an absolute switch from A to B at a specific point in time, whereas I was referring to a "Big Bang" as something that completely changed a market, e.g. caused massive disruption in the market – something like Amazon creating a whole new way of buying books via the web and the way in which that affected traditional booksellers.

So as we see, the first thing we need to establish when seeking to make change is whether we are looking at it from a market, company or project perspective. In all cases we still will make use of the three levels of change – incremental, step and "Big Bang". This differentiation is especially important in communicating change. As my debate illustrates we were both arguing the same thing, it was just that we had not put context into our discussion. Process professionals will need to be clear when communicating such changes as this context will have a major bearing on the receptiveness of an audience. As you might expect people will be thrilled by the benefits that might come about by "Big Bang", especially if it affects others and not them! Those same people are also more likely to prefer the idea of incremental change if it involves major changes to the way they work.

Disruption

Whether it is a word that people like to see or not "disruption" is the key differentiator between the three levels of change. Quite simply incremental change implies minimal disruption, step change implies some disruption and "Bing Bang" implies major disruption.

The levels and benefits of disruption desired will depend largely on your perspective. When it comes to your markets the more disruption you can cause your competitors then the more you can gain from the market. Smart companies will be constantly looking at ways to apply disruptive solutions and make it as near impossible as they can for competitors to catch up with them.

But, if you are looking inside a company then whatever the productivity or cost benefits you desire you want to minimize the real levels of disruption from a people perspective and to ensure that you allow any changes to bed down before moving on.

When looking at your customers there is a fine line to be drawn between disruptive changes that they might appreciate, things that make it easier for them to buy or get service from you and those that take them into areas that they are not comfortable with yet e.g. switching everyone to online or telephone banking and doing away with branches.

Incremental Change

It goes without saying that in all aspects of all businesses incremental change is simply a necessity of life. It is simply not good enough to keep doing the same things as we always had. We have to do what we do ever better and we have to deliver ever better products and services to our markets and customers. It should be taken as a "gimme" that the culture in modern organizations should be adapted for such change.

However in reality even such minor change seems to cause disproportionate levels of disruption. This is probably due to mainly to a lack of communication on the part of management. Truly embedding it as part of culture probably requires not much more than providing people with insight, involvement and communication.

Of course from a project perspective what might be seen by a company as incremental may in fact be seen as a major step change to the operators of staff directly associated with it and so when planning a project role out consider whether greater emphasis in the training needs to be placed on gaining commitment from the staff involved.

In automotive terms an incremental change might be typified by the introduction of a new model year version of a car.

Step Change

In automotive terms a step change might be typified by the introduction of a completely new version of the same car.

Big Bang Change

In automotive terms a big bang change might be the introduction of a complete range of gas powered cars.

Rest and Relaxation

The key to managing pace

The primary factor in managing change is people. Whatever your organization you will only be able to comfortably handle incremental change if you don't take into account people issues. In our lives today, we all have to deal with too much change and for many of us the thought of willingly bringing on more change fills us with dread. So in order to be able to manage Step or Big Bang changes we need to invest in people. This investment in people is not merely providing them with communication and training in new methods approaches and processes – although more effort in this area would certainly make it somewhat easier for people to deal with change in work.

Instead it is more a case of working to develop people's receptiveness to change in all aspects of their lives. Employers who made more effort to focus on "training for life" and helped their staff learn the skills to deal with change in their everyday lives, would find those same staff far more willing to cooperate with change in their own organizations. In fact I would go as far as to suggest that staff trained to understand and deal with change would be far more likely to become proactive in changing aspects of their work in order to aid productivity.

However, as we have seen above it is not just your staff you need to think of when dealing with the people issues; you also have to think about your market too. Whatever field of business you operate in the fact is that your end market will be made up of people. In assessing how much change your market can deal with you will need to think about the people that make up your market and how willing they might be to adapt. There is no point in making a "Big Bang" change cantered around technology if your target market is made up of older people, as for the most part they are more than a little wary of all things technological. Witness the fact that until recently, most VCRs were being programmed by children for their parents!

So the real key in managing pace is to ensure that you, as opposed to your competitors, understand how receptive to change your people and markets are. Indeed, proactive companies will be those that actively seek to help those people and thus truly embed the change culture in their companies and markets. For that is what it is really about, changing the culture of a company or market to ensure that it is receptive to change. The more receptive it is then the faster and bigger the changes you can make.

Companies that are able to embed such culture will surely be the big winners in the months and years ahead.

Note: This article first appeared in 2004 on Mark McGregor's series of articles on BPMG.org