Frederick Winslow Taylor is known as the father of scientific management.

In the late19^th Century, FWT studied the gainful organization of work within the corporation, from a structured, ordered perspective.  In his view, there were two types of people engaged in this endeavor. Those who do the work, and those who manage the work.  Put simply, the work of the workers is to do. And the work of the managers is to think.  Managers do not work; they control work.  And workers do not think, they do.  Managers = Brains. Workers = Brawn.

Here is a Taylor quote from Wikipedia that nicely illustrates the viewpoint:

“I can say, without the slightest hesitation, that the science of handling pig-iron is so great that the man who is physically able to handle pig-iron and is sufficiently phlegmatic and stupid to choose this for his occupation is rarely able to comprehend the science of handling pig-iron.”

Now don’t get me wrong.  I have a lot of respect for FWT’s pioneering efforts in the field of business theory and as a management consultant.

But now, BPM, a Three-Letter-Acronym, has killed him dead.

How did BPM inflict this fatal blow?

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I recently attended a Lean Six Sigma conference. It’s always interesting to hear evangelists from various industries in different countries sharing their experiences with improving efficiency, effectiveness, and moving towards a culture of high performance and continuous improvement.

It never fails to surprise me how dogmatic many are about their particular flavor of methodology. Within the Lean Six Sigma camp there are Six Sigma purists who will partake of no Lean. There are Lean gurus who speak not of Six Sigma. Then there are the fusionistas, who happily take the best bits of both. (Personally, I’m willing to utilize any tools that get results within a structured framework.) Some proudly advertise their allegiance, while others refuse to be pigeonholed and embrace a more neutral term such as Process Improvement or Operational Excellence. As a pragmatist I tend towards the latter – in my experience, for every person out there in a position of influence who is pro a “Big M” methodology, there will be another who is equally (or more!) anti that same methodology. So why provoke resistance to change over a mere label? Well, that’s just my two cents!

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I’d like to share with you a little set-piece that I often use with clients as a learning aid.  I call it (rather unimaginatively!) my “Google Maps exercise” and it makes some very neat points with regards to process decomposition and modeling best practices.

A common challenge I encounter is that people get bogged down with figuring out the level of detail they should go to. This isn’t because of the lack of a definitive standard for process levels – I think the root cause of the difficulty is simply that process modeling is not an exact science.  In fact, much of it is quite subjective.

So, the exercise usually goes something like this…

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Do not be alarmed. This post is not an instruction manual on the finer points of BPMN. For those of you who wish to indulge, this should provide you with many hours of entertainment.

Rather, I want to reflect upon a few thoughts about process modeling, and share some practical hints.

And whilst Blueprint is my favorite modeling tool in existence, the following comments are equally applicable whether you’re using sticky notes, a white board, or the back of an envelope. (I’ve also seen bits of string used quite creatively!)

Process modeling is a process in itself. Therefore, like any other process, we can aim to improve its efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility. So instead of approaching modeling in an ad-hoc manner, how can we make it more repeatable, reduce the cycle time, raise quality and customer satisfaction?

To me, process modeling is fundamentally an exercise in communication. A model may be generated in order to share information between members of a project team about the way the process currently works. Or to share information between the project team and the stakeholders. Or with vendors. Or between a business expert and a business analyst. Or a business analyst and a developer. In all of these instances, the process modeling is not meant to be an end in itself, but a means to identify, verify, and inform interested parties about the way the process is, could or should be.

If we accept the model as an abstraction of reality, a visual representation of various process attributes, then the question arises not so much as to whether a process model is right or wrong, but, like a conversation between two people – is it effective or ineffective? Does it convey useful meaning to the intended audience, or not? A meaningful communication forms a sound basis for action – but a confusing, misleading or ambiguous one cannot be expected to yield a high quality outcome. Garbage in, garbage out.

How then, to create effective, clear, useful communication about a process?

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Ed.: This is the fourth and last post in a series of Q+A sessions focusing specifically on playback session best practices, with our in-house expert, Kris Komassa. See our previous coverage here.

Anyone besides the BPM team, subject matter experts, and business managers that you’ve had involved in a playback session? Who do you usually suggest be present?

It varies.  I’ve had CIOs CEOs, end users, it runs the gamut.  Ultimately, you want to have a true cross-section of the organization present.

I always like to have my core project team and IT staff involved of course, but again when it comes to the playback, a diversity of roles and perspectives is important. For example, one bank we work with has a very diverse set of processes, so within their playbacks I have had a bank teller, a bank CSR person, a bank loan officer, a bank loan manager, an executive approver and then the core project team on top of that.

For me if you follow that process from a linear prospective, you need to have someone who can weigh in on every part of the process.  I like to have people in the room to say “yes” or “no” each step of the way — and in that sense you need to think long and hard and do your best to anticipate the questions that are going to be asked at every stage. You learn over time, of course, too, and I’m always happy to talk in greater depth about specific industries or situations, just leave a note in the comments.

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BPM project durations are usually measured in weeks-to-months – not months-to-years. With this velocity, you can’t afford to get stuck in the rut of traditional “define & design” techniques based on multiple rounds of 1-on-1 analysis meetings. In fact, I’d go so far as to label this as rework which increases a project’s cycle time!

I’m an enthusiastic supporter of the workshop format, where not only speed, but also quality, visibility and buy-in are greatly enhanced compared to the 1-on-1 approach. You could say it’s a way of applying process improvement methods to the way we carry out process improvement itself (or “PI²” as I like to call it).

In a previous blog, I shared some secrets of success for the “2 x 6 workshop“. One of the critical success factors is utilizing a facilitator – “an impartial, objective analyst to run the session, keep it crisp and in-focus”. Let’s dive into that a bit more. Why do we need the facilitator role, how does it add value to the process of process improvement, and how can it be done well?

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Getting started with BPM makes many people nervous, and for good reason.  Change can bring uncertainty and fear – and hence often generates resistance.  In response to this type of internal skepticism and unrest, I frequently recommend conducting a 2×6 workshop when initially analyzing your processes to engage and excite the people who live the processes every day.

But before I tell how to run a 2×6 workshop, I would like to put it in context:

BPM is first and foremost a discipline to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and agility of a business, from a process viewpoint, to deliver real business value.  That being said, you have to do a certain amount of rewiring PEOPLE and your organization before you can start worrying about the software.

To really drive BPM in your organization, you need strategies in place to make the shift a bit easier for your workers to consume.  People don’t want change to be forced upon them.  But if you present them with an opportunity to help drive that change, then they can become fully invested as participants who help shape their own future.  So when you begin your initiative and need to take stock of where you are, you do some process analysis.  How do you get started?

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By Rod Favaron, CEO Lombardi

I get asked about market consolidation all the time. Customers, prospects, industry analysts and investment bankers want to know how companies like Lombardi can continue to thrive in the face of the relentless consolidation drive by IBM, Oracle and SAP. The answer is simple: innovation. Markets always consolidate. That very fact creates opportunity for the companies that are able to innovate. Consolidation and innovation actually feed each other. How?

Let’s look at consolidation. How does it benefit the end customer of software? The promises are many: better integration, comprehensive functionality, simpler management and streamlined procurement. That last point – streamlined procurement – may be the only promise delivered to date.

In a recent article in CIO Magazine, Martin Veitch commented – “IBM and Oracle seem to be in a race to build up the world’s largest miscellany of enterprise software programs,” and “customers continue to have faith until the next procurement round. However, a lot of people are unimpressed by the levels of integration and R&D that follow the incessant deal-making.” Within Lombardi’s own Business Process Management market, Oracle’s acquisition of BEA and the resulting announcement of a combined BPM strategy got similarly low marks from industry observers.

The end result is that customers wait many years – and still do not get products that can solve their immediate problems. They get roadmaps for rationalization and consolidation. They get long lists of product lines and product names. Take Oracle as an example. They announced the Fusion roadmap in 2005. At that time, oil was $50 a barrel and the housing and banking sectors were clicking along at historic levels. The world market has changed dramatically since then, but Oracle is still trying to deliver the original Fusion roadmap. And now, that roadmap is muddled again by the BEA acquisition.

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When your organization’s products are intangible, like an investment CD or a retirement plan, it’s sometimes difficult to identify waste or inefficiencies in your business.  Today I want to discuss some of the unique attributes of financial services organizations and how to look at these businesses through the prism of process to find problems that are often overlooked.

Financial services often tend to think of themselves as very different from other types of organizations.  For example, many firms have organically grown along the lines of “functional silos” based on different types of product, reinforced by separate IT applications supporting these product categories. Yet, every organization shares similar horizontal functions such as human resources, finance or accounting.  These functions alone offer more than enough opportunity for delivering business value through a BPM initiative.  But, I promise there’s more!

Financial services companies are generally very IT-intensive, and open to new technology and approaches to problem solving.  However, it can be difficult for these organizations to determine which solutions fit their needs the best – or even which problems to address – since their products are not tangible like a car or any product that you can hold in your hand.  If you can’t see your product, it can be difficult to see your problems like “defects” and “waste”.

Furthermore, regulatory monitoring & reporting requirements such as Sarbanes Oxley and Basel 2 have weighed heavily on this industry. Combined with global economic factors such as the credit crunch, there’s huge pressure on financial services companies to increase visibility, transparency and controls whilst reducing costs and simultaneously improving customer service.

In steps BPM…

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Ed.: This is the third post in a series of Q+A sessions focusing specifically on playback session best practices, with our in-house expert, Kris Komassa. See our previous coverage here and here.

Of course there is never a “finished” process. How often do you typically use a playback session to fine-tune a process that is up and running? How often do you do this, once a quarter? Twice a year? Can you give us a few examples?

We have a customer in Dallas that is unique because they have a very wide sales force who are all remote and need a number of approvals before they can close any business. We finished a project with them just a little over a year ago, and we’ve since done a number of other engagements on top of that original project, so the work is more or less constant. They’re a good example of fine-tuning and building on top of a first project.

The way that I always start off the new work with them is by having them do a playback for us to see where we are, and then have that segue into a talking session around what it is that they want to see or what new work they want to have done for them. So, we start with what we have already, instead of starting with what we ultimately want. This helps to create that delta between what they have today and what they’re looking for down the road. They’re a very active customer and good to work with for this reason – each new project flows naturally and organically from the ones that have preceded it. I’d recommend this way of working from one process to the next for everyone.

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