Showcasing Your BPM Solution, Part 2

In a previous post I said that it should go without saying that you have to showcase your initial BPM project if you want to drive adoption across the entire organization.  I focused on metrics.  Although other areas of the business might not understand the functional process implemented, they will find interest in how you are measuring the process for improvement.  This can correlate to other areas of the business as well.

Today I want to address the folks out there who don’t feel comfortable showcasing their project because they don’t have the biggest ROI numbers yet.  Maybe it has only been in production for a couple of weeks.  What else can you focus on?

The Before and After

What did the process look like before the solution and how has it changed?  Were there lots of manual hand-offs, faxes and emails?  Did participants have to log onto four different systems just to review a work item? Was there inconsistency in the way people executed the process?  How much time did managers spend building and running reports before status meetings?  What does it look like now?

How Did You Get There?

So you implemented a process across a couple of different departments, integrated to some back-end systems, and managers have real-time status reporting.  How?  Tell them who was involved. One person that really knew the process (Jane), two analysts from the business (Sally and Bill), and one IT guy (Jim).  From design to roll-out it took 110 days and we had 4 scheduled playbacks with the business.

I think most people will agree that process improvement and BPM projects are iterative.  You can’t improve every process in an organization right at the start.  To wring the most value out of your process initiatives you have to focus on small wins first, so that other arms of the organization jump onto the BPM wagon.  That being said, it becomes clear why it’s so important to showcase your solution.  After you complete the initial phases of your project, other departments will want to see the results and understand how it works.  Share your knowledge to ignite BPM enthusiasm across the organization.

Questions? Comments?  Drop us a note below!