The lynchpin for a successful BPM implementation is continued focus on the business process. Many times this simple, but key point is forgotten and results in companies taking their eye off the ball. In my first blog, I discussed the importance of understanding your current process. The current state is important as you need to know where you are today before you know where you want to go in the future. After identifying your current state you should transition to defining your future state. In this blog, I will discuss the critical aspects associated with defining your optional future state.

To significantly change and improve your company’s operations much emphasis needs to be placed on future state process definition. As future processes and change at most companies is difficult you should leverage a candidate to lead this effort who is well respected internally and someone who has the authority to make change happen. This individual should understand the current state, have strong knowledge of the big picture and future opportunities, plus be able to champion and sell this vision to all organizations involved.

Once you have your leader identified the team should leverage the results from the current state analysis to pinpoint what works well, what doesn’t, and where you want to be in the future. This analysis should allow you to build upon your competitive advantages while improving your weaknesses. In defining your optimal future state its best to utilize JAD type sessions to develop your future state over time. During these sessions you can collaborate with end users, customers, IT, executives, etc. to ensure everyone is on board and has the opportunity to provide input and gain buy-in. Obtaining feedback from all related parties you can ensure you are developing a long term solution that can be executed by the business, supported by IT, appreciated by the customer, and aligned with the higher level executive strategy. It’s also during this stage when processes should be modeled, simulated, and validated to ensure they deliver the expected results.

When defining your future state processes this should be viewed as a journey and not a quick fix. In many cases, to develop a true long term operational roadmap this should be viewed as a 2-3 year plan. This effort should be supported by executives across the enterprise as a long term solution and one that may take several months to see significant results. To help expedite delivery of visible impacts the long term roadmap should be broken down into shorter phases. Breaking down into phase plus leveraging automation technology will help deliver measurable results faster thus generating much needed momentum.

Dare to be different and think outside the box when creating the future operational vision of your company. Don’t be afraid to challenge traditional lines of thinking and the mindset of "its always be done this way". Innovative processes and the creative use of technology can lead to new competitive advantages and increased market share. Leverage new technology such as BPM to automate manual processes, integrate disparate systems, and enhance existing operational visibility and knowledge of your customer base to leapfrog your competition. Defining your processes in advance as part of a long term strategy will allow your company to be much more nimble and have the ability to quick adapt to changing market requirements.

Continued emphasis on the business process will be a tremendous asset as you develop and build your future operational vision. When implementing new ways of executing business in conjunction with new technology such as BPM it’s critical to keep you eye on the ball as the business process is the most critical component.

BPM stands for Business Process Management so the key focal point for any BPM solution based initiative should always be placed on the process. Unfortunately, this is not always the case as some projects place emphasis elsewhere and essentially take their eye off the ball. As BPM solutions aim to transform the business it’s absolutely necessary that these three fundamental questions be addressed, keenly understood, and continuously communicated to all:

In this first of a three part blog, I will concentrate on addressing current state process analysis.

It’s imperative to have a deep and comprehensive understanding of the current operational processes within your company. This detail lets you know how work is currently executed, what are the problems, and what are the opportunities. From past experience, most companies lack strong understanding in this area. Typically, processes aren’t fully documented if at all and usually understanding of the process resides within only a few individuals.

To be most successful in your BPM implementation, you must clearly define your current state processes and understand present limitations and issues as well as best practices. The best way to do this is to go directly to the end users and observe what they do first hand. Chair sharing with end users provides you the opportunity to see the process, identify how your users interact with the customer, how they interface with technology, etc. As the end users perform the process daily, they are the best resources to learn how the work really gets accomplished.

Once observed, the current process should be formally documented in flow and narrative formats. These documents should then be verified with the end users and management. Also, while documenting, metrics and relevant data should be notated. Information such as current cycle times, average work volumes (daily, weekly, monthly), total headcount, etc. should be captured and included with the formal documentation. This data can later be used as a baseline to track future success following the implementation.

Focusing on your current state processes will set the foundation and understanding for your entire BPM roadmap and related projects. By keeping your eye on the process your BPM solution will have a much higher rate of being successfully implemented and delivering measurable value to your business, your end users, and most importantly your customers.

John T. Wilson is an executive level process improvement leader. He possesses a focused 15 year career delivering BPM and related transformation programs to companies within the Insurance and Financial Services Industry. He teams with business and IT to develop long term operational vision and guides those organizations in implementing the roadmaps to deliver measurable value. Mr. Wilson has expertise or professional certifications in BPM, BPMS, Change Management, and Lean Six Sigma. He is based in Kansas City and can be reached at johntwilson10@yahoo.com.