Getting a Practical Education in Process Change

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By Dian Schaffhauser

Business Process Change: A Guide for Business Managers and BPM and Six Sigma Professionals by Paul Harmon

Not many institutions of higher education provide courses on business process management (BPM). Two that I'm aware of are offered at Widener University near Philadelphia and the Wesley J. Howe School of Technology Management in Hoboken, New Jersey. Others may be in the works, but they have yet to receive much press. These are traditional classes for which the student receives college-level credit. Going a different direction, last year Boston University (BU) introduced a number of classes in its executive education program on the topic of process management. These are one- to three-day classes that can bring a business professional up to speed crash-course style; you may not get academic credit, but you can get continuing education credits. Paul Harmon was brought on board to teach at BU.

It makes sense that this year Harmon, a newly minted professor of sorts, would come out with a new edition of Business Process Change: A Guide for Business Managers and BPM and Six Sigma Professionals – and that it would so closely resemble a textbook in tone, style and heft.

A Framework for Process Change

The book's focus is to provide a "pragmatic introduction" to the topic of business process change. It tackles this in three phases by:

1. Covering enterprise-level concerns, including how to understand what processes make up your company's operations, business process architecture and how the processes work together, the roles played by managers as well as process centers of excellence, and how to measure process performance.
2. Encompassing process-level concerns: modeling techniques, how to analyze activities and figure out what tasks are performed for that process, how to manage the process on a daily basis, how Six Sigma and Lean can be applied to process change, and how to rebuild a process by following a particular methodology.
3. Drilling down on implementation-level concerns, such as the use of BPM tools. The coverage of tools avoids the obvious problem of becoming instantly dated by minimizing the number of products mentioned. (But even there, the two products chosen should have asterisks added to them. ProVision was acquired by Metastorm. MEGA International hired Harmon for a Webcast it hosted in 2006 – Harmon doesn't mention the potential conflict of interest.)

Overall, this three-phase structure is a useful framework for understanding how to implement process change, especially in an environment where companies are often at the mercy of vendors that promise miracles by virtue of applying a particular BPM suite. No tool can engender change at the core of how a business operates. It can only be an enabler, once the key processes are identified and eventually dissected – and truly understood by those who do them and those who have the power to change them.

The book is a dry read – which may turn off the ordinary business reader seeking to understand how BPM can be applied within his or her organization. That's where the textbook flavor comes in. There are plenty of citations to authors and materials published previously, and the book begins with a hefty history of business-oriented process change. The definition of process doesn't appear until page 198: "A process is a bounded set of activities that are undertaken, in response to some event, in order to generate an output."

How BPM Works in the Real World

My suggestion: In edition three, shove the history into an appendix and immerse the reader immediately into the promised pragmatic matters – as illustrated by several anecdotal tidbits the writer throws in. For instance, one story spells out how, if a process is to succeed, you need to be sure the participants' goals and rewards are in line with the goals of the process:

"We remember working on a call center process where the management wanted agents to try to cross-sell hotel stays to people who called to ask about airline flights. One group worried that, in spite of training and posters in the call center, few hotel stays were being sold. A closer examination showed that the call center supervisor was rewarded for keeping the number of operators at a minimum… The time operators talked to customers was carefully recorded and operators that handled more calls in any given period were rewarded and praised. Those who spent more time on their calls – trying to sell hotel stays, for example – were criticized. There were no compensating rewards for selling hotel stays, so predictably no hotel stays were being sold."

The book includes three case studies, an extensive one on Boeing's GMS Division, another on Nestle and a third on Chevron. But the best case study is based on a company that does not exist. Chapter 14, "The Ergonomic Systems Case Study," walks the reader through the process change of a fictional company, an organization that is sure to have elements – people or situations – that each of us will recognize from our own companies, past or present. Because it includes plenty of diagrams and charts, as well as explanatory text, the case study provides a useful step-by-step layout for how any company might approach the challenge of process change.

Figure 1: Ergo Chair Order Process Analysis and Improvement Worksheet

Other Flavors of Process Improvement

Another useful aspect of the book: It casts a wide net over the topic of process improvement, dedicating a chapter to the basics of Six Sigma and other methodologies, Lean and the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ).

At first, I thought the coverage of Six Sigma was filler content. But the following chapter, chapter 13 (in which a process redesign methodology is explained) laid it out for me: Just as Six Sigma has its DMAIC methodology, around which to frame one's approach to performing Six Sigma (and understanding it and getting "certified" on it), so BPM needs a methodology. Up until now, it hasn't really existed. Every consultant in the business approaches BPM with a custom methodology. But none has had the "grab" to attract widespread acceptance. Perhaps Harmon's will, with the following five steps:

1. Understand the project
2. Analyze business process
3. Redesign business process
4. Implement redesigned process
5. Roll out redesigned process

For each stage, the writer provides the major activities in chart form, as well as who within the process group or wider organization is responsible for them.

Need an easy way to help remember it? UARIR doesn't exactly roll off the tongue like DMAIC does. Maybe one of these mnemonics will help:

• Under A Really Icy Roof
• Underestimating A Really Impossible Rogue

(I came up with them because Harmon didn't.)

What's Not to Like?

Two chapters especially stand out in the pragmatic category for me. Chapter eight, "Understanding and Scoping Process Problems," is quite practical, full of simple examples that explain the concepts of mapping out a given process and analyzing process scope. It covers in detail what problems might surface in a given set of processes that could influence the output, whether those are day-to-day management problems, problems with controls or something else. Chapter nine explains the basics of modeling processes, including a quick education in the symbols that are typically used to lay out a process in picture form.

Also, I want to applaud another aspect of the book. This is the only text I've ever read specifically on process change that recognizes the value of outsourcing in a BPM endeavor. At each step, the author points out how contracting work to a third-party can play into an organization's business strategy.

Overall, Business Process Change provides a thorough education in the practical application of BPM. If you're the type of reader who can wade through extraneous matters to get at the heart of the how-to, then this book alone can prepare you well for process change within your organization. You'll find plenty of worksheets, diagrams, tables and charts that provide examples to the text. If you have expertise in Six Sigma, you'll find comfort in Harmon's approach to the topic. He understands the way Black Belts think and the jargon they use. If time is of the essence and you can't carve out the 30-40 hours this book will require for careful reading, then perhaps one of Harmon's Boston University classes would better suit you. 

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