The Dilemma of BPM

There are few business professionals today who do not know what Business Process Management is or do not have, at least a general idea of what it’s about. The number of articles and papers being written about BPM has increased at a rapid pace over the past five years to the point one cannot open a business magazine or newsletter without some reference to the tools and technologies that are available to make your organization truly process-centric.

There are few business professionals today who do not know what Business Process Management is or do not have, at least a general idea of what it’s about. The number of articles and papers being written about BPM has increased at a rapid pace over the past five years to the point one cannot open a business magazine or newsletter without some reference to the tools and technologies that are available to make your organization truly process-centric. So now that everyone is talking about it, can we assume that the practice of BPM has become a common, taken-for-granted, and fully institutionalized way of life in the workplace? Do people go to work each day excited at the prospect of finding that next redundant, duplicate or valueless task that can be refined, restructured or even eliminated thereby strengthening and enhancing the value chain and making someone’s job more meaningful? Does the prospect of being the one to find and remove those monotonous, mind-numbing tasks fill our hearts with joy? Sadly, except for those who truly live for the often elusive ‘aha’ moment in their client’s eye, transforming an organization into a process-centric entity is all too often frustrating and even heartbreaking work. Although, an organization may want to experience the benefits of BPM, the road to BPM maturity is not an easy one. Hence, the dilemma.

There have been many success stories told but often the successes are short-lived or focus on only one area of a business. Several years ago I presented a case study at the BrainStorm conference in San Francisco and told the story of an organization that had adopted BPM. This organization identified and modeled its critical business processes and documented them to the work procedure level. It formally incorporated the analysis of the as-is process and the development of the to-be process into its project life cycle as a key deliverable and used the models as a tool for developing test cases. It had even gone so far as to require that requests for new project funding identify which critical business processes would be impacted and what the expected impact would be. I was pleasantly surprised by the audience response which indicated that we had accomplished something that many at the conference were still aspiring to. Sadly, this story does not have a happy ending. While those in middle management were happy to implement the new improved processes within their areas and some were even willing to collaborate with others on some of the more common problem areas and negotiate responsibilities across the functional barriers, senior management support proved to be much more elusive. Eventually, the company merged with another that did not see value in managing business processes other than at the individual work unit level and the BPM strategy and work was abandoned. Unfortunately, from what I’ve observed over the past few years, this was not an isolated case. Introducing BPM to an organization can be difficult, but it is also true that maintaining it may be just as difficult and, possibly, even more so. However, it doesn’t always take such a significant event to undermine and derail business process management in an organization. While cost can be a significant factor, especially if the proposed BPM strategy includes automating processes using a full-function BPMS tool, cost is rarely the real reason for not implementing a successful BPM strategy.

Some of the things that can get in the way of successfully implementing BPM are a(n)

1. lack of understanding what BPM really is. There have been many definitions of BPM over the years and the term has been used in so many different contexts, that it’s not surprising that organizations have trouble settling on a strategy. The answer is research. Identify and understand the different aspects of BPM. Yes, there’s a lot of conflicting information but the basic, proven principles will become evident if you do your homework. Without this understanding, there will be unrealistic expectations and unreasonable goals. You can’t build it if you don’t know what it is.
2. fear of failure. Fear can be a powerful barrier to the success of any endeavor but giving into that fear can result in an even greater failure if your business is unable to successfully compete in its market. On the other hand, using a failed attempt as the reason to abandon BPM suggests a lack of commitment to or a fundamental flaw in the original strategy. The discovery and evaluation of the root cause of the failure, while often painful, should identify what’s needed to succeed.
3. fear of criticism/losing face. It can be risky to have the issues and problems with your processes known by all, especially among your peers. However, without understanding the underlying weaknesses within the value chain, it may never reach its optimal state. If the organizational cultural focuses on punishment rather than reward, on assigning blame rather than eliminating and preventing problems, then BPM will not be embraced and the full benefits never realized. To succeed, egos must be removed from the equation.
4. unwillingness to change. BPM is more than a methodology or a technology; it is a mindset that requires a culture open to organizational change and operational change as well as one that provides an environment that accepts that some failure is part of all success stories. It requires looking past functional boundaries and operating not as a marketing team, or development team, or finance team, etc but rather requires a cross-functional team focused on the successful execution of critical processes. While this sounds foreign to many, the concept of matrix responsibility is not new and has been used for staffing projects for years. The only difference is that a project ends while a process continues for as long as it adds value to the organization.
5. fear of success. Strange as this may sound, there are often people within the organization that will not want BPM to succeed simply because they were not the initiators. This goes deeper than unwillingness to change or even ego. There are still organizations whose culture is based on an unhealthy competitiveness and rewards for success can only be obtained at the expense of others. While some components of BPM may be adopted at a functional level, true end-to-end enterprise-level process management will not be allowed to happen.
6. fear of reality. We’ve all been guilty at some time of acting like the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand. Life can be simpler if the status quo is maintained and if we don’t look too hard we can enjoy our perception of how we think things are no matter how far from the truth it might be. Beginning a BPM strategy that includes documenting and evaluating what is really happening across the organization, will require that problems be acknowledged and dealt with.
7. belief that expensive tools are necessary to get started. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is often based on not understanding what BPM is and therefore making incorrect assumptions. Every journey begins with the first step and if you follow this philosophy, you will plan your BPM journey and then travel at the pace and to the destinations that are best for your organization.

These are just a few of the possible reasons for BPM failing or not getting started in an organization. I’m sure that many of you could easily add to this list based on your own experiences. On the other hand, if you believe that none of these apply to your company, then you’re either working for an incredible organization or, like the ostrich, you aren’t being completely honest with yourself. In either case, you will run into at least one and likely more than one such problem during any effort to adopt BPM within the organization. The only difference between those who will succeed and those who will not, is the willingness to recognize these pitfalls for what they are and the strength to implement the solutions necessary to neutralize their impact on the overall objective.