Watson says the most important thing in running a BPM pilot is to find and develop measurable results and benefits you can use. The pilot needs to directly address cycle times, unit costs, or some other meaningful information that justifies running the pilot program.
There are a number of elements to the application strategy for BPM projects. The most critical element is the current state assessment. This should not include staff functions, which have little customer impact. Large impact opportunities should be targeted, along with opportunities that are easy to prove.
As you transition from potential to actual opportunities, two or three should be chosen to do requirements gathering, which is a two-step process. First are the high-level overview requirements, the major barriers, risk, politics involved, and so on. You are building the case for management and securing the money for the pilot. The next step is to drop down a level and describe the process depiction on a single page. Usually, according to Watson, someone has already done this and you can have it simply by finding out who has it. The business case is built from this foundation. Next comes the conceptual design and this is where time and energy has to be spent, which means there needs to be some money for this step. Watson says that at this point, it is good to bring one or two suppliers in to help. Firms like Gartner and Forrester can help with this selection process. You need to check with procurement in order to ensure this can be done.
It is important to limit the expectations of what you want the solution to accomplish. Far too often, Watson relates, BPM is sold as a global fix for everything thus ensuring disappointment. Set realistic and attainable expectations.
Finally, translate the technical diagrams into a reference implementation. It shows a business person how the transactions are executed including all processes and their interfaces. This should have little vendor input. You don’t want vendor-driven results which wouldn’t necessary fit your specific business process situation.
Watson said that problems can develop when the pilot is either too small or too big. If it is so simple and obvious that it doesn’t change anything nobody will see the benefits for themselves. The other extreme is choosing a pilot that is so big in scope and to hard to execute in the 90 day window that it can’t be done and the project fails, which hurts everyone and can delay a BPM initiative for two or more years.
The ideal is to pick a pilot that is manageable but makes a significant impact on the organization. You need to share with your business partners what it is you want to change and why. Also, look for application templates. Watson says that from his experience, out-of-the-box BPM implementations are oversold and there is still much heavy lifting that needs to be done. But the application templates, specific to your industry, are good. Modifications will have to be made, but these reference implementations are useful.
The governance process is important. You need to begin the move to having BPM portfolio groups or centers of excellence on specific areas like database, messaging or operations. When the models are in place, this whole process is much easier.
Because of the complexity, Watson says don’t try to sell the whole thing at once, but start with one small piece of the puzzle. Sell that, and then move on.
