What Skills are Needed for BPM Success?

One of the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) on BPM involves the skills needed for BPM success. While most people understand the importance of modeling skills, there’s a lot more involved in succeeding with BPM and it goes beyond skills or aptitude to mental models or attitude.

Earlier this year, Gartner identified 15 skills critical to the success of any BPM project. As depicted in Figure 1, they elected to group these skills into three types of critical competency: transformational, operational and technical.

Figure 1. Top 15 Business Process Management Skills[i]

While the list in Figure 1 within the framework of “transformational, operational and technical” competencies is surely a useful one to examine, it may also be worthwhile to consider other perspectives based on factors such as key practice areas and the core activities needed for success with BPM.

As outlined in the BPMInstitute.org article What is BPM Anyway, BPM is a management discipline used to improve and manage business processes, and includes the use of skills such as process discovery, process mapping and modeling, metrics, key performance indicators (KPI), collaboration, decision-making and process monitoring.

Applying the BPM discipline successfully requires becoming adept in the following nine practice areas:

• Aligning Processes with Business Strategy,
• Discovering and Modeling Processes,
• Measuring Processes,
• Analyzing and Benchmarking Processes,
• Harvesting Policies and Rules,
• Improving Processes,
• Managing the Changing of a Culture,
• Governance — decision making, and
• Deploying Technology

The set of skills needed to succeed in these key practice areas include:

1. Systems thinking
2. Process discovery
3. Process modeling
4. Facilitation skills
5. Performance measurement
6. Process analysis
7. Process design
8. Rules and decision management
9. Change management
10. Governance and establishing centers of excellence
11. Project management
12. Technical skills (BPM requirements gathering, designing user experience, optimization and simulation)

The learning path established by BPMInstitute.org and the full list of BPM courses offered reflect the Institute’s experience in building knowledge and skill development in these key areas.

The above practice areas also form the framework for BPMInstitute.org’s certification exam. In order to test that the candidates have the needed BPM skills, the certification exam measures six areas of knowledge that BPMI defines as requisite. Furthermore, some skills have more relevance than others for this level of certification. The examination provides addition emphasis on those areas by assigning more questions on the exam. This is the question coverage map for the exam:   

1. Process Concepts 15%
2. Process Modeling 20%
3. Process Improvement (Analysis & Design) 15%
4. Process Measurement 15%
5. Process Technologies (BPMN, BPMS) 20%
6. Process-oriented Enterprise (Roles, Governance & CoE) 15% 

Another useful perspective to consider is to examine the skills needed over the life cycle of a BPM project.  Over a decade ago, Dr. Michael Hammer popularized the phrase “think big, start small, work fast” as a prescription for success with business process redesign in his article on The Superefficient Company (HBR, 2001). To put this principle into action, BPM professionals need to select the best candidates for process improvement by conducting an organizational assessment, effectively define BPM projects, measure and analyze current performance, redesign business processes, implement change, and create the environment for process management. When one takes an activity perspective on the skills needed for BPM, the sequence of key skills and the frequency of repetition become clearer. This does not detract from the skills identified by using the competency framework in Figure, it simply represent a different perspective. In this view, as Figure 2 depicts there are 16 critical skills, some of which are mentioned repeatedly (marked with an *).

Figure 2. Critical Business Process Management Skills

While many organizations invest in process modeling training for their people, there is need for more attention to other skill areas such as change management, facilitation, customer experience, benchmarking and governance. BPMInstitute.org offers a broad cross section of <training courses> that address the majority of skills needed for BPM success. In addition, these courses also address many of the pitfalls to avoid as depicted in Figure 3 below.

Figure 3. Pitfalls to Avoid in Business Process Management

Examining the major pitfalls reveals the importance of attitude as well as aptitude in BPM success. An enduring focus on what matters to customers and ongoing attention to the human side of change are just two of the critical “soft side” factors.

The importance of leading process change also merits attention. Some of the key considerations that BPM professionals may wish to emphasize in this respect are:

• Looking at the business from the outside-in, from the customer’s perspective, as well as from the inside-out.
• Linking BPM programs to strategic issues (e.g. market share, growth, customer satisfaction, cost reduction, etc.)
• Addressing  both facts and feelings
• Using simple, visually gripping support materials

Success with BPM is a matter of building competence. Moving up the competence curve involves both demonstrating the real value of BPM in financial terms and shifting management attention to a process based view of business. Have you considered the skills needed for BPM competence and how success also demands improved collaboration across departments?

Finally, we encourage readers to access The BPM Skills Self-Assessment Tool. This tool can be useful as an aid in assessing an individual’s current skill level and the current skill level of a Team.