Meet the Author: Shelley Sweet, renown BPM expert and author of The BPI Blueprint

The BPI Blueprint provides you with a detailed plan of action to create results the first time, inspire leaders of business processes, and build invigorated skilled teams. So if you're looking for a simple, no nonsense, guide to help you develop and manage effective Business Process Improvement projects, regardless of your experience level, you've got the right book.

In this conversation we will explore why Shelly wrote the book, how it's different from other books in the field, what you'll learn from the book, and how you can use its practical guides to make your projects easier and more successful. 

We'll talk about the audience for the book (it's for more than BPM practitioners), and specific topics that can help your BPI projects, including:

Getting Started

• The importance of stating the business need and having it be aligned with the overall strategy and important to the Process Owner for the business process improvement (BPI) project.
• Identifying a Process Owner for each BPI project, even if your company does not have that word in its vocabulary.
• Building a charter because the charter has the critical initial components in one place.

Team Make-Up

• Leaders - There are four leaders that are important for any BPI effort, the Executive Sponsor, the Process Owner, the Project Lead, and the BPM Team Facilitator. 
• Team Resources - The team is made up of 2-6 members beyond the leaders - Subject matter experts, a data person, an IT person, and a Maverick.  Having an ongoing team is important, which some of you might not realize.  It builds synergy for better solutions and ensures successful execution.

Metrics are Important

• The book explains what metrics are important to understand the current situation, analyze the current model, measure the improvements, and monitor the ongoing process. 
• One to two measurement categories are set for each improvement target in the charter and then the team gathers the baseline quantitative values and the Process Owner stipulates the success values.

Keeping the BPI Project on Track

There are many techniques to keep the project on track, and in the interview I enumerate three:

• How to make sure you are selecting the right process to work on for your company or function
• Key ways to get stakeholders involved in the improvement effort
• How to keep you BPI project on schedule - a disciplined approach to the project, which has dates and deliverables established from the start.