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There are many ways to ‘do’ business process improvement projects. It’s best if the company has a methodology from BPM, Lean, Six Sigma, Reengineering or some other methodology. Here’s the one I use, starting with selecting the project and ending with monitoring and sustaining the project; ‘doing’ the process improvement project means completing the section in the middle from Chartering and Staffing to Implementation Plan.

Companies use a number of methods to conduct the BPM project from using a Six Sigma Black Belt as an expert, to having a Business Analyst do interviews with subject matter experts and developing the as is model and to be map, to using different half day workshops for different phases of the process with the appropriate stakeholders. The one I highly recommend and have used with over 100 different processes is a team-based method.

Anyone who has worked on waterfall projects knows the challenges:  The lack of communication between the business users and the developers; the predetermined (and immovable) requirements; the quality issues that are not evident until you are too close to the release date to safely address them; and the frustration of having to wait months (and sometimes years) before your efforts result in a live working solution.

When you make the move from waterfall to Agile projects, you have two choices:  You can choose to either block out your waterfall experience altogether (like any traumatic event!) or you can choose to leverage your experience to make yourself an even more effective Agile team member.  Here are three ways that you can use your waterfall experience to your advantage: 

Process management is at present one of the most often implemented methods of management within organizations (Armistead, Pritchard & Machin, 1999), though it is not a new concept in and of itself. Its foundations have been set as far back as 60 years (Deming) or even perhaps 100 years ago in Taylor's work (F.W. Taylor) (Deming, 1986). Traditional process management assumes that processes cannot be altered by process performers in the course of their performance (Gartner IT Glossary, 2016). Within the traditional model, the performance of processes is tied to the decisions of the management of a given organization, which are reflected in standard process models (often in the form of rules and regulations or procedures). But as numerous research demonstrates (Kemsley, 2009a; Pucher, 2010; Ukelson, 2010; HandySoft, 2012), traditional BPM is useful in 20% or perhaps 30% of processes of the organization.

Editors Note: DBizInstitute is excited to share this article, written by Dr. Setrag Khoshafian, with our community and in advance of his new book release. Keep an eye on our website as we share additional articles in the coming months written by Setrag, as well as a pending Meet the Author webcast to discuss his new book 'How to Alleviate Digital Transformation Debt' expected to air Fall 2021. This article was originally published on CognitiveWorld.com in 2017.