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Hi everyone,
In my last blog (How to get started with Business Process Managemen... - SAP Community) I spoke about good governance with the BPM Governance Building Blocks and what are important points to consider. In this post, I will talk about how to put those building blocks into good use.
The approach to good governance is important. It doesn’t mean that you literally must follow it as you would probably have a project or initiative lined up somewhere that you are attaching to. However, it doesn’t stop you from understanding where you are at a given point in time from a governance perspective. Below is an example of the approach to good governance.
Earlier, I wrote about good governance, and I gave you the building blocks, so you don’t have to define these. But choosing a path is something you need to think about.
Below, I have highlighted the building blocks that I would like to emphasize on so that you can see a practical example.
Let’s break this down a bit more on how to Setup Business Process Management Initiative.
- Establishing the Basics
Here we talk about defining the basics ie. Process Maps, Roles and Decision-Making Bodies.
This is where you focus on fundamentals for ensuring alignment across the organisation and a starting point is to map out the processes focusing on a process hierarchy, standards and methods. If you do not have a process hierarchy and need to get started then you can always leverage best practices as a baseline to start and align the process hierarchy into a Business Process Management Library. Process Frameworks are available by many consulting companies to support. If you have any existing tools that can be leveraged for automation or optimization then this would be advantages.
In addition, it's important to conduct an initial skills assessment to see what resources require trainings. This includes methodology training, continuous improvement with Process Management Lifecycle and the tool training ie. How to model and how to use the existing tool at your disposal. The important thing is to create a culture of continuous improvement which encourage employees to actively contribute through innovative ideas.
- Defining Analytics
Today it is ever increasing that data-driven decision-making is key to good Business Process Management. Process Insights and data mining that support process performance are key analytical capabilities that will help determine a good strategic path and support you on your BPM Journey. Try to use existing tools and best practices so that you don't have to re-invent the wheel. If you cannot access best practices, you can always look at techniques such as the "SMART" method to help you define these analytics.
- Make use of existing Methodologies
So many companies have produced various methodologies that show a systematic approach to process improvement. These methodologies will have their approach to a process management lifecycle and can be easily adopted. You can always tweak the methodology to support your current organisation by making it your own. I usually draw on best practices from BPM frameworks such as Six Sigma or Lean and on occasion I lean onto TOGAF.
- Creating standard Taxonomy that everyone can understand
A good standardization of vocabulary for describing process is important. Even when modelling it's important to model consistently and establish rules and governance around the standardization of data-driven objects. Even a process starts with a "Verb then Noun" while an event starts with a "Noun then Verb”. Not only do these data driven objects require standardization but every other data driven object that is associated to the process. Eg. Roles, Compliance, Std Transaction Codes etc. , should be applied. This is why we like to model in a tool with a database [catalog] behind it so that we can re-use the objects repeatedly. We can also develop analytics around re-using these objects to streamline and optimize further.
Another important topic to mention around Taxonomy is a good naming and numbering convention towards your Business Process Management Lifecycle. This is key to understanding where you are within the process management lifecycle. It is also necessary to support Variant Management and Global / Local Rollout Approaches throughout the implementation when starting transformation journey and implementing an ERP solution. But you can start small and organically grow this throughout your process management lifecycle. In this case, everyone speaks from the same hymn-sheet, and we can easily avoid misunderstandings.
- Perform regular monitoring and fit-gaps against those governance building blocks
Continuous monitoring is key to any Business Process Management initiative. It help make sure that your processes are aligned to your business objectives so that you can realize the expected outcomes. Try to use the BPM Tools in your wheel-house to measure process performance, such as KPI and PPI dashboards. And don't forget to do regular performance reviews and fit-gap's to analyze and identify areas where processes deviate from the standard and prioritize improvement efforts accordingly. This includes monitoring the governance building blocks as these have a level of maturity of their own.
There are so many things to write about and I am keen to hear your thoughts and if you have done something similar. In my next blog, I will write about the Process Management Lifecycle using tooling, stay tuned 😊
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