Share your mistakes – help others
Anders
I have been working in the Business Process Management area for 5 years now. At the start, I worked with the often used Microsoft Visio tool, but when working with more than 200 processes – and above 20.000+ objects, things get just a bit complicated when using Microsoft Visio. For now I am working with ARIS Business Architect – which is a monster for managing your processes. This tool needs an organization by itself to work, which is often forgotten.
Throughout these years I have had some success stories – but I have also had raging battles within the business. These battles can be avoided by doing a few things – best practices to your BPM initiative. I have learnt a few lessons that I’d want to share – lessons I wish I would have known from the start:
For the central participants:
- Send them to the University for the Course covering Business Process Management
- Choose the correct persons for Business Process Management – it’s not a CLERK job
And prior to the Business Process Management initiative, BUYING a BPMS or sending ANY participants to the University, first:
- Produce your Business Case
But what does a Business Case contain when it is covering the Business Process Management area – made with inspiration from the project method PRINCE2:
- Executive Resume
- Rationale for action
- Possibilities
- Expected benefits
- Expected negative benefits
- Time to implement
- Cost of implementing
- Investment – Return On Investment
- Risk
The above mentioned Business Case shouldn’t be longer than 10 pages!
If you are thinking who needs a Business Case or education – you are thinking like I did 5 years ago. BIG mistake – “let’s just produce the processes”, I thought. I didn’t have the buy-in from the executive group stating we are using Business Process Management. That led to some clashes….
Today I have their acceptance. Things are easier – but not a walkover.
And the most important lesson – don’t start with buying a Business Process Management System! Even though it looks nice.
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