Plan to change your mind

I posted a question to various LinkedIn groups with “What is your biggest frustration with BPM?”. The idea was to get some users’ perspective on processes in their organisations. I got quite an interesting reply for the CEO of Planwell, Matthew Barnier, that triggered some ideas.

One of his comments was “Deliver what is needed just in time and account for change – but manage change, design to account for it, deliver “good enough” to account for the evolution”

We often see analysis paralysis where customers want to define all combinations, permutations, exceptions and business rules upfront that they are so fatigued after that exercise that the processes stay in document form and never gets digitised in process automation tools like XMPro. It is a pity because the real benefit is in making processes executable.

Processes should never be static. They should be designed for change as new process requirements “emerges”. Process management is continous discovery journey that requires an adaptive process approach. Start off with basic processes that add value quickly and improve them as the real requirements emerges. The benefits of “getting it started” far outweigh the perceived benefits of “getting it perfect”. Real process performance improvement can only be leveraged by management action.

One of his other comments was that if you can’t create a solution in 90 days or less for a specific process problem, you are doing it wrong. I have to agree but more on that in a next post.

I’m typing this from my iPhone and I am getting close to my bus stop. Let me quickly press this (read more on mobiles for process management on the eXomin website) before I miss my stop.

What are your biggest frustration with business process management?