From the Institute for Process Innovation...
As a result of their research, they have identified critical success factors and implementation approaches for BPM. They say that the most important influences in BPM from a management perspective are total quality management [TQM] and business process re-engineering.
- Organizational and culture change
- Aligning the BPM approach with corporate goals and strategy
- Focus on the customer and their requirements
- Process measurement and improvement
- Need for a structured approach to BPM
- Top management commitment
- Benchmarking
- Process aware information systems
- Infrastructure and realignment
My Thoughts...
As a result of my experiences, I would identify the following as most critical.
'Change' - People hate change. This is one of the biggest killers of enterprise projects. 'Culture change' is one of those changes and employees will resist. Change must be carefully managed and will be greatly helped with 'top management commitment'.
Often, companies implement business process management without 'focusing on the customer'. More attention must be given to the customer - a friend of mine calls this the 'moment of truth'. Companies must not lose sight of the fact that they are in business to sell goods or services to a customer. This is your most important process - all other processes support this one.
'Benchmarking' - If you don't measure your efforts, how will you know if you were successful? How can you identify areas that need improvement? How can you know if your changes worked?
With management support, you have a good chance of a successful BPM implementation. Without management support, your effort will be hit or miss. Big projects like this can use an internal champion - someone who sells the philosophy each and every day.
In this uncertain economy, some companies will fail and some companies will become winners. Effective process management is a key ingredient to success, and companies that manage their processes effectively will be better positioned to be one of the winners.
Your Thoughts...
Has your company embarked on process improvement projects?
Keeping it Real!
I researched the critical success factors of enterprise system implementations in 2008 as part of an academic research paper. The objective was to see if there is a way to use Web 2.0 technology to support these success factors and to use that in the implementation of BPMS solutions such as eXomin XMPro.
One of the definitions for “critical success factors� that came out of the study was “Critical success factors are a limited number of focus areas where satisfactory results will ensure the success of the bigger project, implementation or organisation.�
In an extensive literature and research survey we found the following factors ranked from most important to least. (I’ve only listed the top few).
• Top management commitment and support
• Change management
• Business Process Reengineering and software configuration
• Training and job redesign
• Project team: the best and the brightest
• Implementation strategy and timeframe
• Consultant selection and relationship
• Visioning and planning
• Balanced team
• Project Champion
• Communication plan
• IT infrastructure
• Managing cultural change
Change management, teamwork, management participation and collaboration are common themes in all the studies and literature. Project success is not necessarily determined by technical issues as the research showed that managing the “soft issues� ranks at the top of the list of priorities that need to be addressed during enterprise system implementation.
My personal experience on process improvement projects is that the fear of the unknown aka change management is the biggest challenge that most organisations face.
It is such an important part of any process improvement project that I suggest that it managed as a specific thread in any project across all the project phases to ensure success.
P.S. In my research I proposed a model using Web 2.0 technology to support change management as a critical success factor for enterprise system implementation.
For those interested in the actual research article you can find it hosted on the ReduxOnline website
http://www.reduxonline.com/articles/2010/5/4/critical-success-factors-of-bpms-implementations.html
Cheers
Theo
www.reduxonline.com
Change should always be considered a positive by-product of the processes working effectively. The processes themselves should not be implemented in such a way that they will be disruptive; on the contrary, they should be invisible, but ultimatley bring about significant change (and positive, progressive change).
--Pat