 |
Business Performance Excellence |
 |
 |
Menu | |
News & Events |
As Process and Change Management Professionals we are continually seeking to change the mindsets of people in our organisations from being predominantly functional based to being more process-oriented. More and more, it seems, there is acknowledgement of the importance of 'process-thinking' as a pre-requisite for successful organizational transformation. This, I hope, marks a shift in the BPM community from the traditional focus we have had on enabling technologies, frameworks and improvement methodologies to the softer-side of the practice (which is actually harder!). To support this view, here is some evidence from my own recent experience and that of others: Definition of BPM Gartner continues to evolve their definition of BPM and their associated Hype Cycles reflecting a move from a predominantly BPMS view of a few years ago to more of a 'management practice' view today. BPM Vendors are also beginning to focus their whitepapers on the business strategy, alignment and culture and acknowledging these as pre-requisites for BPM(S) success. Conferences At the end of the recent BPM Conference that I chaired in Melbourne, we ran a 'question and answer' session with all the attendees. In response to a question on what are the skills and attributes of a successful BPM practitioner I chose to go around the room and get one-word responses to the question table-by-table. The responses were in the order of a 3 to 1 ratio in favour of 'soft skills' to 'technical skills'. So skills like "ability to influence and communicate", "leadership", "persistence", "passion" were cited more than "methodology", "project management", "technology capability" and the like. Presentations At the same conference, we had a number of presentations dedicated to the topic of organizational change management. This topic has traditionally been a dot-point or at best a slide or two in methodology-based presentation. We also had some innovative 'storytelling' presentations that focused more on mindset then they did on method. Articles Here are some articles that reflect this BPM Culture ideal. The Process Culture - An important ingedient to a successful BPM recipe  from the ITtoolbox Blogs Process and/or/Versus Culture: How about a Culture of Process? from ebizQ's BPM in Action BPM and Culture from Imre Hegedus Consulting Resources So it seems that the BPM pendulum is swinging from the IT domain, through methodologies, the business domain, and into the soft realm of people and change management. Ideally, BPM should address, if not encompass, all of these things. This reflects my tendency to refer to BPM practitioners as "Process and Change Management Professionals" which is non-specific about being 'business' or 'IT' and gives equal weight to the softer-side of the practice. Business transformation happens at an organizational culture level but can only be realized and sustained through making paradigm shifts happen employee by employee - at the individual level. Over time, a 'tipping point' may be reached where the organisation can be legitimately labeled as having a process culture. |
| © IMRE HEGEDUS 2006 |  |
BEAVERDESIGN |