I agree that finding a company that really interests you is important. An even more important question… do their products and services COMPEL you to sell for them??? I’ve been fortunate to have sold for some pretty amazing companies. REALLY loving what you sell is not only good for your head, heart and soul it’s also the surest way to earn more commissions.

Making sure the company has a sales process is good advice but even more important… will sales management and/or marketing allow you the flexibility to do what you know you need to do to close business. Will you have the ability to change or provide input if their current processes are crippling your sales? Can you customize and tailor their systems/CRM/process to support your specific needs?

Is there a good feedback system in place to manage your sales results vs management’s expectations. Are there resources in place to help you manage YOUR territory and it’s unique requirements?

This is a quick and easy read. Good way to validate a gut check.

The tutorials (training icons) are extremely helpful to understand basic workflow concepts.
I think by using this tool you’ll get a much better understanding of how building & defining workflows is completely independent of enterprise or desktop applications. I’d go through the tutorials (they’re short & sweet) before attempting to define a process. The website provides really simple, basic info that you’ll be able to apply to any BPMS.

I’m still learning how to use it but you might just end up using this to build some processes. It’s worth a look and I think you’ll enjoy the playful attitude of the Australian development team that drips from the website. Have some fun!

In the article, he cited Stewart Mader’s words of wisdom include getting back to basics. “What has worked for me, time and time again, is to work my way through an organization team by team, department by department, and find out what day to day problems people want to solve.”

Reasons why BPR project failed by Michael Hammer
“
1) Trying to fix a process instead of changing it
2) Not focusing on business processes
3) Ignoring everything except process redesign [e.g. reorganisation, reward system, labour relationships, redefinition of responsibility and authority]
4) Neglecting people’s values and beliefs [need to reward behaviour that exhibits new values and behaviour]
5) Be willing to settle for minor results
6) Quitting too early
7) Placing prior constraints on the definition of the problem and the scope for re-engineering effort.
8 ) Allowing existing corporate cultures and management attitudes to prevent Reengineering from getting started. [e.g. consensus, short termism, bias against conflict]
9) Trying to make Reengineering happen from the bottom up
Assigning someone who doesn’t understand Reengineering to lead the effort.
10) Skimping on the resources to Reengineer
11) Burying Reengineering in the middle of the corporate agenda.
12) Dissipating energy across a great many Reengineering projects.
13) Attempting to Reengineer when the CEO is 2 years from retirement
14) Failing to distinguish Reengineering from other business improvement programs [e.g. quality improvement, strategic alignment, right-sizing, customer-supplier partnerships, innovation, empowerment, etc.]
15) Concentrating exclusively on design [forgetting implementation]
16) Trying to make Reengineering happen without making anyone unhappy.
17) Pulling back when people resist making Reengineering changes
18) Dragging the effort out [1 year is long enough] “

Simons’s list ( see article for details)

1. Executive business sponsorship
2. Implementation without expertise
3. Running before you can walk
4. Reducing headcount
5. BPM functionally
6. Irrational decisions
7. Choosing technology
8. End-users
9. Adequate support
10. Automation
11. Building point solutions
12. Close-coupled integration
13. Too much control
14. Building a common language
15. Enjoy your success

A few more I’d suggest…

• Identify success criteria for all stakeholders. How will the success of your BPM initiative be determined? by who?
• Make sure managers and other stakeholders have a common understanding of business process management as a business philosophy.
• How will process candidates be nominated, defined, selected?
• Make sure stakeholders understand that a BPM initiative is a journey (that never ends) and that processes continuously evolve over time. There’s no such thing as a perfect or finished process.

While a lot of BPM simulation tools are difficult to learn how to use they’re still incredibly valuable and can provide valuable information including:

• Base line time & costs associated with the ‘as-is’ state of a process
• Rational way to evaluate multiple possible ’to-be’ scenarios
• Data necessary to create a project ROI & payback
• Data necessary to compare actual production data vs expected results in from the process model. Round tripping.
• Presenting the business case to users, stakeholders and management

I don’t think there’s any need for us (BPM vendors) to hype modeling and simulation capabilities. A good analyst that understands the limitations of modeling and simulation can still provide incredible insight into process performance that’s not possible without these tools.

As far as the ‘task time’ issue. It is possible to come up with the expected time for a person to complete a task. For example, a part time administrator that works from 10:00 to 2:00 (with a 30 min lunch) should still only take 10 minutes to fill out a few fields on a form even if they stop to take some phone calls, drink their coffee, etc).  So if a task was sent to them at 3:00 the previous day, and sat in their inbox until they opened their task at 10:01. The ‘step time’ may be 19 hrs & 11 minutes, it still only took them ~10 minutes to complete the task. You do need a way to differentiate between duration of a step vs the actual time it took to complete just the task. In a model you can define these values. To identify the actual task time, you can build clocks/ date stamps,etc. for fields on forms to track time or prompt a user to provide their estimate of what it took them to complete their work. Yes they might lie.

Nobody said that its easy. It’s NOT.

The real question is will the investment in time and development needed to capture the simulation results worth the effort? What’s the least amout of data you need to capture to be able to validate your assumptions & results?

The fact that you already own a BPMS, have been trained and lived through a couple of projects puts you in a unique position to either initiate or support your companies cost cutting (or revenue enhancement) initiatives. The ability to model potential cost cutting solutions, showing the value of the proposed improvements and ability to deliver the project & prove its value after deployment is a skill you want to have during these tough times. Managers are really being squeezed these days to come up with $ savings results. Cash in on your expertise and be a strong contributor. You’ll be helping your company & yourself.

Click here to read the full article , BPM Initiatives Don’t Seem to Be Getting the Axe

Edward Deming

Read the story here

If you’ve run across a remarkable process please let me know. I’ll be glad to include it in future posts.

Sadly, Dr. V died in July 2008. His hospital continues his great work.

See it here

This video was recorded live. NO photo tricks. The real deal.