BPManagement has a learning curve with clients

In the BPM groups today I noticed a trend in discussions… the lack of understanding from clients the importance of enterprise strategy in defining processes and how strategy designed processes create value for the customer and reduce cost and effectively manage risk.

We are brought in to fix something that is broken, without the goals and objectives of the enterprise we end up wrapping duck tape around a still broken process. As professionals it is our responsibility to not only design good processes that are based on corporate goals and objectives to improve performance, we also shape strategies that guide their purchases. In order to be successful we have the professional responsibility to educate our clients on the recursive relationship between processes aligned with enterprise strategy and the success of the organization. Let me take a few steps backwards. During the sales presentation we need to communicate not just the benefits of Business Process Re-engineering & Management but the real ROI is with by-in at every level. As a result the first task would be to meet with senior management collectively to introduce the goals and objective of the BP task. From there you have the opportunity to meet individually with all managers, allowing you to capture strategy at the level of executive and below. As you develop your models show them off, show them to the managers, IT architects and senior staff. Let them see how the strategy is being tied at every level in organization. This is like a JAD session for process improvement.

Now if there is not an enterprise strategy and everyone is clueless, bow out gracefully.