Sense-Research-Respond patterns

In recent discussions and a number of projects we have done, we see an emerging pattern: Sense-Research-Respond.

Typical situation: the need to respond to an ever increasing number of alerts/signals/data, but to do this as cost effective as possible.

A number of business situations:

- An organisation knows it can and should detect signals of fraud by clients and internal workers and respond to it, but is trying to find an efficient way

- Inspection agencies that need to cut cost, and are moving to more risk-based inspections instead of trying to do 100%. But: how to pick the right risk-situations and tune the selection process, based on insights?

- Organizations that see the enormous growth in social media, and are finding references to their products and organization (positive and negative) and want an innovative but economic way to deal with these developments

In the last years we have seen the following pattern for these type of business situations:

The key ingredients:

- The capability to sense: to filter and detect data/events (and when needed correlated ones), that need attention. Usually driven by business rules ("risk profiles"), and easily tuned. The typical technology: Complex Event Processing, based on technology from for instance Tibco, IBM.

- The capability to research: advanced tooling, such as Palantir, SAS, to further research a certain situation, link it to other earlier events and to support decision making: will we need to react to this,and give it priority over other signals (as resources and time is constrained)

- The capability to effectively handle the situation, efficiently coordinating people in own and possibly other organizations. Sometimes this can follow pre-defined structured processes, but often, as situations can differ greatly, might require more flexible case management solutions. Technology such as Pega, Cordys, BeInformed, IBM.

And we have learned that technology is mature enough to handle these situations.

We have even developed a number of offerings around it, such as our "Grapevine" offering for social media. See here for a short video. Another is our Alert offering for Fraud detection.

Fascinating times. My lesson: don't ignore the growing available data-volumes (and become obsolete). Don't drown (and go under). But conquer in a smart way to use effectively. The ability to respond is a critical capability in modern organizations.

The Future Process-App: think Navigator

Do you remember the time that we did not have navigators installed in our cars?

Two typical situations I remember:

1. Driving with my wife, on vacation, where she was frantically trying to understand the map, while I was stressed out, since our next exit might be the one, and the next one was 30 km ahead.

2. Coming well prepared with a Google Map's driving instruction, only to find out that at step 23 there was a roadblock, making the rest of the procedure unusable. (And the frustration that we saw beautiful other route possibilities, but were afraid to divert from our Google route).

Both situations show a remarkable similarity to the current support of IT-solutions for knowledge workers:

1. No process support at all, just data. IT solutions that are great at storing and providing information (system of record), but not helping to plan and coordinate activities. For the knowledge worker, this means that he or she needs to plan and coordinate actions with other means, such as e-mail, spreadsheets, notes, etc. And for managers it make it quite difficult to get an oversight of the work in progress (who does what, what is still ahead?)

2. Solutions that provide support for activities (systems of engagement), but only using a very rigid procedural template, that locks the knowledge worker in : current workflow solutions. For the knowledge worker, this often means: tweaking the workflow (filling in false data to get access to the right functionality later in the process) or turning to shadow systems for activity management, just to be able to serve the customer request correctly. Both choices lead to incorrect or incomplete management information for the manager.

Based on the projects we are doing for various customers, a new paradigm is dawning:

The navigator as metaphor for the modern process-driven knowledge worker IT-solutions!

Key features:

- It provides real-time situational awareness (where are you? Where do you want to go? What are possible routes? Where are the traffic jams, possible roadblocks? What traffic (business) rules limit your choices?

- It provides goal-driven suggestions, but the knowledge worker can still decide to change route, and the system will re-establish other suggestions. It gives the right balance between standardization and freedom, driven by business policies

- It's easy to use

That's exactly what our Advanced Case Management solutions are providing: a navigator for goal-driven case handling.

BPM and ERP - caution

I see a number of blogitems on BPM and ERP appear.

A quick mindshare, based on some painful experiences (and a bit of bluntness, I admit)

So you have this big ERP system (or maybe even multiple). And you experience repeatedly how difficult it is to move from a datacentric to a agile process centric application view.... Adapting processes is a pain? UI is outdated? Connecting to eCommerce frontend a nightmare?

Then a BPMS supplier comes in, and sells you this great new layer of technology.

Beware....

Some simple questions:

- You invested heavily in the ERP system and now it is full of user screens.

Are you really going to rebuild (duplicating) all of them in a BPMS?

- Your ERP system is full of business rules

Are you really duplicating many business rules in your BPMS/BRMS?

- Your ERP system has workflow capabilities (that might even be growing in maturity)

Will you really move all workflow capability to the BPMS?

You might end up with an even bigger monster....

And another lesson: if you will deliver the project, and need to work together with the ERP vendor or other service partner, responsible (making money) of the ERP system - beware of politics...

Article published: 4+2 processmodel

Just published a (dutch) article in BPM Magazine of April 2011:

The 4+2 Process model, a framework for better understanding of process area's you will need to cover in analysis and design.

Artikel 4+2 procesmodel v1.0

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BPM: Regressing and forgetting 60 years of management thinking

Around 2005 I first got involved in a project with some new innovative technology: Business Process Management (as we called it back then).

As business analyst, I was part of a team that also consisted of a number of developers.
And till today, I remember the look in their eyes when they started to understand the possibilities and implications of this technology. And the same look I saw in the business manager's eyes. And I did not like it.

The developers look: "Wow, before I could only drive the behavior of computers, but with this, this.... I can program people" (I won't go into the finer aspects of the developer psychology, including the way nerds are treated - hum ignored - by the cool business people - BPM as revenge!).
The manager's look: "Wow, so I get a process-driven application, which pushes my people's behavior, and gives me near real-time insight". (As most managers have had unsecure childhoods, BPM was the perfect way to regain control).

And the uneasy feeling I got, was also because at that stage as was reading lot's of management material, studying the history of management. The look in the eyes of these people felt "industrial revolution" or "Taylorian".
Interesting - a new innovative technology, that takes us back to the thinking of 80 years ago - ignoring all the developments in management thinking - empowerment, self-steering teams, work as social dimension, etc.
And it let back to the notion of "first process, than people".

Oh, by the way - the project failed. Insufficient user acceptance.

My lesson: Don't confuse the ends with the means. Process is not the goal - the goal is to support people collaborating and adding value to company and stakeholders. And process can be an element in helping these people structure and support their work. Process is (Capital) A means (and unfortunately often a barrier in many organizations...)

(This post also posted on http://www.noprocess.org/)

Proud to present: Capgemini's whitepaper on Case management

See http://bit.ly/h39vAp

Understanding management's hesitance towards BPM

Sometimes I get the feeling that BPM is a solution, still trying to find a problem to solve.
And I often hear BPM-specialists complain that "management does not support BPM".
Our research in the Dutch Market (this is a sneekpeek, watch this space, and Capgemini for more publications in a number of weeks!) suggests that BPM-specialists need to dare to apply a key BPM-principle on themselves: "Outside in thinking".
If management is the customer, why aren't they convinced of BPM?

In our research, we found a number of things, clarifying why management is not eagerly and happily jumping the BPM-train:

1. BPM is fairly complex and abstract

2. BPM takes time and requires a lot of energy from managers to fight the often dominant functional culture, existing in most organizations (and we all know: pick your fights carefully)

3. BPM has not delivered some of it's key promises (according to our findings):
- It has resulted at this stage in only limited increases in transparancy (process intelligence is mostly still a promise)
- Through BPM (as a discipline, with focus on maturity) organizations have not reached agility - changing processes is still hard and timeconsuming

4. Due to its history, BPM is often still viewed/confused as an IT-subject ("the new workflow")

5. The IT-promise of faster time to market of changes has not been delivered (and although our research does not give a cause, we suspect that many BPM-technology implementations are less flexible than expected and that many supporting IT-organisations still need to learn to increase speed, as they are likely caught in old-world "9 month" releasecycles, treating changes in processes and business rules as full fletched change requests)

Tricky situation. Even more if we see that research participants state that:
- The management of only a few organizations see and leverage processes as bridge between strategy and operations, using process interventions for change and improvements
- Management commitment is one of the key CSF's for BPM projects

My thoughts: for BPM to earn it's status as integral element in management and technology, we need to further develop BPM!
But.... We have some really interesting findings that suggest why BPM is already becoming an essential capability in best-in-class organizations - more on this later...

Short bookreview - ACM: Mastering the unpredictable

Being very involved in the area of Adaptive Case Management at Capgemini, I am reading everything I find on the subject.

I recently finished "Mastering the unpredictable" - How Adaptive Case Management will revolutionize the way knowledge workers get things done. http://mtubook.wordpress.com/

A short review:

Pro's:

- Gives various, sometime overlapping, views on the subject of ACM

- Has some very clear viewpoints on the functionality and end-user perspective

Cons:

- No details on hard business cases - how can ACM actually be of real value to a business, besides the "improve productivity and increase transparency" promise?

- No information on approach. A lot of complaints about the traditional process-design methods, not suitable for knowledge work analysis, but no answers or a method on how to actually design a case management solution for a domain: how to deal with the complex set of rules, activities, data, functionality, input/output, events, etc.

- No case descriptions, with actual lessons learned by companies implementing ACM.

My conclusions: I was expecting more - am disappointed. Due to the overlap between the articles, no article really seem to go in depth towards practical implementation issues, business cases and tested approaches. Basically a lot of articles, each defining ACM and exploring some of the functional aspects. Good as an, somewhat lengthy, basic introduction to the subject (but much of that info can be found on the net as well...)

I won't enter the discussion of ACM being part of BPM or not. Well, a little bit: ACM is about activity, collaboration, transparency... If we restrict the "P" in BPM to Taylorian strict procedural processes, ACM would not be a part. But for me the P stands for productive people delivering results trough coordinated activities, making ACM part of BPM.

Maybe we should relabel BPM to BCM "Business Collaboration Management" or Business Value Delivery Management: the discipline of helping people to work together and deliver value....

By the way: Tips for better books are welcome....

Introduction to case management (presentation)

I recently gave a presentation about Case management. It introduces case management as a business work pattern. I explore the characteristics of this workpattern, the current IT support, present the Capgemini BPM grid (a services classification method) and describe Capgemini's Case management framework. Various animations..

Introduction to case management - Roeland Loggen vs1.1

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Dutch article: Link between BPM and groupdynamics

Did you ever realize the strong relation between processes, BPM and groupdynamics?
Groupdynamics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_dynamics

The attached article explores the relationship, leading to valuable advice to business analysts and BPM consultants (note: written in Dutch).
Recently published in the Dutch BPM Magazine.

The article:

Artikel bpm en groepsdynamica vs1.0

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(Dutch) Onderzoeksenquete "BPM in Nederland - 2010" is live!

[For Dutch readers only]

Actief met Business Process Management binnen uw organisatie?

Wij willen u graag uitnodigen om deel te nemen aan het onderzoek “Business Process Management in Nederland - 2010” , uitgevoerd door de Universiteit Utrecht in samenwerking met Capgemini.

Veel organisaties nemen initiatieven om beter grip te krijgen op hun processen. Dit blijkt uit toenemende initiatieven in organisaties rond “Business Process Management” (BPM). Maar wat doen organisaties rond BPM, welke resultaten bereiken ze hiermee, welke lessen hebben ze geleerd?
Belangrijke vragen die u, als u betrokken bent bij thema’s zoals bijvoorbeeld procesinrichting, procesmanagement, workflow, zaakgericht werken en operational excellence, waarschijnlijk ook zal hebben. De antwoorden uit dit onderzoek kunnen u helpen de BPM-aanpak van uw organisatie aan te scherpen.

Meedoen aan het onderzoek?
Wij vragen 20 tot 30 minuten van uw tijd voor het invullen van de vragenlijst over de adoptie van BPM binnen uw organisatie. U kunt de vragenlijst invullen via de volgende link: http://www.bpmsurvey.nl/Meedoen
Wij hopen uiteraard dat u mee wilt werken aan dit onderzoek.

Als deelnemer ontvangt u voorjaar 2011 het onderzoeksrapport “BPM in Nederland – 2010”.
Als blijk van waardering wordt elke 30ste deelnemer beloond met een boekenbon. Tevens wordt een e-reader verloot onder de respondenten.

Wat vindt u in het onderzoeksrapport?
Het rapport geeft u inzicht in de adoptie van BPM bij Nederlandse organisaties en omvat de volgende onderwerpen:
· De huidige toepassing van BPM en ambities van organisaties op BPM gebied.
· De resultaten, barrières en succesfactoren bij BPM initiatieven.
· Het huidige en geplande gebruik van BPM technologie.

Heeft u nog vragen?Heeft u vragen over dit onderzoek dan kunt u contact opnemen met Joost Spekschoor via e-mail joost.spekschoor@capgemini.com of telefoonnummer 06-12545047.

We zien u graag via http://www.bpmsurvey.nl/Meedoen

Alvast hartelijk dank voor uw tijd en bijdrage!

Met vriendelijke groet,

Onderzoeksteam “BPM in Nederland - 2010”
Joost Spekschoor - Universiteit Utrecht
Michiel Havenith - Capgemini Nederland BVR
oeland Loggen - Capgemini Nederland BV

Stop thinking "Structure" is the answer!

Sigh,

I see this pattern so often: a company is not delivering the expected results. And boom - management decides to change the structure. New departments, people moving. Networks lost.

Some say "In what re-organization are you working"?

My believe: it's NOT about structure. It's about people, network, patterns of interaction and trust, and, of course, processes.

And the sad thing is: with every structural reorganization, most attention and energy is spend on structure. And, with most "change capital" spent, people struggle to build up new network, patterns and processes (usually outside the sponsorship of management...) to deliver the same results (and in the beginning less) as a before.

Management, please: it's people, supported by their netwerk, interactions, trust and processes that deliver results. Structure is not the main thing, that's about power, and not about results...

Journey to the essence of BPM - part 1

The last months I have been thinking a lot about BPM, trying to understand what's really the point. It started with doubts on the tangible benefits, but also on the true nature of BPM. What is it really? Still seeing a lot of definitions and notions around on BPM, I wanted to dive deeper and find some true meaning that really resonates, instead of the many "fluffy blabla" definitions.

First I want to share my thoughts about the concept of "process". Here I already see confusing notions and assumptions.

The common definitions of "process" typically resolves into something like "linked activities, reaching a certain goal, having inputs, outputs, people and machines performing them, adding some value to a customer, certain business rules that apply, etc etc".
The thing is: I have never touched a process. Never held one. And things not being physical means abstraction.

Let's get back to process. What is really?

Let's first agree a process is not a process-model. As the belgium painter Magritte stated "C'est ne pas un pipe": the drawing of a pipe is not the same as the real thing.

The only real thing I can think of is human (and systems) behavior. When one or more people and/or machines show certain behavioral patterns repeatedly, you might call that a process.

That already establishes a foundation for BPM. It's people (and machines), and their behavior.

What governs that behavior? What makes that we call certain behavior a process? Some explorations:

If a group of people has "behavioral" responsibilities in a certain area, I also could ask them "how they deliver certain results". Although differences will exist, they are probably able to recall their activities and can also tell me how they will behave the next time a certain result is expected. In that sense, "process" has a memory-construct, that will enable people to remember what to do.

In situations where people need to reach results, that require them to collaborate, people tend to communicate, negotiate and agree on required behavior (if you do.... then I will.....). In that sense, "process" is also about "social contracts".
A short side-step: I recently moved to a new apartment, and the movers showed a fascinating efficiency. The group of men clearly had worked many times together, and where really a team. Without much spoken communication, they rapidly worked together. And while watching them close, I could see various patterns and tacit communication. The "social contract" had been developed over a longer period of time, and was still evolving, improving, quickly reacting to new circumstances. When teams are really performing, process as a social construct does not seem to require "BPM sessions".

Am I getting closer to something that resonates as a true "process" concept?
- It's actual behavior of specific people and machines (without action, no process)
- It's about repetitive behavior of these people (only done once - no process)
- It's about knowledge and social contract (these people and machines are governed, and have, with more of less consent, agreed to/and know certain "playing rules")
- It's (sometimes!) about improvement and adaption (that might be done tacitly), when there is true "teamwork"

People behavior people behavior......sometimes is trying to tell me something, but I'm not there yet.
What I do know is that the traditional definitions of BPM are far from "specific people". It talks about process and maybe of people that are "resources" pushed as little pegs into RACI's. That does not feel right and also severely limits us in our BPM approach.

My gut feeling: BPM is about social interventions.
But more about this in the next parts of my journey!

Lean - can we also add value?

Busy with a training on Lean. Interesting stuff, with powerful process improvement concepts and techniques.

One of the central concepts is value added. When analysing a process (or in Lean terms: value stream), one can find activities that do not add value to the customer. Basic question to find them: ask for each activity "is the customer willing to pay for this"?

To really be able to answer this question, one needs to understand how the customer views value: what is valuable for the customer, what does he/she expect - as a base, as extra value, etc. In Six Sigma terms "The voice of the customer".

This approach is strong, but has one risk: it might lead to a very reductionist view on process improvement: to (mainly) remove activities.
Great for lead time improvement and cost cutting. However....

What if, from a competitive perspective, there is a way to delight customers even better, by adding activities?? "Toolhead" lean will likely ignore this possibility....

Examples:
- The small gift my daughter got when she received an injection
- The extra time my dentist spends to explain the procedure and relax me
- The bicycle (hey, this is Holland :-)) the cardealer provides me for free, when my car is being serviced

These are the things that make me come back. Any examples you have?

This is the area of the strategy - process alignment: if you want to be special as a company, don't just remove waiste. Add extra value.

(Dutch) article published on Trends in BPM

At the end of 2009, a number of colleagues and I published a (small) book on current trends in BPM (which is available in English in book and PDF-form, on request).

As an update, we recently published a Dutch article in the dutch BPM magazine, with 3 trend-updates. A version of this article can be accessed here: http://www.slideshare.net/htoebak/trends-in-bpm-2010-4149334

Feedback welcome!

Complexity Approach - A new perspective on organizations?

When in the past, people discovered and created the clock, this new technology had great impact on the way they started seeing things. The clock, as concept, was used to understand other phenomena, such as our body, the movement of the planets, etc. As a model, it helped people conceptualize and understand things, which was great. But also – it limited their view (a model is less than reality). With the discovery of the computer, we did the same thing. Powerful, but we ran into difficulties, trying to explain, for instance, our brain-function, with the simplified concept of computer-concepts. Not everything was as deterministic as we needed, to apply the computer-concept.

More hidden, with the “discovery” of systems thinking, we have done the same. System thinking has lead to great conceptual tools, to….

• Divide the complex reality in parts, that are interconnected, and as group, can be seen as a new part of a large system
• Define “control” as a concept, where a part is steered (plan-do-check-act) by a “managing part”

This thinking and tools have helped us understand, model, realize and operate complex structures, such as IT-systems. Of course, we have used these concepts for other complex areas. So we started to use this in our view of organizations. And that’s where things started to become messy.
Are organizations systems? Are groups of people able to be divided in parts, where some parts are planning and controlling others, measuring output, and intervening when needed, to get the desired results? Or it this view limiting? Possibly even dangerous?

Last Friday, I visited an interesting seminar on a new approach to view (and intervene in) organizations: the Complexity Approach (or also known as Complex Responsive Processes). Some of the key people involved with this new view were present: Ralph Stacey, Douglas Griffin and Thijs Homan. In addition, Nol Groot (former director of the NS, the Dutch Railways) was present, as one of the people that have actively applied this new view in the NS).

Their research in organizations suggested that the system’s approach to organizations is limited. And that it had lead to surreal mythical set of beliefs in leadership and the ability to control and change the performance of an organization. A new view is needed.

So they decided to step back, and try to look at organizations in a fresh way: how are things done here, actually, really? What do we really experience?

This lead to the following observations:

• People interact with other people (usually not the whole organization, but a smaller set) in varying interaction patterns. These “local patterns” (or “self-organizing collectives”) might be totally different than the formal organization structure (they may be based on friendship, identity, role, process, etc).
• This is also true for managers (although in larger meetings they might send a lot, but is essence they don’t know how people interpret their message), breaking one myth “the manager knows all, oversees everything”
• These local interaction patterns emerge – they are not created “by design” but appear and develop over time, through complex influences
• Through interaction patterns, people get informed, negotiate and decide, based on their plans, intentions (I want....). In these patterns people confirm their values.
• These interactions (or “interplays of intention”) produce results. Interaction patterns lead to meaning, changed attitudes, conflict, choices, activity and constraints. However, these results might not be the ones that the people had intended upfront (and might not be in line with manager’s plans and intentions!)
  Example: two people want to eat together, and end up at a Italian restaurant, while neither had that in mind at the start
• One of the results of local patterns are so-called “social objects”: agreements on how people should behave and perform activities in certain situations.
  

An example:

• A manager gets his unit in the central hall, and tells them that the organization needed to be more customer-friendly. He explains his plans, and communicates that he expects everyone to commit to the plans.
• People leave the hall, and in various complex interaction patterns, the view of the manager is given meaning, mixed with history (“we have done this before”) and own intentions, in various groups of people. Each group will develop their own meaning, interpretation. And the “company-wide plan” becomes a myth.
• And change might come, yet not predictable, and maybe even in despite of all change management efforts
  

This new view leads to a number of important (and maybe even scary) questions:

• Can a manager “be in control”, if activity and change is dependent on complex interaction patterns which are mostly unpredictable?
• Is change “manageable”?
• Is “resistance to change” something we see as a sign that our plans have not been executed enough yet, something that we need “to handle” and then reach success in the end?
• Can we speak of organization? Or is it more a network of people (with endless dynamics in interconnections)? Can we speak of organization boundaries? Or again – complex interactions with people “inside” and “outside”?
• Is an organization a set of local patterns of interaction?

(These questions resonate with various uneasy feelings I have about BPM and the "organization-people-process-by-design" myth, it implicitely suggests)

Yet, organizations seem to work, sometimes even great. So, the key question is: if an organization does not function well, what can we do as managers (and for me, as consultant)?
Some of my starting points:

• Many instruments of intervention can still be applied. Be aware that interventions however produce non-predictable results (and non-linear: a small intervention might explode through all interaction patterns, a large intervention might be reduced to nothing....)
• The process of giving meaning (how people perceive the need for change and the desired outcomes) is very difficult to manage. Even through various facilitation workshops, etc, people will have a “on-stage” face and a “off-stage” face. And the “off-stage face” will influence many people in their networks. In a typical organization many “clouds of meaning” might exist around certain themes. However, meaning is often given by fixed groups, based on their intentions and history. Investigation and narrative interventions could help here.
• Be very aware of the existence of the (emerging) patterns, through all networks (visible, invisible). These “cells of people” have large influence. If needed (and possible), intervene in this patterns (for instance: break up the organization in smaller teams, build relations, make sure teams interact with each other, as a manager participate on one or more local groups, getting their respect)
• Develop the ability/competency of people to effectively perform local patterns of interaction, and support them by providing clear intentions (on WHAT is needed, not HOW). Help them to be able to address concerns within the group. And become connected!
• Become aware of the “social objects”, and how these objects are created and changed. Who has influence? Through what patterns?
• Change occurs through interacting cells, that see the need for change, form new ideas and create new social objects.

This complexity approach is interesting stuff, which will probably have a large impact on how I see organizations, change, but also BPM! There is much more I could write, but let’s stop for now!
Ok, one last thought for us, consultants: We often see our project (which is a change intervention!) as a set of people, doing the planned activities. During the project, often “fuss”, “discussion”, “resistance” is born and needs to be handled. Often, I saw this stuff as uneasy, difficult, nagging stuff, that was extra effort and thus delayed the project. But maybe this stuff IS THE REAL the project!?

For more information on the Complexity Approach, see for instance:
http://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Management-Organisational-Dynamics-5th/dp/0273708112
http://www.herts.ac.uk/courses/schools-of-study/business/research/complexity-and-management-centre/complexity-the-experience-of-organizing.cfm

Sigh! Process as intervention is just not sexy...

I am jealous.
I see many types of interventions that management can choose to influence people behaviour in their company...

I see great workshops focused on culture, people doing fun-games at remote locations, deep and inspired discussions on values
I see managers working on mission, vision and strategy in expensive resorts, golfvenue around the corner
I see IT-systems being designed, and delivered, forcing people to follow the screens and workflows embedded in these systems, with all kinds of cool UI-widgets
I see budgets being given or denied
I see people in fun training
I see promotions, new hero-managers, with powerfull mandate
I see jobpromotions, jobdescriptions and evaluation cycles that will actually hit people in their wallet, with big bonusses for the right behaviour

And then there is us, process consultants, proudly showing the next swimminglane model and desperately trying to find someone to take process-responsibility...

How sexy and influencial is that??????

Can anyone help this disillusioned BPM-practioner with concrete examples of process-interventions that inspired, motivated, improved, e.g. sexy?????

10 easy? questions for managing IT-change

Where various parties from business and IT collaborate in deciding on IT-change (implementing changes, based on various new or changing requirements), a complex playingfield arises.
Often, in my observation, many companies struggle, in terms of "who will need to decide what", during the preparation and delivery-phases of IT-changes. With a more fundamental understanding of the types of questions that needs to be answered and the ownership of these answers/decisions, more clarity can be created (and confusion avoided...).

I think, in essence, we have to deal with 10 easy questions. Well, easy, in terms of the answers provided, they are easy, but to answer them with confidence, based on the right information, might be quite complex....

Here are the 10 questions, that should drive your change-process (for instance your ITIL change process, or any other changeprocess, for instance in deciding and implementing change-requests for your software applications) and create a clear demand/supply relation:

Before realizing the change:
1. Do we understand and really want this change? (business)
2. Are we willing to invest to research solutions? (business)
3. Is the change really feasible, what solution-scenarios exist? (IT)
4. Do we understand the solution-scenario's and are we willing to commit to one (including the consequences)? (business)
5. Can we agree on a realistic start- and enddate? (Business and IT)
6. Do we commit to adequately lead the change from the business perspective? (business)
7. Are we, as IT, willing and able to commit to deliver the chosen solution? (IT)

After realizing the change:
8. Do we accept the delivered solution? (business)
9. Are we willing to implement the solution in our operations (and supporting IT-layer)? (business)
10. Are we done, happy and ready to move on? (business and IT)

I hope that during your changeprocess these questions are clearly answered by the right stakeholder!

In more detail:

1. Do we understand and really want this change?
Key owner: business (and IT to advise)
Remarks: we need to adequately understand a change-request, and assess (preliminary) if it is realistic (we want our app to make coffee, but the end of this week)...
Subquestions:
- Is the submitted change-request clear and understandable? Is the context (Why, Who) clear? Is it (preferably) mainly stated in "what" terms (business requirements), and possibly supported by (preliminary) "how" statements. Is there a "When"?
- Is the requested change (in principle) feasible? (IT advise!)
- Is the (preliminary) "When" (in principle) realistic? (IT advise!)

2. Are we willing to invest to research solutions?
Key owner: business
Remarks: only for very simple requests, we might directly see the solution and required changes in our IT-landscape. More often, IT will need to research the request, and come up with various possible solution-scenario's, that each has it's pro's/cons and consequences
Subquestions:
- Are we willing to free and assign capacity @ IT to research the requirement, and wait for some time to let them deliver? Do we accept the cost? Owner: business
- Are we, if needed, willing to deprioritize other IT-activities, to let this research be executed? Owner: business, with strong IT advise
- Are we able (as business) to further guide IT (and answers business related questions about the requested change)? (business!)
- Are we able to deliver adequate research? Do we have the resources with the right experience and knowledge available? (IT!)

3. Is the change really feasible, and what solution-scenarios exist?
Key owner: IT
Remarks: Based on the changerequest, IT needs to research: can we do this, and how (not in all detail, but in enough detail to have enough trust to answer the question and allow the business to decide the next steps). Research in terms of technical scenario's, their functional and technical impact for the business and IT and the consequences of the solutionscenario, in terms of cost, required resources, time, risks. And an assessment how the scenario fits in the architecture(plans and guidelines).
Subquestions:
- Are there technical solutions that fulfill (fully or partly) the requirements from the change? If yes, what solutions?
- For each solution:
- what are functional consequences
- what are technical consequences?
- what are consequences for future maintenance and supportability?
- does the solution fit in the current/to be architecture?
- And for each solution: how can we realize this solution, in terms of approach, cost, time, required resources? What risks?

4. Do we understand the solution-scenario's and are we willing to commit to one (including the consequences)?
Key owner: business
Remarks: In the end, business needs to decide the scenario and accept consequences (to it's operations and the related change-efforts/investments)

5. Can we agree on a realistic start- and enddate?
Owner: Business AND IT
Subquestions:
- Does this fit in current plans and available resources?
- If not, can we agree on re-priotizing/delay other requests?
- Are there other solutions (in terms of sourcing)?

6. Do we commit to adequately lead the change from the business perspective?
Owner: Business
Remarks: This is a critical question. Many IT-projects suffer from ambitious business, that fails to provide clear and adequate guidance (enough support and time from critical business people) and speed of decisionmaking
Subquestion:
- Can we, as business, free the required people as leaders and subject matter experts?
- Are we willing and able to setup a good issue-resolution process, and commit to it?
- Are we willing to steer the project, take part in steering organization and make tough decisions in a timely fashion?
- Are we willing to invest in the relations and social networks between business, IT and project?
- Do we have but also feel the trust that we can work together with the people on the IT-side?

7. Are we, as IT, willing and able to commit to deliver the chosen solution?
Owner: IT
Subquestions:
- Do we have the drive, trust, knowledge, experience to deliver?
- Do we have the maturity to manage this?
- Do we feel the circiumstances are right? All critical succesfactors covered?
- Do we have but also feel the trust that we can work together with the people in the business?

8. Do we accept the delivered solution?
Owner: business
Remarks: IT has delivered now, and we have taken various actions to gather information on the solution. We checked in various tests and reviews if the solution conforms to the change-requirements(verification) and also checked if the solution will work in our operations(validation).
Subquestions:
- Does the solution comply to the requirements?
- Will the solution fit in our operations?
- Do we have sufficient information to really assess and decide on acceptance?

9. Are we willing to implement the solution in our operations (and supporting IT)?
Owner: business
Remarks: now it's time to get the IT-change in production.
Subquestions:
- Are we ready?
- Has the change been rolled out correctly?
- Acceptable risks for operations?

10. Are we done, happy and ready to move on?
Owner: business and IT
Subquestions:
- Will the business case be reached?
- Is the change correctly functioning in operations?
- Can we close the change, with full satisfaction?
- Did we learn the right lessons? Will we remember them?
- Are we still respected partners?

Five models to assess your project and stay sane

BPM, IT, and actually any type of project can sometimes be overwhelming in complexity, issues, social patterns and such. In my 17 years of projects, I have developed enough scartissue... And for the more junior-readers: yes, projects fail, including projects I was part of....
In the 17 years I also tried, every time, to learn and understand what happened in the project and why it was a failure, a challenge or a success. It lead to a large set of "sanity checklists" and other best practices. And also to quite some analysis-tools. In this post I want to share 5 easy diagrams as tools for analysis of the project you are working in (or better: about to work in). The tools deal with simple questions you can research within your project. It leads typically to 2 answers: the way it is currently, and the way it should be to be able to deliver succesfully.

Model 1:
Model 1 deals with the process or method you need to choose to deliver the projectproducts.
Two simple questions, try to answer them, map out where it lands in the diagram and then compare to the method that has been chosen for the project (hopefully it was a deliberate choice, and not the often occuring "goodwilling people, yet chaos approach").

Model 2:

Model 2 deals with the amount of ceremony in terms of process and documentation you will need. Again two simple questions.... This tool is great to work with people that either want to overstructure/overdocument when it is not required or people that want to travel very very light, when more is needed...

Model 3:
Model 3 deals with control on the content in your project (so, not on time/cost, which typically already gets enough attention). This deals with: how do we deal with uncertainty in requirements or design. I see many projects that fail to create control over these vital elements. The results are typically confusion, failing assumptions and rework...

Model 4:

Model 4 deals with leadership versus group-behaviour. I have seen projects deliver with low leadership or low groupcohesion, but the combination of these situations is typically deadly. I believe in groups and the great work that can be done by them, but only if they are willing to allign to goals and have enough social cohesion. Usually this occurs if you are working with people that have enough skills and limited ego to cooperate or a strong leader that is able to align people...

Model 5:

The last model is about you (or the people you depend on in the project, enabling you to deliver your scope of the project). I developed it when in a certain project I was very unhappy. I tried to understand why - and found that I was very involved/committed, but had no real influence, in a project which was heading for disaster. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, with only three options - get more influence (tried, no succes) or don't care anymore (not my style), or... get out. I choose the last option, with no regrets. The project failed 3 months later.
More lessons and tools welcome!

5 ways to green BPM

In all the turnmoil on the global crisis, but also the media storms on "clouds" within the BPM community, I hope there is still some space left for sustainability, people/profit/planet and environmental issues.
In my opinion, a process-focus can strengthen our ability to improve the sustainability of our business and reduce the negative environmental footprint: P4 (people, profit, planet - and process).
BPM, as a framework for seeing your company through the lense of process, aims at understanding, measuring and improving your processes. While the traditional focus for BPM is things as cycle-time, cost, customer value/service, environmental aspects can be easily incorporated in the BPM approach.

I suggest 5 possible ways to use BPM in greening your processes and business:

1. Analyse - Measure - Select
As part of most BPM efforts current processes are modelled/documented and measured. This provides important insight to know where improvement-areas are. For sustainability we should be able to come up with "GPI's" (thanks to my collegueas for this term) - green performance indicators. Measurements based on these GPI's can give a company insight in their processes: which processes (and even which steps in these processes) have a large environmental footprint.
You can use this information to define an actionplan, and select the processes where the "biggest bang" can be reached. The starting-measurements can later be used to compare to improvement-results. And you might even want to decide to incorporate periodical measurements of your "GPI's" in your Green Balanced Score Card.
As a sidenote: measurement can also support benchmarking, which could help entire industries (why do we need 10 kg of paper in processing 100 insurance-policies, while our competitors can do with 1 kg?)
As part of the process-analysis, the company could attempt to find aspects of the processes, thay may drive environmental footprint - for instance: is there a lot of paper used, a lot of km's traveled, a lot of interaction between various locations/people to execute this process?

After step 1, a number of other steps can be taken:
- Optimize
- Recycle
- Innovate/Re-engineer
- Synergize

2. Optimize
Using techniques from Lean and Six Sigma, various Green optimizations can probably be found. The 7 Waste approach could for instance identify unneeded transport (CO2!). The Six Sigma Root-cause analysis could help identify unwanted environmental effects and their causes.
All these results can be used to gradually improve the process
Case: by stepwise improvements paper-production companies are lowering the amount of water needed, and reduce the water-pollution
Case: a company allowed people to work from home on certain days, using a PC, which reduced CO2 / transport

3. Recycle
It might be possible to recycle materials used as input or output (either process-products, or supporting material). In many industries bottles, glas, paper, etc. is being recycled.
Case: diary factory sells milk in bottles, which are being returned by customers for reuse

4. Innovate/Re-engineer
Taking the BPR approach, one might be able to totally reengineer the process, so that a radical better environmental effect can be used. In some radical cases, the process might not even be needed anymore
Case: various companies re-engineered their invoice-processes, making them all digital instead of paper. Paper and transport went down considerably.

5. Synergize
By closely looking at your process (inputs, outputs) and other processes (within you company or outside), it might be possible to identify ways to create environmental synergy.
Case: an IT-company located their datacenter in a greenhouse-area. The heat of the datacenter is used to warm the greenhouses.
Case: a Shrimp-farm located their farm next to a large energyfactor, the emitted heated water is used to warm the shrimp-bassins.

One might think that these steps can only be applied to production-industry. But....
In many administrative factories, processes consume large amounts of paper, storage and transport of paper, and transport of people for meetings. The 5 items above, combined with BPM technology, supported by ECM and Collaborative tools (videoconferences) can deliver great green effects (and hard Euro/Dollar-savings!).

Cases and Ideas welcome!