BPM Brainstorm Chicago

I just returned from Chicago and BPM Brainstorm Conference. Here is a summary of my findings for you BPM Unplugged fans. But, for an extremely detailed and insightful commentary you absolutely must read Sandy Kemsley's blog comments about the conference.

I am going to focus on two key presentations, which I found most useful as they pertain to BPM Unplugged.

PAT DOWDLE AND PROCESS BASED MANAGEMENT

The first presentation addressed a Roadmap to Implementing Process Based Management given by Pat Dowdle at CAM-I. Mr. Dowdle expresses that "Processes are how you provide products and services to your customers." His discussion centers around the idea that companies that employ PBM techniques are truly in tune with their customer's expectations.

As we discuss BPM Unplugged, the PBM approach is a perfect example of how any organization should structure their cultures, end-to-end processes, metric and initiatives around the customer. Most companies structure themselves along functional lines (sales, marketing, accounting, customer care, product development, service delivery, distribution, manufacturing, and so forth). However, when customers interact with a company, they are little concerned about these functional lines. As a result, companies tend to think about process within these lines and there is often a huge discrepancy between what the customer expects, and the experience with the company the customer actually gets.

Of the two most difficult concepts for companies to "get", I think are the "cultural" and "customer expectation" pieces. Culturally, most companies tend not to motivate and reward their senior executives and managers to be process & customer focused. So, in the end, the most these companies get is a set function-by-function processes which still segment, slice and dice customers across them. It also puts each function in possible conflict with other functions as they try to assume what they "think" their customers want from the company as a whole. In my opinion, focusing on the cultural changes that a company needs to address is the most challenging, but, the most liberating piece to the puzzle. The cultural change to be process-centric more easily leads the company into being truly customer-centric... then, the rest of the work becomes more understandable and achievable.

JEREMY ALEXIS AND FRAMEWORKS FOR BETTER DECISION MAKING

The second presentation addressed a Framework for Better Decision Making given by Jeremy Alexis at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Mr. Alexis presents us with an observation that we make decisions without a great deal of reflection or questioning. Once decisions are made, we tend to reserve reflection and questioning for later.

And, he hypothesizes that this is backwards. We should be spending more time on reflection and questioning before we actually make any initial decisions. Perhaps we do this because we are, generally, uncomfortable with the process of making decisions. In any event, this uncomfortable process leads to ideas which lack innovation, thought. They tend to be inwardly focused and unpromising which means they don't address the most important reason why we make decisions - to meet our customers' expectations.

If we think about this lack of decision making acumen in the context of a BPM project, specifically, or any project, in general, we would discover a mass of projects that go into development without direction or purpose - much less any value to a customer.

Mr. Alexis proposes, at the very high end, that we create an innovation strategy for decision making, triage concepts are they are created (with thoughtful reflection and questioning) and evaluate all concepts as triaged. But, what I fund most interesting is that an innovation strategy needs to be customer focused - a recurring theme on the BPM unplugged scene.

CONCLUSION
While there were many good presentations. I felt that these two stood out in their advocacy for more in depth focus on the strategic and cultural aspects of BPM that truly allow a company to be more customer-focused and far more successful in bringing to life a true BPM enabled company.