The performance of any organization depends on the activities it executes. The sequence in which we execute these activities is called a business process. However, despite this importance, it is surprising that very few organizations have made processes a first class citizen.
Though a key value and cost driver, processes have never made it into the status of a well-respected asset. They do not appear in the balance sheet of an organization, they do not show up in the organizational chart of the HR department, they often do not have an owner and they cross multiple IT solutions. In short, many companies do not know their processes, would not be able to evaluate process performance or actively pursue process improvement initiatives. Why have we been so ignorant when it comes to business processes? In my opinion, there are three reasons for this.
First, organizations are centered around functional silos. Whether in a bank, at a retailer, a hospital or a university, the focus tends to be on functional excellence. This is the main area of expertise, this is the cluster in the organizational chart that falls under the responsibility of well defined positions. In a hospital, medical expertise is the key asset. At the Department of Justice, it is legal expertise. At an university it is academic expertise. Processes are the critical glue between the owners of this expertise, but typically secondary. This first issue is related to process awareness. Process awareness typically results out of urgency. A City Council looks into business processes because they are seeking a contemporary specification of their requirements before they engage in a very large IT project. One of the large Australian banks trained more than 650 people in business process modeling due to the need to comply with a US legislation called the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
Second, there is a plethora of alternatives that compete with a process-centered view. Attention can be as well given to customers (passengers, patients, students, citizens), to products, to locations, to systems, to regions, to policies etc. With other words, process management faces tough competition when it comes to gaining a seat at the table of managers' attention. It is not sufficient to have a few individuals who are convinced of the benefits of process management. This issue is related to the relative advantage of process management in comparison with other approaches. Process management does not replace any of the other views. Instead, it is an additional view.
Third, even if we would be keen to move forward with process orientation, we often lack dedicated know how. How do we identify a process? How do we describe, analyze and especially improve a process? How do we measure the performance and assign accountabilities? How do we conduct the required technical, organizational, cultural changes? Many managers I have talked to over the last years simply cannot think in processes. They struggle to abstract beyond single instances like projects, products, or customers. This issue is related to process education.
While I find the diversity of the intellectual challenges related to BPM fascinating, there is no excuse for not engaging in a very pragmatic way towards process improvement. Building process awareness driven by the relative advantages of process-centered management and investing in process education are essential challenges of BPM. Processes are one of our key assets and deserve to be treated that way.
