Initiating the BPI Project

Description

In the previous Blog “Case for Change” the emphasis was on justification, motivation and requisition for embarking on a Business Process Improvement. Most projects are launched to solve a specific shortcoming in a department or as part of a Six Sigma, Lean or Financial initiative that often does not take into account the impact of change on the downstream and upstream processes. In a previous BLOG, I shared with you a procedure that I use in Sales, that is based on the premise that “pain flows through the entire organisation”. This is an important concept when developing a BPI programme. With this in mind before embarking on a BPI project we consider initially the whole organisation to create a baseline and then proceed by applying the PDCA cycle during process execution. Once we have identified an issue in the “check segment of the PDCA cycle” the  Pain Chain Analysis is applied providing a means to identify the chain of events within an end to end process that impacts all who are involved in the process.

Creating the Initial Baseline

To create the baseline we need to collect information on the current in use processes, organisation, the aspirations of the management and the issues they have identified that are prohibiting them from realising their goals.There are a number of methods that can be used to establish a baseline.

1. Build a holistic business model. This has be discussed in Entity Business Modeling Part 1 and Part 2
2. Carry out a Quick Business Process Maturity Assessment to assess the acceptance of the BPI programme across the Organisation.
3. Establish a Budget for the Programme and timeline based a list of priorities
4. Analyse the organisation on how responsibility is assigned and performance assessed
5. High level assessment of the IT Infrastructure and review gaps in its capability to manage, monitor and measure the key business end-to-end processes.
6. Carry out a competitive analysis with organisations in similar industries and markets.
1. Financial
2. Products
3. Customers and Suppliers
4. etc.
7. Select Methodologies and Architecture Models required to manage the programme lifecycle
8. Establish roles and responsibilities required to manage and execute the programme and projects

Suggested steps

• Meet with CEO and other senior executives to discuss business issues.
• Review company’s competitive position and key business problems.
• Obtain agreement on who needs to be involved in the process.
• Design a workshop to facilitate the development of a case for change.
• Pre-interview a representative sample (at least) of the leadership team.
• Conduct the workshop.
• Debrief the leadership team.
• Formalise the Case for Change and communicate it throughout the organisation