BPM: Strategy Before Software - Changing Processes

Another key facet of the strategy was incorporating changes into the department’s processes to support the new system’s capabilities “Once we realized how much faster and easier it would be for us to implement changes and enhancements, we worked hard at educating members of each team in our department on what this new platform was and the capabilities it gave us,” Puno says.

The educational effort also included familiarizing people with terms associated with BPM. A BPM platform was a new concept with unfamiliar terms, and management needed to educate people about BPM as well as how to use the technology and take advantage of its benefits, Puno says. The department held training on the high-level concepts of what BPM is as a management discipline, as well as on what the BPM suite is and how its supports the BPM discipline.

Management meets frequently to make sure that everyone is on the same page. “The huddles we have are not meant to be long-winded meetings, but quick bursts to highlight the main status of changes, or main roadblocks or issues that need to be overcome,” Puno says.

Puno concedes that it’s difficult for some organizations to have their team members in the same location, but Enterprise has been able to locate its analysts, developers and support teams on the same floor, with work spaces and cubicles that neighbor each other. “The collocation allows teams to be within arms reach of [each other] and arrive at quick clarification should any questions or issues surface about a given change,” Puno says.

Finally, the department created cross-functional teams to work on various stages of the BPM deployment. An upfront team worked on BPM when the implementation was first taking root. It included evangelists/educators, solutions architects, infrastructure engineers to help set up the initial technical platform, application developers, analysts and support people.

An ongoing release team, formed once the BPM strategy was in place, oversees continuous improvements and changes in the platform. The team includes application developers, analysts and support staff. The department is now focused on expanding its process to include increased involvement from external stakeholders in defining the system’s move to greater automation.