Category: BPR

A New Order of Things

From the desk of James Dodkins
There is no easy way to introduce a new order of things however there are some principles that can be followed based on this type of mind shift.

1. Objective and immediate.
The results we achieve with Outside-In are significant and substantive e.g. Triple Crown*. Accordingly any effort should first of all identify the clear tangible benefits.

2. Talk is cheap.
Fine words and phrases will not win hearts and minds without substance. Delivery is key, hence the ‘start where you are’ sentiment. In current projects (where support may be lacking) introduce the techniques within the CEMMethod by stealth.
Lift the heads of those around you to think of Moments of Truth, Break Points and Business Rules for instance. “Nothing new mate, just some stuff other guys have used within… Six Sigma../..Lean../..EA../..compliance etc. (delete as appropriate)”

3. Build support.
With (2) underway you will build support. That is the point to shift focus and begin the more practical discussion of where and how.

4. Go for broke.
If you are extremely lucky/persuasive and have the top team already onboard go for broke. Discover the worst most problematic issues and set to righting em. By fixing the Cause you will remove the Effect.

5. Move on.
It is a 400 year shift in mindset (Dee Hock, VISA founder).
It will ultimately transform the planet. The jury is in fact back and the results speak for themselves. So when all looks desolate and casting your pearls before swine is depressing, remind the swine that they are part of the problem and move on.

6. Make it so.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE it just feels that way when surrounded by flat-landers (doh).
Learn, exchange and do.

James Dodkins, Chief Customer Officer,
BP Group

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication (from James Dodkins)

James Dodkins, CCO BP Group

In 1996, Gilead introduced a “next phase” AIDS medication patients could
take in a single daily dose. The new drug, Atripla, vastly improved patient
quality of life. It vastly improved compliance. And it has given Gilead an
80% market share of medication prescribed to newly identified AIDS and HIV
positive patients, despite introduction of directly competing, single dose
products from larger competitors.

Atripla has dramatically grown Gilead’s revenue, along with producing near
40% profit margins. Plus, manufacturing one medication is far less expensive
than making 17, matching revenue gains with cost reduction. But Gilead was
not finished. Since 2006, Gilead has introduced single dosage treatment for
hepatitis-B patients, who had to follow a similarly complex medication
schedule, and has initiated development of a similar medication for
hepatitis-C.

Achieving Customer-Centricity

Through Outside-In, Gilead has become a customer-centric company
specializing in quality of life and compliance as well as quality
efficacious treatments. However, a common first reaction might be, “How
obvious.” And a second might be, “Nothing much to it.”

Gilead did experience a blinding flash of the obvious. But untold numbers of
“obvious” solutions to major customer problems go unnoticed because
companies can’t see through customer eyes­ or are afraid to do so.
Outside-In forces the issue by starting with the customer­ not the product or the
company or sales goals or profits.

“Nothing much to it?” Au contraire, there was a whole lot to it. Having
helped many a company through this type of transformative change, I can reel
off a list of likely barriers Gilead faced: reorganizing R&D to focus on
drug delivery, a very different discipline than traditional pharmaceutical
research; changing support staff roles; laying off manufacturing staff and
management; repositioning the company; and that’s just for starters. What
Gilead achieved required transformational change, which stresses
organizations and often tests their resiliency? No surprise that so many
organizations limit themselves to incremental change.

What’s new here?

As you’ve almost certainly recognized, some organizations have employed
Outside-In thinking since their inception, as has U.S. department store
chain Nordstrom’s, or at least for many years. But two things have changed.

First, Outside-In today extends far beyond identifying opportunities. While
full scale OI starts by aligning strategy with customers,it continues by
next aligning process with strategies and then technology with process. In
that order. More specifically, following opportunity identification OI
determines “what” work has to be done by “who” in order to turn opportunity
into reality. This strategic step defines organizational change as well as
changes to workflow and information flow. Then OI defines “how” the work
should be done and the technology enablement required, the tactical side.
Not only does Outside-In expand the scope of customer-centric thinking to
include implementation; but it also stretches traditional boundaries of
process to include the “what” and the “who” plus technology support ­beyond
just addressing the “how.” And that’s why we call it “Outside-In Process.”

The second change is the volume of Outside-In occurring. A number of
organizations have already completed the migration from “inside-out”
(company-centric) to Outside-In (customer-centric). Others are
opportunistically starting to migrate. And some laggards within their own
industries have moved or are moving defensively, to avoid the fate of
Circuit City, CompUSA, WAMU (Washington Mutual Bank), General Motors and
Northwest Airlines ­all notoriously inside-out companies insensitive to
customer needs.

More next week…

Part 3 of 4: There are four distinctly Outside-In ways that you can rethink process and in doing so achieve Triple Crown benefits.

In the first two articles in this four part theme we reviewed ‘Understand and applying Process diagnostics‘ and the ‘Successful Customer Outcome‘ map.
We now move our attention to the third  way we can rethink process forever

Reframing process for an Outside-In world

A fundamental principle of Outside-In is the understanding of where your process starts and ends.

In the 20th century many techniques and approaches developed to better understand and create processes. In its earliest form pioneering work undertaken by the United States Airforce created modelling approaches based on the Structured Analysis and Design Technique (SADT) that produced iDEF (Integrate DEFinition Methods). iDEF became recognised as a global standard as a method designed to model the decisions, actions, and activities of an organization or system[1].  iDEF as a method has now reached iDEF14 [i] and embraces a wide range of process based modelling ideas. Concurrent with the development of iDEF technology providers created proprietary modelling approaches, and subsequently developed into modelling language standards, used by many organisations to represent their systems and ways of working. The convergence of business process modelling and business process management (BPM) has now produced a rich set of tools and techniques
able to model and ideally manage an organisation. In fact one of the more accepted definitions of BPM (based on the British Journal of Management[ii]): “Business process management (BPM) is a management approach focused on aligning all aspects of an organisation with the wants and needs of clients. It is a holistic management approach”

Until a few years ago process management approaches looked within the boundaries of the organisation and the combination of modelling and management approaches were adequate to understand the enterprise. The impact of process management in improving organisation performance has been profound however we now face a different reality driven by the customer.

As a consequence both disciplines now present a series of problems that include

(a)    understanding the beginning and end of the process,

(b)   the techniques used to model process are inadequate and focused  on the wrong things

Strangely customer involvement in a process often appears as an afterthought and the actual representation systems (left to right, top to bottom) create an illusion that fosters the belief that “the customer isn’t my job”.

Let’s deal with each in turn by example:
a.     The beginning and end of process

To aid the discussion let’s look at two airlines, British Airways and Southwest, and we’ll review how they ‘think’ about their business through the eyes of process. If you sit down with British Airways executives and asked the question “where does your process start and end?” the response reflects the main source of revenue, seat sales.

So the answer “the process is from the ticket purchase to the collecting the bags off the carousel” is no great surprise. In fact that is the way we have mostly thought about process in that it starts when it crosses into organisation, and finishes when it leaves. We can easily model that, identify efficiency improvements, improve throughput and optimise apparent value add.

As far as British Airways is concerned what you do outside of that process is no concern of theirs, after all they are an airline and that’s what they do. Now let’s change our perspective and visit Love Field in Texas and meet the executive team of Southwest. Ask the guys the same question “where does your process start and end?” and the answer is a whole different viewpoint.

The process begins when the potential customer thinks of the need for a flight, and only ends when they are back at home following the journey. The scope of this process is defined by the phrase “the customer experience is the process”. That’s an Outside-In perspective and creates opportunities across the whole customer experience.

More than that it raises the prospect of additional revenue streams, spreads the risk associated with a dependency on seat sales, reinforces the customer relationship and develops an entirely different way of doing business.  So let’s ask another question of our friends at Southwest “guys, what business are you in?”, and the answer changes everything you ever thought about airlines forever “we’re in the business of moving people”.

Downstream Southwest may well turn the industry further on its head as they move from being the low cost airline to the ‘no cost airline’ and give their seats free of charge. What would that do to your business model if 95% of your revenues, as with British Airways, comes from seat sales?

The business challenge for Southwest becomes one of controlling the process to benefit and maximise the customer experience. That involves partnering, sharing information and doing all necessary to make customers lives easier, simpler and more successful.

Now how do you model that?

b.     The techniques used to model process are inadequate and focused on the wrong things

We have reviewed the ultimate cause of work for all organisations is the customer. Organisations exist to serve the customer though the provision of products and services and in this way develops revenue that goes to the profit and onward distribution to the stockholders.

In other organisations without the profit motivation, for instance the public sector, then the effective delivery of services is measured by citizens and stakeholders.  Accordingly it stands to reason that everything happening within the organisation should be organised and aligned to deliver customer success and anything that isn’t is potentially ‘dumb stuff’. The techniques we use to ‘capture’ process are however not suitable to understanding the causes of work and focus attention instead on the visible tasks and activities that are perceived to create value for customers. In the context of the enlightened customer[iii] this is at best misleading and at its worst actually part of the broader problem. In Outside-In companies the focus has shifted to understanding the causes of work, and then engineering those causes to minimize negative effects.

Once more to go Outside-In we need a perspective shift and we can achieve this by identifying those three causes of work and then set out to reveal them and their negative impact.

How big is the size of the prize? Efficiency and productivity gains of 30% to 60% are common. Cost reduction of services by 50% is not unusual.

Cause elimination is a seek and destroy mission. It’s the challenge to weed out the “dumb stuff” in our organizations.

By truly fixing the Causes of Work, rather than messing around with the Effects (a bit like moving the chairs on the deck of the Titanic) we will all find our customers and employees life simpler, easier and more successful. Are you ready to challenge your assumptions and start eliminating those causes of work? Fix the Cause, remove the effect.

[1] http://www.idef.com/IDEF0.htm

[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEF

[ii] Understanding Business Process Management: implications for theory and practice, British Journal of Management (2008) (Smart, P.A, Maddern, H. & Maull, R. S.)

Join us on LinkedIn  http://bit.ly/joinbpgroup

Visit additional resources www.oibpm.com
Become a Certified Process Professional www.certifiedprocessprofessional.com 

Business Process Management – an Overview

Derek Miers (Chair) presents Iain Ramsay of ITSA with the Annual Award
I never cease to be amazed by the self-styled experts in Business Process Management (BPM) who want to tell me what we really meant.

And depending on whether you are a vendor of software, a consultant or just somebody trying to get on with improving processes determines how you describe BPM. Back during the genesis we stated “BPM is a new management philosophy to reorganize the work of a business to better achieve successful outcomes” (BP Groups 3rd Annual Conference, Edinburgh in 1990’s). Some of you will recognize a certain Derek Miers (left, now with Forrester) who chaired that conference.

Needless to say that description of BPM holds true. In fact technology can be regarded just as the 21st C. pen and paper, and while it contributes to BPM it doesn’t of itself create success. As part of the ongoing series of Certified Process Professional program we have created a series of short videos, the one here is Business Process Management – an Overview. Enjoy.

The customer can’t be king at the expense of your business

Goutam Das       Last Updated: February 15, 2013  | 15:37 IST
Steve Towers
Steve Towers

Steve Towers is a business process and customer satisfaction expert and the author of “Outside In – The Secret of the 21st Century Leading Companies”. In India, he advises the Tata group, Wipro and other BPOs on ways to organise their processes and people better to deliver customer outcomes successfully. Towers, a keynote speaker at the Nasscom India Leadership Forum , took time off for a conversation with Goutam Das.
Edited excerpts:

Q. Have organisations started to worry more about customer centricity these days?
A. It is top of the pile in terms of themes. Customer centricity, however, is not always understood. We tend to talk about it from a technology-centric point of view – we tend to think of information technology and front-end systems. We talk about CRM (customer relationship management) systems and things like that. Organisations need to move beyond what we refer to as ‘inside out’ thinking. One of the reasons to move forward is that customers themselves has changed. They have become promiscuous – they are not as loyal as they used to be. They have also become very rebellious – highly choosy in terms of who they want a product from. This causes them to move very quickly versus the longer-term relationships of the past. All our organisations are collections of customers and their expectations have risen with the availability of technology, which gives them access to a lot more information. Those organisations that understand that have been able to look at customer centricity in a different way. We refer to that way as “outside in”.

Q. Explain your philosophy of ‘outside in’ and how companies have benefited from this.
A. It means identifying what customer needs are and then working backwards to organise the company accordingly. Those organisations that are struggling – the Kodaks, the Nokias, RIM – they are still looking at the world inside out. Those who have been successful have seen the world outside in. They are aligning their business to deliver against customer needs, which can be created. Emirates Airlines creates that need by talking about the experience that they are going to give you once you arrive at the destination. Disney tells a very good story on the difference between wants and needs. They often say the customer does not know what they want. When you arrive at a Disney park, the first question a customer may ask is: “Where’s the toilet?”

The second most asked question is “What time is the Three O’clock Parade?” Customers are articulating a need within that question and the answer is in the context of that question. A woman with two small kids is not asking what time the parade is – she already knows the time – what she really needs to know is a place where she can go and stand with the kids, where there is a water fountain, an ice-cream vendor. She wants to be away from the hot sun. She hasn’t articulated that but the organization understands that need. Disney works on the basis of needs, not wants. Similarly, Nokia was very successful 10 years back and went on building devices that customers wanted. Other organizations thought differently. Apple made an observation on how many interactions one needs to pull up a telephone number. In an inside out phone, that will be seven-eight key presses. Everyone of those key presses is a moment of truth. And you have to build functionality to support that moment of truth. More functionality means a more complex system. Apple redesigned the interface and there are three moments of truth instead of seven-eight. It is less expensive to do that and offers a better customer experience. That is a principle Nokia has missed.

Q. Do Indian companies have an outside in perspective?
A. There are two kinds of organisations. One: those who are carrying on building efficiencies and effectiveness and use things like Lean (a methodology of eliminating waste in a company) and Six Sigma to remove waste. Eventually, you get to a point where you optimise processes and can’t go any further. Other organisations say Lean and Six Sigma are fine but we want to challenge if a process actually deserves to exist. In India, there is a clear distinction between those organisations that are getting it and those that don’t.

Q. How do you measure who is getting it right?
A. It is winning the triple crown, which is simultaneously growing revenues, reducing costs and enhancing service. The triple crown can be directly linked to customer success. Instead of starting with resources a company has, then going to market strategy and then finding customers, you start with customers and their needs and then align everything in the organisation to deliver that. In India, IndiGo (Airlines) is a prime example of looking at the world in a different way. Contrast IndiGo with Kingfisher – they talk about the customer being the king but the customer can’t be king at the expense of your business. The reason customer is king is that we can grow shareholder value, can create profits and deliver service. Other examples of companies looking outside in are Tata Motors and the transformation of Jaguar.

The Future of Business Process Part 2: Outside-In, Lean Six Sigma, BPM and all that….

“Not everything old is bad and antiquated and not everything new is shiny and good. The real secret to success is to combine the best of both.”
Rene Carayol (left),  Senior Executive & Former Board Member for Pepsi, Marks & Spencer, IPC Media & The Inland Revenue

The world’s leading companies have come to realize that only when their customers are successful, will they be successful. In pursuit of their market leadership not only they need to spend time to look inside their business to know how things are getting done but also look outward to get deep understanding of their customers.

Process has indeed come a long way from it humble routes amidst the early industrial revolution and Adam Smiths ‘Wealth of Nations’.

Although many in Western
economies are (still) in a state of denial, we are undergoing the greatest reorganization in the business world since the Industrial Revolution.

No matter what industry you are in, no matter how successful you are, it’s time to get ready for the world as it will be –a world where your customers have new choices
from a sea of suppliers from
across the globe.

Peter Fingar
  Author of Extreme Competition: Innovation and the Great 21st Century Business Reformation
 

One of the first people to describe process was Smith who in 1776 describes a new way for process in a Scottish pin factory. He outlines the production methods and created one of the first objective and measureable enterprise process designs. The consequence of ‘labour division’ in Smith’s example resulted in the same number of workers making 240 times as many pins as they had been before the introduction of his innovation.

Adam Smith participated in a revolution that transformed the planet. He lived at a time when the confluence of factors, political change, emergence of the New World, industrialization and a new optimism that the world could move from the shackles of the past.

In heralding a movement that developed into Scientific Management the foundation was laid that established a way of working that has survived and thrived for 200 years.

And yet now, more than ever, is a time to perhaps take a careful glance back to the past to guide the way for not only surviving the current economic turmoil but to also prepare us to thrive in the seismic shifts of the 21st century ‘new world’ order where the customer has become central to everything we do.

Leading global corporations are now evolving their tried and tested approaches into methods suited to the changed challenges of customer promiscuity, globalisation, IT innovation and the Prosumer. That is the essence of what we call Outside-In.

“The Customer Experience is the Process”
Outside-In can really be summarised in the statement that “the customer experience is the process”.  We can no longer just look within our organisation boundary to create a sustainable competitive advantage. We have to extend our scope and embrace a broader view of optimising process by understanding, managing and developing customer expectations and the associated experience. We need to articulate Successful Customer Outcomes and let those guide our product and service development as we move beyond the limiting scope of silo pyramidal based left to right thinking.

In 2006 BP Group Research identified the ‘Evolution of Approaches’ and how steps can be taken to grow Lean Six Sigma’s influence and success into a strategic Outside-In toolkit. In fact the last 4 years are seeing the fruition of these advances with Best in Class 2009 & 2010 Award winners PolyOne, a dyed in the wool Lean outfit, advancing their stock price six fold in 18 months on the back of radical and innovative changes across its customer experience.

Some see Outside-In as the death knell for approaches such as for old style BPM, BPR, TQM and Lean Six Sigma. This is not so. This narrow and simplistic view does not acknowledge the stepping stones available to embrace the new customer centric order. In fact the foundations of our futures are always laid on the learnings of the past with those innovators who recognise the need to evolve leading that charge.

Victory will go to the brave who seize the moment and push forward their approaches into the brave new world of Outside-In. The sector leaders have set a precedent – can you embrace the challenge?

All the Best, Steve

* * *

If you wish to read and listen more on this theme the following references are useful.
Join the community discussing these issues, challenges and opportunities.
Community and social networking – Join the BP Group
LinkedIn
Outside-In The Secret of the 21st Centuries leading companies
Book
Interview Harvard Business Review with HBS
Professor Ranjay Gullati
Video
http://bit.ly/RanjayOutside-In
Interview Wharton Business School with WBS Professor George Day
Video
http://bit.ly/WhartonGeorgeDay
Interview Affecto University with Steve Towers
Video
http://bit.ly/SteveTowersOutside-In
Interview by Megan James (IQPC)
Video
http://bit.ly/MeganJamesOutside-In
Downloadable keynotes and slide shows
Presentations
http://www.slideshare.net/stowers/
Professional – Certified Process Professional program
Qualifications
Don’t give customers what they think they want – Steve Towers
 Article
Evolution of Process Excellence Approaches – BP Group
Research
Outside-In – Interview with Blog Radio’s Gienn Weiss
Podcast
The Best Performing companies Millward Optimoor
Research
UPCOMING CONFERENCES ON THE THEME OF PROCESS EXCELLENCE, ENTERPRISE BPM AND OUTSIDE-IN
Resources

Part 4 of 4: There are four distinctly Outside-In ways that you can rethink process and in doing so achieve Triple Crown benefits – Rethinking the Business you are In

The previous three articles in this four part theme we reviewed Part 3: ‘Reframing process for an Outside-In world‘,  Part 1: ‘Understand and applying Process diagnostics‘ and the Part 2: ‘Successful Customer Outcome‘ map. 
We now move our attention to the fourth  way we can rethink process forever


Rethinking the Business you are in.

In the Southwest airlines example reviewed earlier we referred to the different viewpoints of the ‘business’ you are in. The two views – one the organisations, regarded as inside-out reflect the activities and functions undertaken. So British Airways see themselves in the business of flying airplanes and approach the customer with that product/service in mind. They set about marketing and selling the flights and hope to pull the customers to the product through pricing, availability and placement. In a slowly changing world where customers have little choice this strategy can provide a route to success.


As we have already seen the tables have turned and the enlightened customer demands so much more.
Southwest and other Outside-In companies understand this challenge and take a customer viewpoint.
What business would you say these six companies are in: Hallmark Cards, BMW, Disney, Zara, AOL, OTIS elevators, China Mobile?  Try it from the customers perspective and you’ll arrive at a very different answer – try these, expression, joy, magic, style and comfort, community, moving people, connectivity. Yes they are very different and will reframe the way you think of the service and products you provide. Go further and look inside your existing company.


Are you still separated into functional specialist areas providing specific outputs to other departments in the so called ‘value chain’? Do you have internal ‘service level agreements’ that specify what you’ll deliver and when? How much of our internal interaction adds ultimate value for the customer? This way of organising work imposes limitations on our ability to truly deliver successful customer outcomes. The Inside-out viewpoint is inefficient, prone to red tape, is extremely risk adverse (checkers checking checkers) and slow in delivering product and service.


Many inside-out organisations actually regard customers as an inconvenience rather than the reason why they exist.


What business are you in? Past, present, future?


Join us on LinkedIn (now 6,600+ members) http://bit.ly/joinbpgroup
Visit additional resources www.oibpm.com
Become a Certified Process Professional www.certifiedprocessprofessional.com 

The Secret of the 21st century leading companies
The title of the book[i] last year suggested that the ‘secret’ was a relentless focus on Outside-In thinking and practice. Let’s dig deeper and understand the essence of Outside-In, in other words let’s unfold what makes the secret so profound, practical and accessible by anyone who wishes to progress their roles and organisations to new levels of achievement.

1.     Seek – Focus on what you do want, rather than on what you don’t
Outside-In approaches such as the CEMMethod® emphasize applying attention on what you need to be doing to deliver Successful Customer Outcomes (SCO).
Clearly articulating the customer’s needs and aligning processes to achieving them delivers the Triple Crown – reduced costs, enhanced service and revenue growth. It is radically different compared to traditional improvement approaches that concentrate effort and resources to figuring out what you don’t want to be doing. There is also often the assumption with traditional approaches that the process is a given – it is there and should be fixed. Not so with Outside-In companies. If the process and all the associated activities and tasks do not contribute to the SCO then stop doing them. There is no need to optimise something that can be eradicated.
·         How are you approaching performance improvement?
·         Do you continue to search for things to stop doing?
·         Can you refocus and identify the things you should be doing? 

2.     Shape – Identify the customers and staff you require and trust them
This is a big ask for many. “How on earth can we trust our customers?” “We could never trust our staff”. Ask yourself a more pertinent question – who on earth recruited those customers and staff in the first place? What was the criteria for that and what were you thinking about?

Making customer service key to your organisation will keep your employees motivated and your customers happy.
Richard Branson


Outside-In companies believe in their people and the customer. They actively recruit customers by creating and managing customer expectations[ii]. In doing so less desirable customers can be actively managed away. Naturally you need the people within the organisation to deliver the means to the SCO and that is through the processes. If you develop trust and competency within your people they will shape the customer experience to deliver success. On the other hand if you assume your people are untrustworthy you establish a ‘checkers checking checkers’ mindset which is expensive, slow and ultimately provides a sub-optimal customer experience.
What steps could you immediately take to:
·         recruit the customers you desire, and
·         ensure your staff are motivated, engaged and trusted?
3.     Execute – Progressively align everything to Successful Customer Outcomes
If you have a choice go for the biggest current challenge within the organisation.
Within 45 days the process can be transformed to significantly reduce costs (typically 40-50%) and simultaneously improve service. In revenue generating processes turnover will begin to grow as service improves and turnaround times reduce. Train all your people in basic techniques so they can contribute directly from the ‘get-go’ (rather than exclusively rely on a cadre of colored belted statisticians). 

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase..
Martin Luther King Jr.

If your choice of starting point and actions are limited in scope do not be disheartened. Know that it is sufficient to take the first step and the staircase will unfold as you move forward. Fix the stuff you can as you do you will achieve results significantly better that traditional inside-out techniques. Within weeks you will produce the justification to move upstream and downstream from your starting point to eventually connect all processes.
Ultimately mature Outside-In companies embrace “the customer experience is the process” and the activities move beyond the boundaries of the organisation into the relationships and partnerships that deliver customer success. Working those relationships and building value through partners creates a differentiation way beyond the capabilities of traditional organisations.
As you start the journey:
·         How could you grow your capability immediately?
·         What steps can you take to begin the journey?
·         Where should you focus those immediate resources?
·         Can you take a half day for everyone to learn three simple techniques that will produce a tangible measureable deliverable immediately?
Outside-In Next Steps
Training – www.bp2010.com
Consultancy – www.towersassociates.com
Community – www.bpgroup.org and http://bit.ly/joinbpgroup (LinkedIn)
Resources – www.oibpm.com
References:

[i] Outside-In The Secret of the 21st century leading companies –
[ii] Customer Expectation Management – Success without Exception –
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/092965207X/httpwwwstevet-20

How do you start the journey to Advanced BPM/Outside-In?

If I scan the fifteen or so new OI initiatives in large corporations I have worked closely with (in the last three years) I would say 80% of that work is through what you can think of is a 1-2-3 project cycle.

1. Start where you are – deploy, for instance the CEMMethod 21 techniques, especially the Moments of Truth, Breakpoints and Business Rules, in whatever is your remit. Just get going.

2. On the back of that success move upstream and downstream in the particular process. You will have internal advocates at this stage who understand how to do this stuff. At this point the fun and the wildfire starts 🙂

3. Take the ‘boil the ocean’ proposition to the top team. Ask for the biggest current organisation wide challenge and relate the internal benefits (Project 1&2, the external case studies, the videos of the CEO’s, the HBR articles, the Business week case studies blah blah) They will love the talk of results – reducing costs, improving revenue, enhancing service. Whenever have you talked to a top team and somebody has turned round and said those elements were not part of this years agenda eh?

Bingo – six months in and you’re on the organisation wide Outside-In transformation. 

There is an active thread started by Dick Lee on this theme at http://bit.ly/aY8a4H  

Get the latest book from www.outsideinthesecret.com