1. Breakpoints – those insidious internal handoffs

insidious – Proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects:

Yup that is Breakpoints.


Most process improvement techniques focus on only a small portion of the improvement potential in every process… the tip of the iceberg if you will. 
How big is the opportunity resting out of our sight, hidden below the waterline of current process improvement practices? 
Recent research shows that as much as 70 to 90 percent of the work people do on a daily basis comes directly from Causes of Work and this work is NOT part of the “job” for which these people were hired! Instead, this is non-value added work that takes away from people’s ability to do their job.
Does this sound familiar? Can you identify places in your work or life where these Causes of Work are distracting you from what you really want to be doing?
Are you required to fill out this form, check up on that order, follow-up on those activities, fix the thing that is broken, find what got lost, or explain why this was done that way? 
Do you get tasked with finding the answer, knowing the rules, going to meetings (because), pushing something through, chasing down what really happened, explaining why you did this or that? The list goes on and on but you shouldn’t need to look very far in any part of your life to find all kinds of examples of non-value add work you are doing every single day!
The Break Points Toolkit explicitly targets these “hidden” wasters of time and money. Causes of Work are the “rest of the iceberg” for process improvement that, when addressed, lead to dramatic process improvement results regardless of what kind of process is involved or what kind of organization the process is in.
Can you envisage reducing the costs of your operations by 20%, 30%, 40% or even more than 50%?

Moments of Truth are fine but what about …

Breakpoints an Introduction
The last few articles have focused our attention on the primary cause of all work in our processes – Moments of Truth. Fix those and the benefits are dramatic, immediate and sustainable. However what about this internal work we are doing? All the hand-offs between departments, the relationships with business partners and the wider Supply Chain? That is where Breakpoints come in.

–>

What you will Learn
The Breakpoints Tool Kit provides the means to tackle internal bureaucracy and reduce/eliminate all those handoffs that cause all that work.
Recommendation
The BP Group provides a program built on 8 foundational methods, techniques and skills which help you to deliver triple crown benefits i.e. simultaneously reducing costs, improving revenues and enhancing service.
The steps are practical, sensible and focused on action. The approach provides direction to people who are responsible for organization performance improvement, process realignment and ensuring ‘outside in’ thinking at all levels of business.  If you fall into that category, the method and techniques will help you realize your performance and process objectives. The BP Group recommends this solid and proven approach to senior executives, managers and process performance professionals.
Ready? We start Breakpoints tomorrow. See you then 🙂
Steve  

PEX and BP Group Certified Process Professional (CPP) May 2-3, London

Just around the corner is PEX Europe in two weeks time.

In association with IQPC and the PEX network we are running a two day Certified Process Programme (CPP). Now in its 7th year the CPP qualification has spread far and wide with more than 25,000 certified across 92 countries. Places are in high demand so if you would like to attend book here and the PEX team will help get you in the room on Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd May.

5. Moments of Truth and their link to Strategy

The Five Steps to Winning the Triple Crown with MOT’s
Identify your Goal
Of course the overall goal is to improve customer satisfaction. But to achieve that goal we need to know what role we are acting within. This helps us know if we are educating, leading, directing or doing.
Describe your Target
The target is the “area” we are seeking to improve. Most often this would be thought of in terms of a “process” but there is no restriction on how we define the target areas we are working on.
Identify Moments of Truth
For the target area, all of the Moments of Truth that exist need to be identified. They also need to be described well enough that what was meant is easily recognizable to others or when we come back to our work at a later date.
“Blink” your Analysis
Judging the impact of Moments of Truth on Customer Satisfaction is a very subjective thing. It’s relatively easy for people to do, but very difficult to codify. It can best be done by looking at the Goal, the Target and the Moments of Truth all together. In most cases the Moments of Truth that are problematic will immediately become obvious.
Describe your Actions
Describing your actions is the way you build the direction, leadership vision or specific activities that need to be done for improvement to take place. Depending on what your Goal is, your Actions need to take the form that will help get the work you know needs doing, done.
It’s important to have a goal. If we don’t have a goal then it’s very hard to play the game to win! So in your MOT Plan you need a goal.
What is your goal?
While Improving Customer Satisfaction is the overall goal, the specific goals for people to help us achieve that are what is needed to get results.

Those specific goals could be several things depending on who you are and what you do. Let’s look at some examples and see how they change the nature of the MOT Plan goal.

4. Moments of Truth, metrics and dashboards

4. Moments of Truth, metrics and dashboards
Consider a dashboard of MOT’s across the organization. Ownership can be assigned to each and every MOT and they can be actively managed to progressively improve the process. For any process that deserves to exist there is an optimum number of MOT’s to achieve a Successful Customer Outcome (SCO).  What would be the theoretical optimum? One MOT. It is however rare to find that animal, so at a pragmatic level what should be the optimum?
A direct relationship exists between the technology that supports a process, the peoples skill and competence and the clear objective articulation of an SCO. Lower levels of organization maturity (technology, people, process) result in higher numbers of MOT’s. This in turn creates higher costs, poorer service and less than optimal performance.
On a scale of 1-10 (1 bad, 10 good) how developed and supportive is the technology, people skills and SCO development?

A typical dashboard with MOT’s includes metrics such as: Amount, Type, Ownership, Alignment, Trend, Ratio and Impact. We will explain and discuss the latter two later.

Voice of Customer (doh)

Business Process Management – what is it?
http://youtu.be/NO54KXxTp9I

Moments of Truth – what are they?
http://youtu.be/OT_2cqMtrUw

Breakpoints and Business Rules?
http://youtu.be/_8KSN_McWIg

Successful Customer Outcomes (SCO’s) http://youtu.be/u4keI_kmdxM 

Voice of Customer? http://youtu.be/bTbHrxi1Vq4  


Latest CPP program – Levels 1-8
http://www.bpgroup.org/certification-by-city.html


Linked In (Over 10,000 members now)  BP Group overall 85,000
Certified Process Professionals 25,000+

3. Moments of Truth and alignment

3. Moments of Truth and alignment
Having identified the MOT’s and understood their Type we can ask ourselves do they explicitly contribute to the achievement of a Successful Customer Outcome. In a very direct way you can see MOT’s that are moments of misery, and those that are moments of magic.
Naturally we wish to eradicate the moments of misery, and optimize the moments of magic. Famously Scandinavian Airlines, under the leadership of Jan Carlson, set about removing unnecessary MOT’s and in doing so became one of Europes leading airlines in the late 1980’s.
How many MOT’s can you find, what type are they and do they contribute to a Successful Customer Outcome?

2. Moments of Truth (MOT) and their usefulness.

2. Moments of Truth (MOT) and their usefulness.
Any interaction with the customer is a MOT. There are of course many different types of interaction and we can summarize them as follows:
Person to Person –
Person to System –
System to Person –
System to System –
Person to the Product or Service –
Product or Service to Person –
Let’s review examples of each.
Person to Person.
In a shop. Buying a ticket at a manned ticket outlet. Meeting a supplier. Anything in fact that involves a direct interaction between people.
Person to System.
Navigating an Automated Voice Response system. Paying for a parking ticket from a machine at the airport. Interacting with a cell phone.
System to Person.
Receiving a voicemail on your phone. Showing your passport to an automated immigration check. Requesting money from a ATM.
System to System.
The interaction between your machine and a server when you send an email. Your car navigation system interacting with a GPS system.
Person to Product or Service.
Operating a vacuum cleaner. Noticing your fences have blown down after a storm (this interaction is with your insurance policy).

Product or Service to Customer.
Receiving parcels from Amazon. Driving a hire car.
As you can see there may be nested MOT’s and they often occur in sequence. For instance Calling an automated call centre (PS), then following key presses (PS), talking with a Customer Service Representative (PP) and finally the call being closed by the automated service (SP).

A process is shaped by the types of MOT, their frequency and the relationship between them.

What types of MOT have you experienced today? 

Exploring the fertile territory of Moments of Truth *** Moments of Truth are the cause of all our work ***

1. Moments of Truth are the cause of all our work.
In fact MOT’s create what we all say is process. Here is a video that explains their origin back in the 20thcentury. For our purposes this 10 part (one a day) series takes us through the understanding, usefulness and advanced application of MOT’s.
Why are they so important? Put simply any interaction with the customer is a Moment of Truth. Any interaction. Combine that with the observation that the customer experience is the process and you can see that MOT’s extend upstream and downstream of our business.
For example Southwest Airlines have innovated their check in process and it happens as you check out of the hotel. That MOT allows them to get the baggage into the loading cycle early and as a consequence it costs less, enhances customer service and ultimately delivers increased revenue (we all want more of that).
Getting a grip on Moments of Truth allows us to make the customers lives easier, simpler and more successful.

Upcoming BP Group Certified Process Professional (CPP) opportunities

Thinking about investing in your future? Needing to extend your Professional scope?
Here’s the next 20+ Open classes delivered by the BP Group and the Certified Process Professional (CPP) program:

Country Event Starts Level Duration (days)
USA San Francisco, USA, CPP Professional®, Masters® April 2013 Apr 8, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
India Kolkata Certified Process Professional Masters®, April 2013 Apr 8, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Canada TORONTO, Canada BP Group CPP Professional®, CPP Masters®, April 2013 Apr 8, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
USA Chicago, USA, CPP Professional®, Masters® April 2013 Apr 15, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
USA Atlanta USA, CPP Professional®, Masters® April 2013 Apr 22, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Kenya Nairobi, Kenya – CPP Professional®, Masters® April 2013 Apr 22, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Australia SYDNEY – Advanced Masters® & CPP Champion®, 22 April 2013 Apr 22, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
India PUNE Certified Process Professional Masters®, April 2013 Apr 22, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
USA NEW YORK CPP Professional®, Masters® April 2013 Apr 29, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
South Africa CAPE TOWN, CPP Professional®, Masters® May 2013 May 6, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
South America Sao Paulo, Brazil – CPP Professional®, Masters® May 2013 May 13, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
China Beijing, China CPP Professional®, Masters® May 2013 May 20, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Malaysia Kuala Lumpur CPP Professional®, Masters® MAY 2013 May 20, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
South America Buenos Aires – CPP Professional®, Masters® May 2013 May 20, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
China Hong Kong, China CPP Professional®, Masters® May 2013 May 27, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
UK LONDON, UK CPP Professional®, Masters® June 2013 Jun 3, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
UAE DUBAI, UAE CPP Professional® & CPP Masters® & CPP Champion®, June 2013 Jun 16, 2013 6-7-8 4
Australia Brisbane CPP Professional® & CPP Masters®, July 2013 Jul 29, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Australia SYDNEY, CPP Professional®, Masters®, August 2013 Aug 5, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Singapore Singapore CPP Professional®, Masters® September 2013 Sep 2, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Malaysia Kuala Lumpur CPP Professional®, Masters® Sept 2013 Sep 9, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Philipines Jakarta CPP Professional®, Masters® September 2013 Sep 16, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Australia BRISBANE CPP Advanced Masters® & CPP Champion®, September 2013 Sep 16, 2013 6-7-8 4
Japan TOKYO CPP Professional®, Masters® September 2013 Sep 23, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
South Africa CAPE TOWN, CPP Advanced Masters® & CPP Champion®, 23-26 September 2013 Sep 23, 2013 6-7-8 4