Category Archives: Frameworks

Facebook, MySpace and reinventing the wheel

Posted on March 26, 2012 by | 7 Comments

Social without structure is chaos. The most popular social tool in history, Facebook, appealed to a large audience and decisively crushed MySpace by giving people what they wanted: A familiar framework for expressing who they are, what they like, and viral games and apps that involved their friends, all without paralyzing them with choices. The structure made for a level playing field that allowed the most creative and the least to both participate together.

MySpace, on the other hand, by allowing nearly unlimited creativity, became a mishmash of often colorful and too-often annoying personal expression. It became chaotic because it was lacked any cohesion or familiarity. Eyes and brain become tired when half the work is just to get to the information, let alone assimilate it. Creativity, taken to the extreme, begins to feel like chaos.

Apply intelligent structure

It needs to be good out of the gate. As each customer of social technology rolls out, they invariably create a hierarchy to express their business. Independently, each creates their unique form of structure that suits their model and culture. While this isn’t a bad thing in itself, it can also be a painful process that leads to false starts, restructuring, and worst of all, user fatigue and cynicism. Look no further than the uproar each time Facebook makes an interface change. Getting social patterns right at an early point has a positive impact on adoption, and adoption is critical to making a social platform effective.

Searching for information can be frustrating. A ‘starter structure’ can mitigate that by organizing information in a way that is intuitive, creating easy navigation and faster discovery. The benefits accelerate when capabilities are added like auto-suggest which leads to faster and more appropriate classification, a better user experience, and more adoption…a virtuous cycle.

It has to be better than each workplace reinventing the wheel. Sure, you can argue that social platforms need to advance corporate uniqueness, but that same argument could be made for IT standards, HR practices, and many things that that clearly benefit from some level of standardization. Standards also reflect the bringing together of experience and the advice of many diverse voices.  To be fair, it could also be argued that this is group think that runs counter to the benefits of being out-of-the-box and innovative, but starting somewhere is better than rolling the dice on getting it started well. Besides, a structure as a starting point is just that…a place to begin.

Allow a folksonomy

A great start carries the organization to the point where culture and innovation take over. Rather than a burdensome taxonomy that restricts conversation and ideas, a social structure needs to morph over time to bring in the best that the whole organization has to offer. Rigid structures won’t work any better than a lack of structure. A great social technology implementation has to allow people to creatively change the structure in a way that makes sense. Owners of a line of business, for example, would be able to add to or change the framework for their line of business.

In keeping with the democratic nature of the social revolution, everyone should be able to create new business topics a level below what exists and alongside what is missing. They should also be able to create personal topics, even at work, rather than having them leave the social platform as they seek alternative ways to communicate their passions.

Adapt a framework

If you agree that giving social structure is a good thing, the only remaining question is where to find such a thing. A great social framework would need to be as inclusive as possible and have mutually exclusive categories. It would need to be an enterprise model at the highest level and would need to cover all of the functional areas that make up the modern corporation’s value chain.

There are many models out there that fit these descriptions, but there are extra benefits to using a framework that is widely known and well vetted. The wider the better, as the future will likely bring ‘social benchmarking’ as organizations look outside to compare what is happening in a broader market, geography, other industries, etc. Just as classic benchmarking today looks at the effectiveness and cost of process, social benchmarking provides the opportunity to accelerate through the comparison of ideas, thought patterns, arguments and external collaboration. Choose once and choose wisely.

The APQC Process Classification Framework (PCF) is a great example of a structure that can be easily used as a social classification framework, tailored as a practical matter and to accommodate the proliferation of mobile devices as a way to get work done:

In this example the conversation around Managing Reporting Procedures would be expressed as either <6.6.1ManageReportProc> or as <DevelopManageHumanCap.ManageEmpInfo.ManageReportProc>. Level 1 category <SocialConversation> would be an example of an adaptation for this new paradigm.

The point of structure is to determine the best place for the conversation so that the intellectual capital of conversations and collaboration can be preserved. Without thoughtful organization, you’re just as likely to see <NHLPlayoffs> at the same level as <ManageSalesForecast> and <PartyShoppingList>. Don’t laugh…it is already out there in spades.

Keep it flexible

While advocating for a social framework, there’s no reason to limit the conversation to what can be defined through a hierarchy. Just as in Twitter, tagging is an excellent way to mark content that has a useful theme or cuts across functional boundaries (and thus isn’t well-suited to a hierarchical model).

But it goes beyond the end user’s ease of use…every organization should be using hashtagging to mine important information and answer questions like, “Which organizations are talking about a particular topic?” and,  “Who’s talking about a topic within a given organization?”

Make it inclusive

There’s no reason for a social network to be bound by the firewall or physical building. Our suppliers and customers are equally valuable as a source of collaboration and communication. Make sure that you’ve chosen a structure that works with your broader community and isn’t acronym heavy and only sensible to an ‘insider’. This point makes another argument for the use of a widely accepted social framework to aid understanding and adoption.

For a similar take, see Chris Lynch’s website and the article Rethinking Social Architecture in the Enterprise.

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Posted in Featured, Frameworks, Social

Translating healthcare’s Rosetta Stone

Posted on March 16, 2012 by | 18 Comments

OK, my healthcare process improvement folks, I gave you a hard time a few weeks ago about always feeling you are different and I heard your responses. Now, let’s get down to business.

Healthcare Rosetta Stone

I want to build a common process framework for healthcare, but, I need guidance from both the healthcare folks out there, as well as my BPM and process framework geeks. We need to come up with a usable framework that will allow any healthcare organization, staff person, or systems to talk to each other in a meaningful way, much the way the Rosetta Stone allowed translation between multiple languages for the first time. The issue in developing this process framework is complex, but not unlike what we’ve seen in other industries (Healthcare, you are that different). The shared benefit of doing this is enormous.

Translating

The goal is to build out a process category called something like “Deliver Patient Services,” and ultimately develop meaningful, common process groups, processes, and activities within that category. Easy enough, we are a process shop and can spit out a framework with our eyes closed. In order to make this a meaningful framework, though, it has to allow any healthcare organization a guide to assembling their individual value stream and translate that to any other organization, individual, or system.

For example, one organization might assemble their process groups, processes, and activities based on disease, such as oncology, pediatrics, or cardiology. Yet another may assemble these based on access points, such as emergency department, clinics, or day surgery. And, yet another may categorize these based on the type (or age group) of the patient, such as newborns, adolescents, or adult care.

90/10 rule

I’ve also heard and read of organization using protocols to track and measure the outcomes of patient services. Many healthcare organizations report that nearly 90% of the actual services delivered (activities) fall under a small proportion (i.e., 10%) of the protocols they manage. That sounds like an area ripe for a framework. If you can identify that amount of the work under that focused of a set of categories, then you are getting close to a common language.

My internal framework guru tells me the key, right now, is to just get started. So, that is what we are doing. We’ll start with asking as many healthcare professionals what they actually do. The activities are the key. We’ll categorize those into processes, groups, and categories using the groupings that naturally evolve. The result won’t be the ideal process framework for any single healthcare organization, but it will be a starting point for every healthcare organization out there.

That is my Mission and I can’t wait to see what we come up with. Stay tuned and tell me what you think through your comments and emails.

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Posted in Frameworks, Healthcare, Markets, Process Management

Healthcare, you aren’t that different

Posted on February 20, 2012 by | 9 Comments

The following is a guest post by Ron Webb, Executive Director, APQC

My career in healthcare started in the early 90s, and it was a crazy time for the industry. The Clinton version of healthcare reform had just hit and the industry was trying to react quickly to the change in reimbursement levels for inpatient and outpatient services. It was a great time for a consultant seeking job security, but a horrible time for a young professional who wanted to see his work actually come to fruition. I can’t tell you how many strategic and operational plans I had to update or abandon based on a change to the reimbursement rules.

Every time I tried to compare data from healthcare organizations with data or examples from other industries, I heard the same things: “We’re different…” “Yeah, but…” “They don’t have to…” Healthcare organizations did not accept a single case study, example, or data point I brought to the table as a valid point of comparison or example to learn from (even when I used examples from within the healthcare industry or other facilities within the same healthcare system). I left healthcare to work with other industries.

Guess what?

Healthcare organizations are no different than organizations in any other industry I work with. Most organizations have qualms about comparing their performance and productivity to other industries, but they tend to move past those qualms once they see other organizations successfully using cross-industry benchmarking to improve. Unfortunately, the majority of healthcare organizations still seem to resist and hold onto a “we’re different” mindset.

Yes, healthcare has to deal with patients, doctors, unions, politicians, community leaders, activists, the government, and more. But so do all organizations. Regardless of the industry, every organization contends with a different set of stakeholders. Education has students, parents, and communities. Government has the tax payers. Publicly traded corporations have shareholders, Wall Street, and unions. A multitude of factors impact businesses of all kinds, in every industry. The industries and organizations that move forward successfully simply recognize those factors and use them to drive new improvements. They don’t see stakeholders and other issues as barriers and excuses to remain stagnant; they see them as facts and sources of feedback that can help them survive.

In case study after case study, the first organizations to innovate and overcome significant market forces usually emerge as industry leaders that eventually acquire those organizations that react too slowly. No doubt, the healthcare industry is facing a huge number of challenging market forces in the coming years as it transfers to ICD-10 (and ICD-11) codes and adopts Electronic Medical Record (EMR) standards. I’m not trying to scare anyone, but being willing to look beyond the healthcare industry to improve these systems and processes could very well be the key to leading the competition instead of losing to it.

Common language

The single largest issue I have seen hamper an organization’s ability to learn and adapt is not having a common language. APQC recognized this in the mid-1990s and developed our Process Classification Framework (PCF) (www.apqc.org/pcf). The PCF is a document that outlines the exact activities that occur in major organizational processes. For example, whether you call it “IT,” “information technology,” or “whatever those guys on the 10th floor with all the laptops are doing,” the PCF calls it “7.0 Manage Information Technology.” The PCF then names and numbers every process group, process, and activity that occurs in 7.0. The PCF is intended to help organizations to understand and describe how work actually gets done—within organizational walls, beyond those walls, or even (dare I say it) outside their industries.

The original PCF is a cross-industry framework, but we have also developed industry-specific PCF documents. We fully recognize that although the basics of the payroll process are fairly consistent across industries, there will be significant differences between how a bank delivers services to their customers and how a downstream petroleum organization produces product for their customers. For that reason, when a significant transformation occurs in an industry and the leaders in that industry want to get ahead of the game, they often reach out to us, and we work with them to create these industry-specific PCFs.

Challenge

So, here is my call to action for you, healthcare industry:

Yes, you are different and unique, but so is everyone. Way too many issues have piled up, and you can’t afford to wait any longer. It’s time to grow up, put on your “big boy” pants, and buckle down, and get the work done in a logical, efficient, and effective manner. I would offer a common language (or framework) as a first logical step.

If you know of any process frameworks or other industry process standards for healthcare, please include them in a comment below. I don’t want to reinvent anything that already exists. I’m also willing to do my part. If you want to help develop a healthcare-specific version of the PCF, please let me know by commenting or by going to www.apqc.org/contactus.

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Posted in Frameworks, Healthcare

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What I learned at the APQC Conference

Posted on November 13, 2011 by | Leave a comment

The Houstonian Hotel was an excellent venue for the 2011 APQC Process Conference and Members Meeting. The weather was excellent, the food outstanding, and the attendance represented a broad cross section of international business. Over the course of the two-day meeting, a few things became clear that I’d love to share:

Software use is rising

Many companies are in the midst of trying to decide which direction to go with process technology. As a vendor, I was peppered with questions and opportunities to share my thoughts on how the highly fragmented and manual work of the past will shift more toward tools and systems. How long it will take for companies to move past the discussions and into action remains to be seen.

Social lurks

The use of social media as a way of managing business process came up several times and there is definite interest in finding ways to allow conversations to be facilitated alongside the more rigorous aspects of BPM. APQC’s John Tesmer and I have made the suggestion that the APQC PCF, with some modifications, makes the ideal framework for social technology. People want to be able to find what’s been said and to contribute to it. Lacking any reference framework for conversations, discussions easily slide into chaos instead of business benefit. From what I’ve witnessed with the Tibco tibbr solution, every company that buys social technology ends up making their own, proprietary framework to fully capitalize on discussion. This is the norm when technology is getting started, but these things quickly get standardized to become more useful inside and outside of an organization. Using the APQC PCF as a Social Classification Framework (an SCF) allows ‘social benchmarking’ to occur with any other organization that adopts the standard. Watch this space for more on this front.

Executive support is needed

Regardless of the topic, the need for greater executive buy-in came up constantly. It seems a surprise that process management positions exist in organizations, even higher-level positions, yet there is a broad perception that senior leadership doesn’t see the value of dedicating funds and resources toward great BPM.  The exception is IT spending on automation technology, but this represents only a part (some argue only 20%) of what needs to be done well in business.

Process work is still hidden

A great deal of process work remains under the radar or performed by external analysts and consultants rather than business owners. What makes this notable is that today’s software makes it easy for even the most computer-challenged to depict process, add contextual knowledge, publish and approve changes. There’s no longer a reason for a software expert or anyone outside of the owners and ‘doers’ of a process to manage things. Yet the workplace norm is still process as an expert line of work.

There were several moments where presentations and discussion referenced the APQC Seven Tenets of Process Management. Two of the tenets, governance and change management, are very much about making the owners front-and-center. The challenge of hidden process work will be met when governance and change management are the norm.

Real work and audits trails differ

There was an audible “amen” from many parts of the audience when a keynote speaker put up a slide speaking to how often the systems built for compliance are not the same as how real work is accomplished. Surprising? Not so much. The use of technology in compliance and audit lags considerably behind its use elsewhere. Many companies have satisfied (successfully!) their audit needs with document-based systems that offer a form of evidence but are detached from what happens on the factory floor or in the cubicle. A true exception to this can be found in the ThyssenKrupp Steel USA case study from BP Trends. The tipping point is still not in view, but once it becomes public knowledge that auditors continue to approve and certify safety, quality, and other critical areas based on what are essentially disconnected records created just for audits, this will change.

KM and BPM

The last day I participated as one of four panelists in a discussion of the intersection Knowledge Management (KM) and Business Process Management (BPM). It was my contention in my introduction that they are essentially one and the same, as process is the behavior while knowledge is the context for how behaviors are executed. I knew I wouldn’t say this without someone in the audience jumping to their feet, and it was unsurprising and a good thing when a debate erupted. I backed off provocative statement, “They’re the same” once my point was made, because while knowledge and process are not the same thing, technology has arrived that allows the two things to come together at the point the user needs to know what to do and how to do it. Their owners may be different and their lifecycles won’t be in synch, but the two concepts are so interrelated that any attempt to store data in separate systems is inefficient and even wasteful.

Culture and BPM

There were great conversations around how to manage process when cultures vary as well. In ‘command and control’ organizations…those with very tall and narrow organizational structures…it is much easier to implement traditional “thou shalt” governance. Roles and structures are set up easily, people assigned and things happen by edict. Change management in those organizations is markedly different than in organizations that operate with flat team structures, where staff must be led to the change through a series of digestible step changes rather than pushed.

In APQC’s John Tesmers‘ words, “The spectrum of change management and governance are not quite parallel, not quite perpendicular but are comfortably skewed and generally intersect at the middle ground, in a place where roles are identified, people fill those roles, and organizational leadership (and not necessarily the executives) are showing folks a better way to get real work done. Of course this nexus changes over time as new leadership emerges, economics of problems change, and the current haute-couture in process management is surfaced by research organizations and vendors. At the end of the day, the two paths of governance and change management remain, and the intersection casts the shadow that is an organization’s culture.”

Comments welcome

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Posted in Frameworks

It’s the infrastructure, stupid #bpm

Posted on August 31, 2011 by | 4 Comments

If you saw the financial news yesterday, Tibco announced the acquisition of Nimbus Partners. Did you pause and wonder why? Myself…I paused just a few seconds (and very few, at that) before it hit me, “It’s the infrastructure, stupid.”

The value of this acquisition is very well supported by the arguments made by Forrester’s Clay Richardson in his latest blog, “Big Process Thinking” Will Power The Next Generation Of Business Transformation. What follows isn’t just Clay’s opinion…Forrester interviewed key industry people over the last three months to come up with the stance that business process will evolve by 2020 to become:

  • Customer-controlled and centered – Customers will design and manage their own experiences and interactions, meaning customer experiences will be driven by process improvement. Forrester calls this “outside-in”.
  • Completely driven by business stakeholders – The power to manage business processes will continue to shift toward the business and away from IT.
  • Initiated more frequently via mobile and app Internet channels – Not just for consumers, but for the empowered worker as well. Process will be in context and real-time.
  • Deployed to a mishmash of internal and process-as-a-service solutions – Differentiating processes will be the focus and non-differentiating will be done in ‘cloud’ or outsourced ways.

I happen to agree with their opinions, and see the biggest process management challenge clearly…infrastructure. To make all of this a reality, the future-proofed enterprise must have a platform of technology that provides the following:

  • Ways to grab outside (customer) and inside data and make it meaningful through powerful visualization and analytics
  • A uniform framework for integrating and synchronizing incompatible and distributed systems
  • A comprehensive and consistent view of data so that technology truly integrates
  • A way to disaggregate non-differentiating processes seamlessly so they can be moved to lower-cost environments quickly and painlessly
  • Technical neutrality so that cutting edge ideas can be quickly tried and adapted where it matters

Tibco is the leader in providing this combination of cutting edge flexibility, integration and the management of large amounts of real time data…

…and Nimbus is unique and passionate about driving business process through the business-side stakeholders and deployment of personalized content through browsers or mobile devices.

Why would Tibco acquire Nimbus?

This is an excellent opportunity for both companies. Tibco is making moves to put themselves in a place to lead the changes Forrester and others are predicting, and Nimbus gains the means to bring critical data to their uniquely business-stakeholder-focused interface. With Tibco’s enormous installed base, engineering prowess and a salesforce that can reach far and wide, this is an acquisition that makes perfect sense.

Getting social

I’m passionate about the power of ‘social’ as the enabler of process capture, improvement and communication/input. As readers of my blog have heard many times before, I believe end-to-end business process provides the context needed to make social strategic for enterprises. This acquisition strengthens the Nimbus collaboration model through two very specific products, tibbr and Spotfire.

Yammer has a head start in ‘Twitter for the enterprise’ and the buzz that surrounds being a pure-play, but eventually that newness will wear off and technology buyers will go back to investing where the payoff is more significant…in the infrastructure.

Social and its enabling technology is just another aspect of a highly capable technology infrastructure and is about moving large amounts of data between people and applications in intelligent and efficient ways. Truth be told, we don’t know yet how big the social movement will be or where it will go as concepts and execution are still in their infancy, so better to be safe than sorry when it comes to building for both today and the future.

The world described by Forrester is one where data latency can kill the best business strategy. Tibco acquired Spotfire for a similar reasons to Nimbus…to be the leader in bringing information to the business user in a visual context that makes sense of numbers and trends. “The ability to make smarter decisions every day.”

Forrester follow-up

Clay Richardson followed up his prescient post from the August 26th with Nimbus Acquisition Positions Tibco To Finally Empower Business Stakeholders. In Clay’s words,

Over the past six months, one of the top inquiry topics I’ve seen from clients is around “models for increasing business engagement within BPM suites”. In short, I’ve fielded numerous calls from business stakeholders scratching their heads saying “I wrote the check for this BPM suite, but the IT guys are the only ones that can touch it.”

It will be interesting to see how the other analysts react to this over the next few days.

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Posted in Frameworks, Future of work, Social, Strategy, Workplace reality

What makes a great conference? #BPM

Posted on August 24, 2011 by | Leave a comment

For the cynics

I’ll admit that I’m a cynic when it comes to conferences. I’m sure you’ve been to the events where most people are there to network and that the sessions and workshops lend an air of legitimacy to what might otherwise a boondoggle in San Diego, or Las Vegas. I’ve been to plenty where networking was the most valuable thing I took away and while that isn’t necessarily bad, I’d like to see more information sharing and be inspired, not just more connected. When I find myself sitting at the back, close to the door, thinking about potential tax deductions, I know I’ve gone over the conference edge, into the abyss of wasted time. I’m thinking about the next meal, or the best moment to escape to the hallway.

On the other side, the best conferences I’ve attended leave me better prepared to be great at what I do. I feel inspired and challenged. I end up with a long list of really interesting things I could be doing in the coming days, weeks and months.

Topics

The biggest challenge of attending conferences is finding the ones that matter topic-wise. How often have you had to wade through the myriad of IT-facing applications, expert tools in the hands of experts, and solutions that simply can’t scale for an enterprise. I want conferences to be about making enterprises, down to the last person, better at business and not about esoteric topics that target CIO’s. I’d like to see my everyday challenges being projected on the big screens and the takeaways to be actionable.

Location

I want my conference locations to be interesting and to reflect creativity by the planners. There are so much more interesting places to meet than yet another sterile hotel, with windowless conference rooms and cookie-cutter catering. For those of us who travel a great deal, just getting out of a hotel is a big step up. Museums, theaters and historic sites make excellent places. And have it near the center of a city where people can find nearby restaurants and other attractions. Most people like to have choices, even if the conference facility and hotel are excellent.

Attendees

More than anything, the other attendees should be people I can relate with. They might be higher or lower on their respective work totem pole, but I’d like them to be in a similar business and facing similar challenges. We’re not all the same, but being a fish out of water in a conference is a tough experience.

Presentations

More TED-style presenting, less PowerPoint…can I get an, “amen”?

Entertainment

All work and no play doesn’t work, either. It is much more interesting to get to know others while taking a break from nonstop business discussion. I’ve seen great improv, bands and other entertainment put sparkle into an event.

The exception

I’m happy to say there’s an exception to my take on conferences when it comes to Inspiring Performance, held every September in London. This year’s takes place on September 27th and 28th at The Brewery and if it is anything close to last year, will be an excellent place to learn about real business process management from the inside…from the people who have implemented in their own enterprises and are there to learn more. I’ll be hosting my customer, Northrop Grumman, and hopefully one other that you’ll immediately recognize, and will be co-presenting on Frameworks and Integrated Compliance Management with APQC’s John Tesmer. The topics will be appropriate, the location will be excellent, and the attendees will be people just like you. The entertainment (see below) will be unique and outstanding.

I hope to see you there.


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Posted in Frameworks, Workplace reality

From 0 to 100 kph in _____…acceleration through frameworks #bpm #frameworks #apqc

Posted on August 17, 2011 by | 7 Comments

Just finished recording a webinar with APQC’s John Tesmer on the acceleration that companies achieve through the use of process frameworks. The full webinar will be available in early September 2011 on the Process Excellence Network, and you can sign up through this link: Process Excellence Network webinar “Getting Started with BPM Using Process Frameworks”

The wheel – don’t reinvent it

To understand how frameworks accelerate business process management, we need to look at how and why frameworks came into being. They arose from many different groups needing to solve the same problems and a desire not to reinvent the wheel. A combination of industry working groups, governments, consulting firms, and associations produced industry-focused frameworks like eTom (telecom model), function-focused frameworks like ITIL (for IT capabilities) and broad-based frameworks like APQC’s PCF. Frankly, when you reinvent the wheel, you waste time and you also risk not doing it as well as someone with more experience,  inspiration, or funding.

Mission expansion

While many of these models were designed for internal use, the need to use process frameworks for other purposes such as shared services, offshoring and outsourced manufacturing has become the new norm. As an example, the more companies move away from owning the manufacturing of their products (think: Apple, Cisco, Intel, etc.), the greater the need to define the supply chain in terms that make sense to everyone involved rises exponentially.

I predict that having an agreed-upon way to organize, communicate and execute process will also find its way into how organizations implement social technology without creating information overload.

Tunnels not towers

My favorite quote from the head of the Business Process Center of Excellence at UPS, Dawson Wood, “it is hard to find tunnels when you’re busy building towers. One of the fastest ways to accelerate tunnel building is to adopt frameworks that allow the end-to-end realities of the value chain to become visible and actionable.

Learn more

If you want to know more than what can be gleaned from a short blog, a great homework exercise would be to download and look through the case studies available in the APQC Frameworks Study: Using Process Frameworks and Reference Models to Get Real Work Done. Pay particular attention to the ThyssenKrupp case study. Detail around what TKS accomplished can also be found in the August 2011 BP Trends Case Study found here. The TKS story is one of the best examples of a BPM-led integrated management platform available, and I strongly encourage you to read through what they’ve accomplished.

Upcoming conferences

There are two great conferences coming up that will provide excellent opportunities to share ideas with your peers and to bolster your network. John and I will also be presenting together at each!  The first is Inspiring Performance 2011 on September 27-28 in London, and the second is the APQC Process Conference November 9-11 in Houston, TX. See the invitations below:

However you decide to learn more, know that there are many people and organizations struggling to solve the same problem. Frameworks were developed for this very reason and continue to evolve through people just like you.

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Posted in Frameworks

The ThyssenKrupp supply chain and compliance story

Posted on July 7, 2011 by | 5 Comments

Just this week, BP Trends published a case study that is well-worth taking in. ThyssenKrupp Steel USA spent US$6B to create a seamless system for producing rolled steel primarily for the automotive industry.  They made very early decisions to make sure their enormous capital investment broke from traditional industry by focusing on business process rather than functional organizational silos.

Download the case study

I’ve been to the plant in Calvert, Alabama, and what they’ve accomplished is remarkable to see first-hand.  An hour or so north of Mobile, there is an exit labeled “ThyssenKrupp Drive” and as you crest the hill, the horizon is filled with a very modern-looking version of a very traditional industry…rolling and galvanizing 8-ton ingots of steel that are produced in Brazil and operationally managed from Rotterdam, The Netherlands.  To make such a geographically dispersed system work with any sort of efficiency meant creating a system that allowed common business processes at a macro (marketing, orders, confirmations, delivery) level as end-to-end as the micro (OSHA, work instructions, training).  They do this by having a single, centralized repository of process and its supporting information available to every employee, even those who don’t work with PC’s (they have kiosks).   They are the embodiment of centralize, govern and distribute something that everyone can understand and follow.

Compliance

Because they have a centralized way to see how all business is done, they have by extension a centralized way to show their compliance to several ISO standards.  The Case Study covers their aggressive schedule for certification, which would be unachievable in such a complex and start-up environment without the business process effort they’ve undertaken.  Why is compliance significant?

Supply chain competitiveness

Compliance is the single greatest way to assure their end customers that they have the ability to provide a reliable supply of rolled steel, at a quality level expected, and delivered in the amounts and on the dates contracted.  As a start-up system, they would otherwise take years to establish a track record that would provide these assurances.

Getting attention

The Wall Street Journal took notice of their unique model in a recent article that lays out an external perspective on what they’ve done.   The article does a great job of describing how the multiple locations come together in a single business model.  Beyond that, they’ve garned a great deal of attention from the marketplace they were seeking to impress…auto manufacturing.  The initial orders came more quickly than expected and put the mill on notice that there would be no slow ramp-up.

In December 2010, their model was demonstrated as part of the APQC Frameworks Study as they accelerated development by basing their process model on the APQC PCF.  Having a broadly-used standard allowed them to avoid a great deal of debate as they decided how to align their business and avoid the classic pitfalls.  You can download a free copy of the APQC Frameworks Study findings to see the story from a frameworks angle.

Take a moment to download the case study.  It is very detailed and gives an excellent step-by-step breakdown of how ThyssenKrupp arrived at their current state.

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Posted in Compliance, Frameworks, Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Logistics

Facilitating Social BPM

Posted on June 5, 2011 by | 17 Comments

The following is a guest blog by APQC’s Manager of Open Standards Research, John Tesmer.

I’m pretty sure that conversations about process have been happening in some form since caveman times.  Back then, social BPM was something like grunts about the most effective ways to sneak up on a herd of buffalo.  Professionals of recent times standing around the water cooler aren’t much different, except they’re dealing with receivables or manufacturing line problems instead of dinner.  As the pace of business has increased and those water cooler discussions have moved to the social tools du jour and across organizational boundaries, it seems like things have gotten a little…complex.  For example, if I’m talking about some cool new way to decrease working capital requirements by changing my accounting processes, how do you know the scope of the processes I’m talking about?  What if we’re talking about two different things? How much effort is expended getting onto the same page?

Enter the Process Classification Framework (PCF), APQC’s open standard taxonomy of business processes.

One of the main values that organizations extract from the PCF is that it enables discussions. It defines an open standard language which individuals and organizations can use to discuss all kinds of processes. It reduces the time spent storming around how to talk about something. It makes discussions about process possible in a simple, clear, and efficient manner. No longer do folks get blank stares when describing a process to their cohorts – they can point at a document now, one developed by an independent third party – and show someone what they’re talking about, and how it fits in a bigger picture.

Having a clear reference to what everyone else is talking about reduces those awkward moments where people want to ask questions, but don’t know where to begin.

Organizations that have already made some headway into defining their processes

can keep their internal operations confidential while still getting feedback and leveraging the goodwill of the process community by referring to the PCF in their inquiries.

That discussion about working capital requirements and the accounts receivable process now has some structure: the accounts receivable process as defined by the PCF includes activities from establishing AR policies to posting AR activity to the GL.  The structure and context defined by the PCF start to resemble a Rosetta stone:  I map my processes, you map your processes, and now we have a common language and can have an intelligent discourse.  You can link to the PCF in your social conversations and reference the index

numbers to quickly identify the context and structure of what’s being discussed.

Nothing to lose

So here’s my call to action: take a look at the PCF. You don’t even have to register to download it.  Try to incorporate it into your conversations about process, both within and outside of your organization.  Let me know what you think of it, and how we can improve it for your needs.  See if it helps. If it doesn’t, what have you lost?

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Posted in Frameworks, Future of work, Social

How does an underway business adopt a framework? #bpm #frameworks #apqc

Posted on May 31, 2011 by | Leave a comment

I hosted a seminar this morning along with Northrop Grumman’s Dennis Pikop on the topic of how to implement and mature business process and other frameworks.  We used examples that highlighted three circumstances; withing ‘legacy’ businesses that merge or acquire (Northrop Grumman), from the top downward (UPS) and from the bottom up (ThyssenKrupp Steel USA).  If you missed the webinar, you can listen to a recording here.  Most of our observations came from the work done for the APQC Frameworks Study, led by APQC’s John Tesmer, who was also on hand for the seminar.  You can download a free copy of the APQC Frameworks Study here.

Frameworks in legacy environments

Customers often ask how to get started with frameworks such as APQC’s PCF.  Not everyone has the benefit of UPS’ significant focus on process (it is simply put, the only thing they do), or the green fields approach that TKS used when they built a $5B steel plant that just opened in December 2010.  Ask around…you’ll hear from most business process people that it isn’t easy to convince an underway, profitable business that a framework would provide a common vocabulary for business from the day 1, and would gradually increase in value as it matures to the point that an enterprise can have process excellence at the heart of its strategy and goals.  Some would say, “Impossible.”

A success story

Today, Dennis showed us that Northrop Grumman has come quite a ways on the journey while going through significant mergers and acquisitions (TRW, most recently), and that their secret sauce was to make it “leader-supported but do-er empowered.”  Neither executive support nor end user input alone is enough.  It takes strong leadership and mass adoption for a framework to be implemented effectively and then matured.  Most of all, he advised participants to appreciate the journey as it will likely take time.

From my own experience in working with them for the past couple of years, Northrop Grumman has a remarkable level of maturity when it comes to frameworks and process through their adaptation of an APQC-like hierarchy that they call, simply, the Process Architecture.  It allows this very large enterprise (over 130,000 employees) to find the common ground for their global supply chain, for example, while enabling fast-moving, innovative work such as the LCROSS space system that successfully impacted the moon, as designed, in October 2009.  The fact that a large defense contractor very quickly brought together the resources and methods for a fast, experimental-but-inexpensive project is a testimony to their ability to flex their business while maintaining long-term programs like the F/A-18, ship building and more classic space vehicles.  The fact they won awards for doing it was just icing on the cake.

Northrop Grumman is able to use a framework of process to draw together common areas of their business, like design or purchasing, and to allow those areas to flex within boundaries to meet the needs of highly diverse projects.  When you see what they’ve done, you begin to realize the power of frameworks and the way it has liberated what could easily be a very stodgy business model.  As defense budgets draw down and projects become smaller and more frequent than in the past, Northrop Grumman is well-positioned to be highly competitive with companies that don’t have the benefit of strongly supported, highly adopted process frameworks.

Companies that don’t start the on the journey now will be playing catch up before they know it, and with competitors that will be moving ever higher in maturity level.

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Posted in Compliance, Frameworks, Supply Chain and Logistics