Brian Cooney has a BA in management, is an ISO leader and recently completed an executive coaching diploma. Along with 33 years experience in quality assurance, he's an excellent example of someone with a vision for how well things can be done and the insight to recognise and successfully clear the hurdles that can get in the way.
If you were allowed to measure only 8 aspects of your business...
Recently someone who I was discussing metrics with posed a thought provoking question, “If you could only have a few metrics to manage and monitor your business, which ones would you choose?" After thinking long and hard, here are my must-have key performance indicators.
Upcoming Events for Your Business Process Management Diary 2015
PEX Open House, May 11-14, Online
This week sees The Process Excellence Network Open House event taking place. The online event comprises of webinars featuring some of the most popular Process and BPM solutions to aid organisations in finding out a little more, asking their questions and choosing the right one for them. The event takes place From Monday May 11th to May 14th but registration is still open if you want to dive in. Registration for the event also gives you six months access to their 'IQ Community'. Find out more or register >
Computer World UK last week reported IKEA's great success in moving from to a web-based Business Process Management System (BPMS). The move has enabled the company to create internal business cases in less than half the time it previously took them and honestly, we're not surprised considering the array of issues with text or paper based standard operating procedures. (SOPs). Ikea noted that where a business case used to take approximately 24 days to create, it's now done in an average of nine days. That's a whopping difference and a valuable insight to many companies considering a move from paper to digital for processes.
Decreasing Cost and Increasing Benefits for Your ERP Investment
According to ZDNet and Panorama Consulting Solutions, who conduct annual surveys of ERP buyers, 2014 was the year where smaller ERP projects actually had more delays than larger projects. Looking back to the previous year, 2013 saw more and smaller projects than previous years and cost overruns remaining constant at 53-56 per cent between 2011 and 2013. However, the most concerning element of the report was that an increasing number of respondents reported reduced levels of benefit from their ERP investment. Even a 'smaller' ERP project is an huge undertaking in time, effort and adapting to change.
From inside an organisation, it can be hard to be sure you are aligned to the rest of the business. You’ve taken our BPM Maturity quiz and the results resonate with YOUR view which should give you a measure of confidence that you are doing the right things with BPM.
Take the Quiz >
From inside an organisation, it can be hard to see the wood from the trees. You probably have a 'sense' of whether business processes are well defined or not but it may not be quite as bad as you think. On the other hand, it could be a lot worse.
Deep Dive Lunch Session at PharmaLink 2015
At this year's PharmaLink Conference 2015, The Metrics Working Group, moderated by Grace Breen, SVP Quality, Core Pharma, will host an interactive “World Cafe” style lunch time session focussing on how to define, assess, rank and use production metrics and gain a greater understanding of how to measure the strength of the culture of quality. So, we thought we'd look at what a 'World Cafe' approach is for those of you who may not already know.
A Literature Review and Research Agenda by Corinna Grau and Jürgen Moormann
As a Business Process Management consultancy, we see the value in BPM in every type of organization and industry, because we've seen the results. However, in working with various companies, we see one aspect as vitally important time and time again despite the fact that it's often not listed as a 'concrete' element or factor within the various tools or methods that have process management at their core. This secret ingredient also comes up in our conversations with other BPM professionals, indirectly arises as problems or advantages in companies implementing process based changes and one could deduce this element's existence from case studies where changes have successfully taken place also. I would refer to this element as the people element, but it would more appropriately be described as company culture.
Re-design a HR On-Boarding Process
Your mission for the Process Re-design Challenge 2015 is to provide a fictional HR department with a documented solution for the on-boarding process described in our previous post. The Head of HR is a busy animal, so keep it concise and produce something they'll have time to read, and presented in such a way that they are anxious to approve it for development and implementation. You are welcome to enter either as an individual, or as a team.
Based on real life scenarios.
Below is an on boarding process from the first day up until 90 days in. In training sessions run by Torque Management, this is sometimes used as an example to begin discussion about the on boarding process. Have you had a similar experience in starting a new job or joining a new organisation? We would welcome comments below detailing your own experiences and will soon be announcing a competition to re-engineer this process for the ideal on boarding steps too. Follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn for updates.
Standardisation Programmes
It is fiendishly difficult to achieve and maintain a standard. Dee provides five recommended actions to greatly improve the probability of success.
Standardisation Programmes are large, they are radical and they offer tantalisingly big rewards for those brave enough to take them on. Good examples of these programmes are: Shared Services; Global systems; PMO; Common ways of working (processes) across large, dispersed teams.
Making Big Data Small & Useable
And it's Not Just for Digital & Online Businesses
Janne Ohtonen’s depressing but diligently documented online credit card application experience.
“Anthony was kind enough to tell me how he had no problems certifying his documents somewhere in Scotland in another bank. I suggested that it's a bit too far to go to Scotland for me to get that done.”