What is Business Process Management?

Hello,

Business Process Management or BPM as it is often abbreviated is a challenge to describe succinctly. This is because since the early nineties when the concept emerged as somewhat a fad, an entire industry has emerged around this. This includes a number of extremely powerful tool set solutions, both academic and commercial R&D and professional services.  All of these assist organisations in establishing a framework for modelling and improving business processes.Therefore formulating a definition that addresses all of these aspects is no simple endeavour.

However, the following should at least provide some food for thought and perhaps a basis upon which a more comprehensive definition may be studied and developed:

"Business Process Management may be viewed as a formal method for modelling and managing the activities of a particular organisation."

Process flows are analysed and captured visually. Once completed, these are shared with stakeholders in order to help them comprehend the 'way things work'. Thus they provide invaluable support in enhancing communication with the respective stakeholders involved.

When it comes to modelling, there could be layers of abstraction that help manage the complexity demanded, e.g. a business process layer, a technology layer and a management dashboard that maintains the requisite KPIs for reporting.

Processes may be categorised in a number of ways; one possible approach is the following:

(1) Processes associated with inputs or acquisition, these include for instance Sales or Marketing - these address how your customer or user initiates the flows, how payments are collected for instance.

(2) Processes that convert these inputs or raw materials into the final products or services according to the required specifications, for instance an expense claim process or a particular order or request fulfilment process.

Processes are never caste in stone - rather re-engineering of processes is an extremely valuable exercise. It considers aspects such as areas in the flow of duplication of effort, unnecessary tasks that may be eliminated, areas in the flow where delays take place and identifying opportunities for automation.

As a result, BPM can result in cost-reductions for the organisation through improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, increased productivity of staff, enhanced quality and a faster time-to-market.

Last but not least, keep-in-mind that new processes means a new way of working (models such as the unfreeze-change-freeze approach are needed). Mentoring and guiding staff on process updates is a necessary albeit challenging area of BPM in action.

Best regards,

Musab Qureshi

musabqureshi4@yahoo.co.uk

ITIL and ISO 20000 - Birds of a feather flock together...

Hi,

In April 2011, publication of Part I of the ISO/IEC 20000 standard was released.

Around three months following from this, the UK Cabinet Office published the update to the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL).

This post helps address a number of questions related to ISO 20000 and the 2011 update of the ITIL framework. It discusses three areas where ITIL and ISO 20000 are complementary. Questions addressed include the following:

What is the focus of each of these systems? How can value be gained from them? Are they able to operate in synergy?

If you consider that ITIL is a library of of best-practice guidance. It demonstrates guidance through which the IT organisation may plan for, design, transition, manage and improve IT services.

However, Management often want to implement a median-level of ITIL guidance (you could say 'Level 3' from a scale of Level 0 to Level 5). They desire guidance on what parts of ITIL need to be implemented to achieve such a level.

Therefore, this post suggest three areas where the ITIL Framework and the ISO 20000 standard complement one another. In other words, where the two systems may be used in parallel to achieve the greatest level of value.


1. ISO 20000 helps with ITIL scoping

Scoping of ITIL projects is a challenge to say the least. One of the key aspects to consider is that of maturity. We already discussed how many, if not most organisations can suffice with an 'average' level of ITIL process maturity.

The ISO 20000 standard provides control requirements across majority of the principle ITIL processes up to the equivalent of a Level 3 – which more than the often, suits both IT service providers and customer requirements fairly well.

An assessment of your organisation against the ISO standard and defining the requisite initiatives to close gaps provides well for clarifying an agreed scope for ITIL project scoping.


2. ISO 20000 helps maintain ITIL implementation

Process enhancement all the often executes as a project with guidance provided by ITIL Experts/Consultants.

But how does the organisation continue to maintain the relevance of the policies, procedures and processes once the project is over? Much hard work is invested within both their development and implementation, therefore there need to be smart methods of retaining process alignment longer-term.

ISO 2000 is invaluable in this regard from a number of aspects, such as the following:

• The ISO standard has Management and Governance built-in as an explicit set of controls. This provides amongst other things, a mechanism and schedule for auditing the compliance of the ITIL processes. What this does is provide assurance that IT maintains its compliance on a continuous basis.
• All updates are mandated to be approved through the Change Management process - this helps maintain the relevance of documentation.
• The controls of ISO 20000 provide management with demonstrable evidence of process compliance. The standard mandates requirements using the verb 'shall' thus stipulating mandatory activities to ensure ITIL process compliance.
• In order for the organisation to retain certification status, minor audits are mandated annually and full audits every three years. This also serves to ensure continued compliance.

3. ISO 20000 and ITIL have Unique Differences

The former is a standard - a collection of explicit controls whose implementation can be audited against, i.e. a 'what to' approach.

The latter contains tried and tested, best practice guidance for managing quality, business-aligned IT services, i.e. a 'how to' approach.

One example that demonstrates how the differences between  ISO 20000 and ITIL actually address gaps is that of the Service Reporting process.

The 2011 update of ITIL recedes Service Reporting and Service Measurement to becoming a technique or method. This runs the danger of this extremely important area being neglected over time. However, ISO 20000 bring the due focus on reporting back by devoting a section of the standard to this process.

Best regards,

Musab Qureshi

musabqureshi4@yahoo.co.uk

Three Tips on what makes a good IT Strategy?

Hello,

In this post I will be sharing some experience-based pointers on what a 'good' (for want of a better word) IT Strategy is characterised by. Disciplined implementation is crucial, however the due focus is also necessary in respect of the planning process and its maturity. As Drucker once said 'there is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all'. Following are three key aspects to look for when assessing the health of your IT strategy:

1. Ease of understanding
Reduce the usage of technical jargon, such that the C-Level suite can quickly absorb the meaningful content. This in order to grasp the linkage between the business plans, drivers and constraints and how IT will support them. The scenarios (addressing the key stakeholder viewpoints or concerns) that IT can traverse should be presented along with the pro's and con's of each of them. Justification of the selected approach and plan should demonstrate the benefits and value as it pertains to the business environment at the given time.

If you consider that the 'CIO' title is more-or-less out of date within today's more intricate corporate environment (today's CIO manages far more than mere 'information' assets). Similarly today's strategy extends beyond a list of IT applications and cost 'reduction' forecasts. It needs to be a business document that clearly demonstrates the impact of IT capabilities and delivery on business goals, targets, financial health and so on.

2. Collaboration necessary, but too much of a good thing becomes...
No strategy can be developed without key stakeholder inputs, review, collaboration, acceptance and so on. However the adage of 'too many cooks spoiling the broth' needs be borne in mind. If the planning process is overly bureaucratic  the strategy will unfortunately not reap the desired benefits. Bear in mind that Strategic planning is a process and a means to a more noble end.

3. Ease of Measure
If the strategy implementation cannot be measured, it cannot be managed! Therefore once the planning exercises have been completed, the translation of these into actionable and measurable initiatives is the next crucial stage. Progressive and SMART targets help demonstrate the value of implementing agreed initiatives and this is especially important when striving to maintain a continuum.

Your comments as always are appreciated - musabqureshi4@yahoo.co.uk

Musab Qureshi