Techaways

Year 2006 has been a very hectic but interesting one. The year started with a very hazy picture of our BPM implementation. We knew what we wanted to achieve. However, considering the complexity associated with the project, there was tremendous anxiety about the outcome of the project. As we move into the new year, how do we feel about what we have achieved. Well, we have gone live in a pilot mode in our new business process. The reactions from the users are positive, however, they want more. I am indeed satsfied with what the team have achieved. However, we could have done more. We could have done better. And hence here are my new year resolutions as a BPM System implementation project manager. Over the next few days I will share one resolution each in my forthcoming blog entries.

Resolution 1: I will have BPM roadmap & architecture established for the enterprise.

So far, we have implemented BPM in our new business area. We will roll it out in policy administration and claims management areas in future. However, there are tremendous opportunities to exploit BPM System further to deliver business value in our current implementation. We can alter our business model to process new business applications; we can change our integrations to deliver policies at much faster TAT; we can integrate our new business process with our partners. Such changes would have radical impact on our people, and infrastructure; which are extremely critical for the successful implementation of the project.

I no longer can afford to have an ad-hoc implementation approach to roll-out BPM system across the enterprise. I need to establish a clear roadmap for implementation. Such a roadmap would include:
- identifying business process areas for BPM system implementation and defining BPM projects
- prioritising the projects with business sponsor
- designing BPM systems architecture
- formulating integration strategy
- formulating hardware and netwrok requirements
- formulating broad project implementation timelines

For those who have not yet identified BPM or process autromation software such as BPM system, content management, scanning, and integration software, it is essential to identify enteprise process automation infrastructure as part of the roadmap. This infrastructure would host and automate mission critical (if not all) business processes of the organization.

Jeev Milkha Singh is India’s top golfer. This year he won 3 tournaments on the asian and 1 on the european circuit. This helped him move up in rankings by more than 250+ ranks to a position of 37th in the world ranking in just 1 year. An amazing performance, especially considering that his last win came six years ago. So, what’s a golfer got to do with this process and technology oriented blog?

I saw his interview today on one of the Indian channels – CNN-IBN. When the interviewer asked him about his amazing turnaround in the performance, Jeev replied, “The main change I have made is that I was very result-oriented in the last six years. But I told myself after I won the Volvo China Open, ‘You just go out there and try to follow your process and routine and see what happens.’ Then I won the Volvo China that week and after that I have just been focusing on the process and routine, and that’s given me immense amount of confidence and I have gone ahead and got a lot of top-tens and a lot more wins.”

Interesting isn’t it? Being process oriented helped Jeev achieve the results. So whats the takeaway? Focus on your process. Perfect your process. Results will follow. Results will be more consistent.