Technology Expresso Consulting offers a Business Process Redesign, BPR for short. Business Process Improvement aligns with our Continuous Process Improvement and our Six Sigma disciplines and certifications. Business Process Improvement and process redesign is looking at your current state and finding ways to continuously improve and optimize it, and in some cases it requires a significant amount of change management in order to be successful.
It’s not enough just to know what changes need to be made. You also have to be thoughtful in how and when you implement those changes while production and operations are in full throttle. Business Process Redesign has various stages that you go through on the front end.
First, defining the scope and the objectives. Making sure that they are feasible, realistic, and that they can be timeboxed and measured. Many times just getting the whole group of stakeholders on the same page is a month or two worth of conversation and consensus building. Our professional services and facilitators help from the very onset to make sure that the conversation around the scope, the objectives and what success ultimately looks like gets off to a good start, and that communication and common understanding can be leveraged throughout to make sure that there are no disconnects and avoid as much disharmony as possible.
Next step is the actual redesign process and understanding our as-is. The various subject matter experts that can help us understand the history and the context are very important. Coaching those people to then transition their thinking from the way we’ve always done it in the past that have made us successful, and the ways in the past that have made them subject matter experts, and the ways that they are most comfortable with, and getting them to move from their comfort zone into what may feel like a risky and uncomfortable position is both tricky and complicated. Redesigning the process isn’t the hard part; it’s understanding the people who work those processes on a daily basis, and helping them rewire their thought process and their mindset. This is what’s critical to the success of process redesign. Process redesign is only as effective as your engagement and buy-in of the people who work the process.
Next step is then establishing the management and the oversight of the process. One of the biggest gaps in process improvement efforts and in large transformations is when the rollout of the process is completed and everyone then gets comfortable that it will be implemented and maintained as planned or as described. When in fact, some of the real work begins when it comes to managing the new way of working and making sure that it continues. There needs to be management tools, performance tools, ways to reward and recognize. There needs to be a support system that helps with the learning process as well as coaching. And then there is the compensation, how people are rewarded and recognized which aligns with the new way of working.
Finally, the realization is going back to the very beginning, the goals and objectives, and confirming and measuring that the change has made an impact. Then understanding, based on that change, how to maintain the momentum toward your ongoing goals and objectives. In any moment a change may have a significant impact, but ideally, in implementing processes, you want to implement something that in the future is going to continue to give you that ROI, that Return On Investment, and that’s only through understanding the significance of the change and knowing those indicators when they need to be evaluated and changed again to keep up with an ever changing world.
We at Technology Expresso understand all of these stages and nuances, and we are here to help you with your change management, your business process redesign and your continuous improvement efforts.
Please contact us for more information.