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Updated: September 06 |
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Deforestation and the role of BPR |
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Have you ever brought in outside help to change the way you work, only to find yourself left with a large bill and a filing cabinet full of chunky folders brimming with origami-folded A3 sheets detailing process flows of the way you work today? Few people look at them, and virtually no-one understands them. Worse still, you've just spent all that money documenting the one thing you knew before you started: the way you don't want to work in future… Of course, it's not all doom and gloom. As you were told during the Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) sales stage, documenting today's processes is the first step in moving forward. If you don't know how you work today, how can you eliminate inefficiencies from future processes? If you don't document today's ways of working, how can you measure improvement? A journey always has a start point, but is it really necessary to investigate and document today's ways of working before you move on? Does all that paper really help you to see the future any more clearly? At MossKing, we've had considerable success simply by ignoring (at the beginning) the detail of how today works. Instead, working with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), we build a model of how the key functions within a business area ought to be conducted. A chief goal is to eliminate procedures, or better still, entire functions, altogether. Having developed the "straw man" model, we then work through this in workshops with broader groups of staff, thus enabling any oversights or misconceptions - and there will be some - to be identified and dealt with. This anarchic approach has two benefits: a) the time and cost of reaching a new working model is much |
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reduced; b) the new model is developed largely without the constraint of how things are done today. Can you ensure inefficiencies are eliminated? Yes. Because you are starting effectively from "scratch" you are predisposed only to include those tasks/functions that need to be conducted. And can you measure your improvement? Certainly. We aim for a new way of working that is sufficiently different from the old that we can identify measures such as "It used to take us three days to reconcile that account, and now we don't do it all!" Success isn't guaranteed, however. It requires the availability of SMEs who are flexible and willing to innovate. It requires senior management backing to promote "thinking the unthinkable". And it requires support from someone - probably an outsider - who understands what is needed, and is able to ask the dumb questions to continually push for change, particularly through the workshop stage. The one thing it doesn't require is a mound of redundant process documentation, which is good news for all of us, including those fighting the continued deforestation of the planet. FIRST PUBLISHED MKAL UPDATE SUMMER 04 |
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The following pages contain a selection of articles from MossKing's various newsletters and publications. Newsletters are sent to subscribers--plus those "fortunate" enough to get onto our mailing list without subscribing! If you want to receive our free quarterly updates, please click here to email a request to us now. |
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newsletter articles & miscellaneous reading... |
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View other articles: MK's management training division Project management skills outside IT: "A square peg" A lighter look at the project lifecycle The Holy Trinity for project managers Case Study--developing a strategic vision… quickly How to get rid of the consultants once they've taken root! 10 Sure Fire Ways to Fail as a Manager--Dr Terry Paulson's excellent article |