The Business Process Management elevator pitch

Another week another conference - well my life isn't actually like that, it is just coincidence that I had two back to back - no more for months. This one was on B-Process-M and had moments of enlightenment in amongst the chaff. One of the moderators was Dr Michael Rosemann from QUT in Brisbane - someone I have met a few times now and each time I am more impressed than the last - he has a marvellous intellect, a sharp wit and a passion for his calling.

One of the questions thrown to a discussion panel from the floor (actually a colleague of mine, go Jonathan) was "what is the elevator pitch for BPM?". Great question and one that the panel really struggled with. You know the scenario, the CEO steps into the lift beside you and as the doors close he/she turns to you and and asks "so what do you do for our company?". You have 6 floors (20 seconds) to pitch your value and worth to the top dog.

"Well, eh, um, I, eh, you see, we, eh, I'm........" ding go the doors and out walks the only platinum coated sponsor in the business - impressive work Agent 99.

It's important to practice these things - you only get one shot!

The problem with our trusty seminar panel is that the elevator must have been in the Empire State Building - CEO's need sound bites - not monologues. And as I listened to the various suggestions I realised that I sound just like them. So over the last 24 hours I have put myself to the test - give me the snappy elevator pitch - and the follow-up line when the CEO presses the stop button and says "tell me more".

I started out with "BPM increases customer satisfaction and reduces costs" - hah! Everything ever pitched to a CEO "increases customer satisfaction and reduces costs" - got to do better than that.

"BPM reduces customer irritation and recovers margins lost to the business" - all right, that sounds pretty good.

His hand is reaching for the stop button, quick what's the follow up? "We identify the most common complaints our customers have about our service delivery and then we iron out the wrinkles in the processes that underpin those areas so that we get a quality result everytime. The reduction of administration and problem management releases profits back to the bottom line everytime."

Hey, not bad, give the man a cigar - can anyone do better? Let me have it.

June 1st - Hmmm, having slept on that I don't think I nailed it. Some tweaking required.

"BPM increases staff and customer [internal and external impact] satisfaction and recovers profits [better than margins] lost in the business".

Followed by:
"We search out [more proactive] the most common and serious [intent] complaints people [not just customers] have about our value chain [end to end] and streamline and automate [expend effort] the processes that underpin those areas to get a reliable, quality outcome. The resulting reduction of administration and irritation releases profits back to the bottom line everytime."

I think that's better again - any thoughts out there?

The presentation virgin

Another session in last week's Corporate Performance Management seminar was a case study by the Melbourne Cricket Club. A venerable Australian sporting institution that coincidently I am proud to call an iPOS eProcurement for SunSystems client. The speaker introduced himself as "a presentation virgin" being his first presentation to a body of this nature. He performed admirably, his talk was on topic, his presentation was well considered and some of his graphics were simple yet brilliantly representative of a point (something a lot of presenters could learn from). Well done Ivan.

However it got me wondering what sort of guidance and support the seminar organisers gave this "virgin" in the lead up to the day. I hope he wasn't left to work it out for himself - that would have been a little discourteous.

Having given a presentation or two myself, and having also been the driver of some in-house events, I recently published the following tips and tricks on our corporate portal. These may not work for everyone, indeed some presentation experts may consider them amateurish, however they have helped me build a fragile confidence over time in the black art of public speaking.

In the interest of sharing, here they are:

Preparation

• Use the correct PowerPoint template presentation. And a simple one too please- nothing too busy.
• If there is a keynote speaker, dove-tail some of your focus points to that topic and if you can talk on the fly, try to weave some points from that session into yours.
• Use pictures wherever possible.
• Read it over and over and remove every word that doesn't add clearly to your message.
• Shuffle points and slides around to get the best sequence.
• Don't use someone else's presentation unless you are very confident - build your own with trigger words that mean things to you.
• Develop a presentation model of “objective, benefit, feature”, e.g. “Driving down maverick purchasing [objective] will generate cost savings and reduce risk [benefit] – the delegated approval controls in iPOS eProcurement for SunSystems [feature] ensure only valid purchases are generated onto supplier orders.[objective achieved]”.
• There should be a re-focusing conclusion and a call to action for sales/next steps at the end.
• Workshop your presentation with your peers/the sales team/the seminar manager.
• Less is more – thin it out and stick to the core message. Averaging one slide every three minutes is a reasonable pace.
• Do a full dress rehearsal with the projector etc in front of an audience (the weekly team meeting perhaps).
• Backup your presentation on a USB key or similar.
• Practice your presentation at home in front of the mirror (I also use the ironing board!) – try out different phrases and word combinations to find what works well when spoken - very different from when being read - get confident in these phrases.
• If possible get some background on the interests of the attendees and relate information in your presentation appropriately.

On the day

• Get a good night’s sleep and get to the event early.
• Dress appropriately – suit & tie/business wear normally (better to be a little over than under dressed).
• Setup and test any hardware before people arrive especially including microphones/speakers.
• Bring plenty of business cards.
• Introduce yourself to some of the attendees as they arrive and engage in conversation – ask them what they are looking for from the seminar – later try to relate that in your presentation – “Sally from company XYZ was telling me over coffee that ….” – and please don’t pick on poor Sally every time.
• If you are being introduced to the floor by someone give them the details of how you would like that to happen i.e. “Here is John, he works in the basement” leaves a completely different impression to “Today John will talk to us about xyz. John has worked with Acme Company for 4 years and his current role is as such-and-such with prime responsibility for so-and so. John brings great passion to his topic today and will be available afterwards for further discussion”.
• If using a microphone, please don’t tap it, discreetly ensure it is switched on and start talking. Talk in only a slightly louder voice than normal, microphones do not amplify your voice clearly if it is not already somewhat amplified to start with. Do not shout.
• Start by introducing yourself and thank the attendees for their time.
• If you can involve some sort of personal experience with the topic you are speaking to, it can warm up the audience very well, particularly if they can relate to it themselves – keep it short though, no life stories.
• Don’t read every point on the slides – they can do that themselves – talk to the focus point. Telling stories with a relevant point can be very effective.
• Stop pacing around like a caged lion (I used to be an Olympic class pacer - very hard to stop).
• A stage actor gave me a tip to get into a slightly uncomfortable standing position pushing your toes into the front of your shoes, it may feel uncomfortable but it actually looks good from the audience.
• Use your hands for restrained emphasis, don't wave them around and don't shove them into your pockets gentlemen and fiddle with your keys.
• Make eye contact with people and smile.
• Talk slower.
• If a question threatens to derail the presentation, suggest that it can be addressed after the seminar one-on-one.
• If someone throws up a horrer story about your company or product/service try not to be drawn into a battle. Perhaps you could express amazement and disappointment that such an event has happened to them and welcome their feedback directly after the seminar. This is a rare occurance but can happen - think disgruntled shareholders.
• Encourage and thank people for filling out the feedback forms at the end of the session.

Now, that's not too much to remember is it? All you have to do after this is actually speak about the topic - easy - that will be your passion.

20 June 2006 - having just given another presentation last week there are two very important extra points:

• Urge all attendees to fill out the feedback form ther and then
• Take the feedback as constructive suggestion on how you can improve (rather than personal and hurtful abuse!)

Adminaphobic knowledge workers

Today I am coining a new phrase - remember, you read it here first - the "Adminaphobic knowledge worker". The what? The well paid, over-ego'd, middle/senior ranking colleague who believes he (let's face it, rarely a she) is too important/busy/needed elsewhere to be bothered with the nuisance of administrative tasks such as purchase requisitioning, timesheets, incident reporting, leave requests etc etc etc. (Read this for an excellent explanation of the "knowledge worker" as opposed to the adminaphobe).

Know anyone like that in your patch?

The challenge for business management is the sickening reality that sometimes these guys are actually right - they may well be a little too important to us in some way, we may be somewhat over exposed, they could well be the "bus man" (the one person you don't want run over by that proverbial bus). Unfortunately they are also frequently arrogantly aware of this and willing to flaunt and abuse their position of power. So what can we do - because we really do want these guys to perform their admin.

An aside but an interesting and relevant little anecdote and a flash back to the malevolence of a previous ORA post. One of our iPOS eProcurement for SunSystems clients was complaining that "the system doesn't work for us". Now, I would say that pretty much everytime I have heard something like that the problem boils down to the fact that their business processes or people are the cause of the problem - not the "system" (and that is not a proud boast on our software, I would say it is a fairly safe general comment about most commercial, mature software applications). Sure enough, the problem was that requisitions for inappropriate spend were being "approved by the system incorrectly". After a little forensic analysis it actually turned out that one of their adminaphobes had handed over his password and responsibility to a group admin assistant to approve his requisitions (I'm too busy for that) and as she had no basis for deciding what was right and wrong she was merrily approving everything that came his way on his behalf.

So how would I approach the conundrum of our adminaphobic friends?

To be continued ..... (don't you hate that).

BPM is BPM

I spent 2 days of last week at a conference, the major focus of which was Corporate Performance Management (CPM) - quite worthwhile, mildly enlightening, excellent hospitality. One of the presenters voiced a commonly held view - Enterprise Performance Management, Corporate Performance Management and Business Performance Management are one and the same thing. I concur.

And on the basis that the driver is "performance" then the classifications of Enterprise and Corporate add little more than a sense of scale rather than difference in purpose. Therefore the performance management equation is EPM = CPM = BPM.

But what of the other BPM? Business PROCESS Management. My BPM.

Well I believe that is one and the same thing as well.

So BPM = BPM. Hmmm, that's a tricky equation to prove.

Process Management is all about the inputs - Performance Management is all about the outputs. It is the same spectrum just viewed from different ends.

Another presenter made a very valid point - if you are not interested in, and driven by, change, then Performance Management is pointless. Performance Management when broken down into its component parts - as done elaborately by one presenter - focusses greatly on the identification, measurement, reporting and analysis of business information from disparate and frequently unconnected sources.

That information is also predicated by its very nature on what has gone before - you can't measure what hasn't happened. Performance Management gives excellent opportunity to identify trends and patterns and do that holy grail "what if" analysis. However there is little point investing the time, effort and cost in the Performance end of the spectrum if you have no intention of embracing change at the Process end.

It is afterall the Process end that incubates all that lovely measurement information in the first place. So making process improvements guided by historical performance starts to make a lot of sense. Therefore BPM = BPM.