Be audacious and start small with BPM

Time and again we see a pattern re-playing in our business process management projects - attacking these things at an enterprise level for most organisations is just a bridge too far. The budget, resources, buy in and intellectual and emotional stamina required are simply too great for a successful project.

Having an audacious goal is laudable and an important part of the impetus to get started, however BPM is a marathon not a sprint and it generally succeeds by achieving small, digestible wins along the way rather than a big bang burst.

Find a point pain that has vocal stakeholders and tangible but modest value to the business (modest value = modest risk) - possibly an internal or backoffice process. Map, model and automate it. Communicate the success and recruit the next volunteer. After a couple of below-the-radar operations a queue of patients will materialise outside the surgery door with increasing benefits and value to the business - commonly in the customer facing area.

Don't think you will get it right first time around - map, automate, deploy, learn, modify - progressive improvement is the reality. Oh, and any number of unexpected events can come along and turn it upside down overnight - celebrate them, embrace them - automated changes are much quicker and easier to deploy and far less upsetting for people than manual process changes.

The world is a village

Last week a second cousin of mine died in a horrific and pointless motorbike accident in Durango, Colorado, USA. This is obviously a very personal event for our extended family and I agonised over posting anything about it in this blog.

But yesterday I Googled him and found a blog of another of his cousins - a US attorney who had acknowledged Conor's passing.

The world is a village and the Internet is more than a superhighway, it is an endless network of roads, byways and sleepy lanes that enables us to connect with people in previously unimaginable ways - a simple and obvious thought I know. It has joined together two strangers in their mourning.

Tell your loved ones you love them.

11 April 2007 - I have had some kind thoughts in comments and I thank those people for them however I will not be publishing them.