As organizations try to cope with today’s compressed business
process life cycles, many are using business process management (BPM)
to help with business agility; however, most of organizations lack all
the skills needed to implement and optimize their business processes,
according to Gartner, Inc.
“Successful BPM requires an agile iterative approach to process
change. Many internal IT organizations and external service providers
(ESPs) are still practicing business process re-engineering, using
‘waterfall’ software development methods and calling this
‘BPM’,” said Michele Cantara, research vice president
for Gartner. “BPM is intended to empower business stakeholders to
work collaboratively with IT to change the solutions supporting
business processes. Most ESPs do not possess the governance, modeling
and change management skills to effectively foster this
collaboration.”
Gartner has identified 11 steps that will help determine whether
organizations should source BPM skills internally or externally:
- Step 1: Establish a Holistic View of the Five Dimensions
of Multisourcing —While it is advisable to always have a
multisourcing strategy, it becomes even more imperative to address the
five dimensions of multisourcing (sourcing strategy, market analysis
and vendor evaluation, contract development and vendor negotiation,
multisourcing management, and sourcing governance) when investing in
external resources.
- Step 2: Understand the Pros and Cons
of Different Sourcing Options — Project-based services are the
appropriate sourcing model for most organizations that haven't fully
established their own BPM competencies. Once an organization has
established BPM competencies, it can supplement its resources through
staff augmentation or even outsource some solutions.
- Step 3:
Establish a Big-Picture View of the Three Competencies Needed for BPM
— Whether or not an ESP will be used to help with or to take over
the BPM project, the organization does need to establish business
process competencies to sustain BPM efforts over time. Each of the
competency areas needs a mix of resources that have both IT and
business skills. To ensure the success of BPM initiatives, the
organization will ultimately need solid competencies in process skills
sets, tools and process assets, and transformation skills.
- Step 4:
Identify the Roles Needed for a Typical BPM Project — A role is
not the same thing as a job. A person's job may require him or her to
play more than one role on the BPM team. There are a number of key
roles needed for BPM success, including BP champion, executive sponsor,
BP director, BP architect, and application developers. ESPs can help
with any of these skills, but an organization must ensure that its
services contract with the ESP emphasizes knowledge transfer and
mentoring, so it can eventually become self-sufficient.
- Step 5:
Target Candidate Business Processes and Agree on Nomenclature —
Many organizations get mired in endless discussions about "what to call
a process" or have no idea where to begin in their business process
improvement efforts. Use an existing process framework to avoid these
roadblocks. Use the ESP's prebuilt business process models or templates
to determine the vendor's degree of industry knowledge and to assess
the vendor's insight into process best practices for your particular
sector.
- Step 6: Identify Who Implements Process Change
and Frequency of Process Change — Organizations tend to
underestimate the frequency of process change. Consider compensating
for that tendency by setting expectations that the processes are more
likely to change. To determine whether an ESP is focused on IT-driven
or business-user-driven process change, check references in which the
vendor has implemented BPM solutions.
- Step 7: Determine
the Magnitude of Process Change — BPM can be applied to a
continuum of process change. The change may be a modest or incremental
process improvement. The change may also be a more-substantial process
redesign or even a large-scale business transformation. The
transformation will more than likely alter your company's structure and
corporate culture, as well as the way in which your company interacts
with its partners and suppliers.
- Step 8: Decide Whether
You Can Manage Change at Three Levels — To be successful with
BPM, an organization will need to address change management at three
levels: the top-down "push" model, the bottom-up "pull" model, and the
peer-to-peer model or "middle-out model." Determine whether the ESP is
equally adept at top-down, middle-out and bottom-up change management
when interviewing customer references. Find out who (what roles) the
ESP interacted with and the way in which the ESP achieved "buy-in" for
BPM adoption.
- Step 9: Identify Your BPM Buying Scenario
— Identify which BPM buying scenario is the best fit for your BPM
project. Examples include an organization that wants a specific
process-based solution, business buyers undertaking a continuous
process improvement initiative, enterprises interested in moving to SOA
or senior business executives looking to rethink their business
processes and transform their business. Use the scenario to frame the
expectations with internal stakeholders and ESPs.
- Step 10:
Conduct a Skill Gap Analysis — When conducting a skill gap
analysis, an organization identifies which BPM skills it has and the
skills that must be obtained from external resources
- Step 11: Determine
Which Sourcing Options Are Appropriate for BPM Skills — An ESP
can help in any of the roles needed for a typical BPM project. However,
an organization will need to develop its own competencies for most of
these roles, which means that it needs an ESP that will provide
advisory services and mentoring, via a staff augmentation or project
services sourcing option.
Additional information is in the Gartner report “Eleven Steps
to Take Before Staffing Business Process Management Projects With
Internal or External Resources.” The report is on Gartner's Web site >>>
