organizational improvement

Organizational Improvement

The strategy give context that allows us to “think global and act local” using

BPM as improvement approach

“I want to debate why a company exits. In other words, why we exists? I think that many people assume wrongly that a company exists to make money. Although is an important goal, we have to go deep and understand the real reason of our existence. We came to the conclusion that a group of people come together to do what they can do alone – make a contribution to the society, a ordinary statement but very important... We can see around us people in organizations only focused in making money, but the underlying reasons come from the desire to make something more, a product or service, something of value.” Collins e Porras, quoting David Packard, speech in a Hewlett-Packard’s formation in 8 of March of 1960

Collins, J. C., & Porras, J. I. (1996). Building Your Company’s Vision. Harvard Business Review, 74(5), 65–77.

Pedro Sobreiro | [email protected]

Objectives

• Understand what is reason of existence of an organization? Why we exist as an organization? Why the customers come to us? Are we different?

• We have to define a context that helps to clarify our reason of existence that supports our strategy;

• Assuming a business context simplifies the definition of improvement priorities in our organization;


Objectives

• The first step is to clarify our strategy before taking measures to improve the organization. Is fundamental to create a context!

• Context creates the foundations to the development of the improvement actions in the organization;

• The improvement actions are developed using approaches based in process management accordantly the real needs of the organization;


Objectives

• An organizational improvement is accomplish when the customers, workers or others stakeholders see their problems solved;

• The problems that worries us are materialized in objectives that we accomplish to solve them;

• To fulfill an objective we need an improvement action, we have to do something that we didn’t accomplish until now;


There are several approaches that could be used…

Tregear, R., & AlKharashi, B. (2012). Strategy, Processes & Projects: reconciling three core elements of contemporary management excellence. Retrieved from http://www.leonardo.com.au/documents/StrategyProcessesProjectsrel1a_000.pdf

The improvement project is developed according the real

needs of the organization

We develop the processes as-is and define the to-be considering the strategy and priorities

We define a context with the strategy and

improvement priorities


Our approach suggestion

Using the assumptions (identified in the strategy, formal or not formal) as axioms for the process clarification (representing the work being done in the organization)

Sobreiro, P., Bento, T., & Claudino, R. (2013). Operacionalização da estratégia das organizações desportivas através da definição de axiomas, para um contexto de melhoria. Revista Intercontinental de Gestão Desportiva, 3(0), 83–95.

Strategy defines a context

Context clarifies the process definition

The processes improve the work Work supports the processes improvement

Improved processes have better performance

Strategy is operationalized and fulfilled


How we do this?

• We clarify what we want and define assumptions to develop the improvements;

• The assumptions are systematized and contextualized;

• We use several steps and take actions according what we need;

• The improvements try to act in the work being developed in the organization, supported or not by technology;


Sobreiro, P., Bento, T., & Claudino, R. (2013). Operacionalização da estratégia das organizações desportivas através da definição de axiomas, para um contexto de melhoria. Revista Intercontinental de Gestão Desportiva, 3(0), 83–95.

Steps to develop the context

1. Understanding the organization mission and vision;

2. Identification of the business strategy objectives

3. Identification of key stakeholders;

4. Identification of business capabilities;

5. Evaluation of the issues related to each stakeholder;

6. Definition of operational objectives aligned with stakeholders and business capabilities;

7. Definition of improvement and objectives priorities;

8. Definition of an action plan;


Adapted from: Coelho, J. (2013, April 4). Estrutura da Metodologia MLearn. Presented at the Formação BPM - Arquitetura de Processos, AIP Lisboa.

Definition of improvement context

• Using a quick session in a pragmatic way is defined an improvement area, manly with more impact in the strategy;

• The focus is in what to improve and in what has to be done to achieve the improvement, e.g. the attuning of the work developed by people to goals defined;



• In the scenarios that doesn’t exists a formal strategy the assumptions are created defining premises clarifying the business strategy (context);

• Can be used balanced scorecards or tableaux the bord. We can also use a simplified model to facilitates their identification – depends of the organization;

• The main goal is that we must have a business context for the definition of the improvements to develop BPM based improvement;



• No formal strategy lead to is definition using an simplified approach;

• If exists it must be converted in a business context that can be used, e.g. KPIs decomposed and articulated to the business capabilities until the work or technological layer;

• Is used a theoretical framework simplified to facilitate is application and results achievement;



• If available, the information related to action plans or business strategy is treated and analyzed before the first work session;

• First session we try to integrate the information to clarify the business context (transformation);

• The information is verified and validated by accountable, in a way to have the business context well defined – is fundamental to have a work base;


Improvement priorities

• Identification of the target are based in the priorities ranking, e.g. influence in global objectives;

• The improvement action is developed according to the “real needs” of the organization, that are aligned with the strategy goals;

• The improvement is operationalized with process design (e.g. work redefinition) using technology or not – priority is open source technology;

• BPM technology can be used for: (1) system integration; (2) optimization of work; (3) documents uses optimization (Richardson, 2010);


Clay Richardson. (2010, April 26). BPM Fundamentals: Develop Your Game Plan For BPM Success. Retrieved from http://fr.slideshare.net/passion4process/bpm-fundamentals

Why a BPM project?

• Hammer (2010) points that BPM is a system to generate and change the business operations, considering it as the first innovative approach in organizational performance since the industrial revolution;

• Gives a management perspective, like “Black Box” enhancing the resources that we have and the results the we want to achieve. Align what we must do for the intended outcomes;


Hammer, Michael. (2010). What is Business Process Management? In J. vom Brocke & M. Rosemann (Eds.), Handbook on Business Process Management 1, International Handbooks on Information Systems (pp. 3–16). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

The works is transversal to functions

In a sport organization the goal of getting athletes is transversal and cannot be easily achieved in a business structured oriented to the functions.

The processes help to organize the work in a more efficient way and according the intended goals.


A process = work developed

Verb+noun

Event+Input

Event+Output

Helps us organizing and orienting the work according the organization needs


Process “Retain User” versus functional areas

The process “Retain User” has the goal of maximizing the involvement as long as possible. This is more difficult keeping the functional objectives.

Accounting Mkt and sales Sport facility

responsible

Front office

Process: Retain User = The process goal is the involvement of the customer for the longest time that is possible

User inscription Follow user Satisfaction survey Recapture users Notify users Receive

payments Identify Delays

Front office goal Head of facilities goal

Mkt and sales golas Accounting goal

Make fast inscriptions

Assure activity execution

Work around problems, recapture, retain and inform

Identify delays and report quickly

Adapted from: Sharp, A. (2014, July 1). Now’s Your Chance – What to Cover in an Executive Briefing on Business Processes. BPTrends. Retrieved from http://www.bptrends.com/bpt/wp-content/uploads/01-07-2014-COL-Practitioners-Perspective-Nows-yr-chance-Sharp.pdf Pedro Sobreiro | [email protected]

Objectives decomposition

KPI

Strategic objective

Operational objective

Assumption


Context desirable outcomes

• Identification of the priorities for the improvement areas in the organization;

• Development of organizational improvements according to what is really need;

• Development of an action plan suitable to the real needs of the organization;

• Workers involvement and the awareness of what the organization needs;


organizational improvement

Documents