In their last Column, Alan Ramias and Cherie Wilkins began a series on building and installing a process management system inside an organization. This month they continue the series by framing what they believe is included in any management system and how process management fits into it. They conclude by describing how you can start installing process management on a small scale to win the hearts and minds of those in your organization who need to be sold on BPM.
Alan Ramias is a Partner of the Performance Design Lab (PDL). He has had twenty-five years of experience in performance improvement and organization effectiveness.
Alan was employed by Motorola for ten years as an internal consultant on organizational performance. As a member of the team that founded Motorola University, he was the first person to introduce Geary Rummler's pioneering concepts in process improvement and management to business units within Motorola. Alan advocated and led several of the first groundbreaking projects in process improvement that evolved to the invention of six sigma and Motorola's winning of the first Malcolm Baldrige Award in 1988. Alan was also involved in major restructuring projects at Motorola, and in job design work, compensation planning, workplace literacy, and educational program development.
After joining The Rummler-Brache Group in 1991, Alan led major successful performance improvement engagements within Fortune 500 companies. His experience spanned several industries and the full spectrum of corporate functions and processes, such as strategic planning, manufacturing, product development, financial management, and supply chain. Major clients included Shell, Hewlett-Packard, 3M, Citibank, Motorola, Steelcase, Citgo, Hermann Miller, Louisiana-Pacific, and Bank One. After leading many high-profile projects, he became a partner and Managing Director of Consulting Services at RBG. He led development of much of RBG's products and services, and was responsible for selecting, training and mentoring RBG's consultant teams. Upon leaving RBG, Alan founded his own consulting company, where he continued to practice in the field of performance consulting. He was also involved in several organizational restructuring initiatives in the U.S. and in Asia.
Alan can be reached at aramias@ThePDLab.com.
Ms. Wilkins is a Partner of the Performance Design Lab, where she specializes in the design of Measurement and Management Systems and the application of the Performance Logic methodology to strategy formulation and performance improvement. She has extensive consulting experience in implementing measurement and management systems in the financial services, retail, chemical, petroleum and manufacturing industries. Cherie also has extensive experience in leading Business Process Architecture Definition efforts as the foundation for making the transformation to a process focused/process managed organization.
Prior to joining PDL, Cherie was involved in Technology Development and process improvement consulting with the Rummler-Brache Group. Before joining RBG, she consulted in the area of communications, specializing in internal communications for organizations undergoing large scale change efforts. Prior to that, Cherie worked eight years in the television industry, five of those with the McNeil/Lehrer Newshour.
Making Process Management a Reality
March 3, 2014 , By
In their Column this month, Alan Ramias and Cherie Wilkins begin a series on how to succeed at integrating process management into an organization. Their initial discussion of this topic logically focuses on some of the barriers to installing effective process management. We look forward to future Columns when they will propose ways of doing this work that minimizes those barriers.
Performance Improvement: Remembering Geary Rummler
November 5, 2013 , By
Performance Improvement: Remembering Geary Rummler This month, Alan Ramias and Cherie Wilkins warmly remember Geary Rummler, a BPM thought leader and founder of Performance Design Labs, on the fifth anniversary of his death. They recall humorous and engaging anecdotes regarding some of his most memorable traits–his love for modeling, his troubled relationship with technology, his […]
Process Improvement: Modeling Processes Involving Knowledge Workers
September 3, 2013 , By
Process Improvement: Modeling Processes Involving Knowledge Workers This month, Rick Rummler weighs in on the subject of modeling processes involving knowledge workers. While much of the literature holds that knowledge work precludes process modeling, Rick and his colleague Cherie Wilkins argue otherwise. In this Column, he and Cherie provide an example from an investment banking […]
Performance Improvement: Location, Location, Location—Does it matter where Your Performance Improvement Department Reports?
June 4, 2013 , By
Performance Improvement: Location, Location, Location—Does it matter where Your Performance Improvement Department Reports? Alan Ramias and Cheri Wilkins draw on their long experience in working in process improvement to answer this question. Their conclusion—it’s not so much a matter of where the Performance Improvement Group is located as it is how the group is structured. […]
Performance Improvement: Seeing a Process—the Power of Visual Analysis
March 5, 2013 , By
Performance Improvement: Seeing a Process—the Power of Visual Analysis This month Alan Ramias and Cherie Wilkins have invited Chris Ramias, a colleague at Performance Design Labs to describe a technique he calls “visual analysis.” This technique goes beyond simply identifying the problem in a process to actually determining its root cause. Chris identifies a list […]
Performance Improvement: Who Does What?—Role Responsibility Charting in Improvement Efforts
December 4, 2012 , By
Performance Improvement: Who Does What?—Role Responsibility Charting in Improvement Efforts Alan Ramias and Cherie Wilkins have been using the role-responsibility matrix (RRM) for decades in their work as consultants for Performance Design Labs. Over the years, they’ve developed a number of refinements to the standard tool and its use, which they describe and illustrate in […]
Performance Improvement: Uses of the 3-Dimensional Enterprise Model
September 4, 2012 , By
Performance Improvement: Uses of the 3-Dimensional Enterprise Model In their position as consultants to organizations seeking assistance in undertaking process improvement projects, Alan Ramias and Cherie Wilkins developed the 3 Dimensional Enterprise Model to help them position work system processes in the context of the larger enterprise. They had observed that managers often focus most […]
Performance Improvement: Seeing a Process—the Power of Visual Analysis
March 6, 2012 , By
Performance Improvement: Seeing a Process—the Power of Visual Analysis This month Alan Ramias and Cherie Wilkins have invited Chris Ramias, a colleague at Performance Design Labs to describe a technique he calls “visual analysis.” This technique goes beyond simply identifying the problem in a process to actually determining its root cause. Chris identifies a list […]
Performance Improvement: Reference Models—The Long, Long Shortcut
March 6, 2012 , By
Performance Improvement: Reference Models—The Long, Long Shortcut Drawing on their extensive experience as consultants at the Performance Design Lab, Alan Ramias and Cherie Wilkins describe the many difficulties their clients have encountered when attempting to use reference models. They identify five “traps” they have repeatedly observed and illustrate them with actual examples from their work […]
