The current business environment is undergoing rapid change, especially with the continual introduction of the Internet of Things (IoT) or the Internet of Everything (IoE), to use Cisco’s term. In such an environment, it is no longer sufficient to redesign or optimize your processes limited to the human and traditional supporting IT applications. In this Column, John Jeston and Gina Craig suggest that effective business transformations begin with an examination of the organization’s business operating model and suggest key questions to ask as you do so.

In their Column this month, John Jeston and Gina Craig ask, “Is providing staff with detailed step by step process and work flow solutions making them think less?” In their experience as managers, they have learned that staff are generally closest to the process and usually have the best solutions to process problems. Is this your experience as well?

In their roles as process practitioners, John and Gina have found that far too frequently BPM projects begin and continue without having a clear and agreed upon definition of when a process starts and ends. In this Column, they cite three cases to illustrate their point and suggest steps to avoid the problem.

John Jeston and his colleague, Gina Craig, assert that unless all stakeholders—both internal and external—are enthusiastic and fully engaged in a change management project, the implementation is at risk of failure. In this Column, they discuss ways to create an environment that will encourage stakeholders to be fully involved.

John Jeston, with his colleague, Gina Craig, respond to the commonly held belief that bureaucracy and high performance are incompatible. They describe the issues and challenges that confront managers as they work with their employees in a bureaucratic setting. The authors emphasize the importance of the manager’s role in the process and how their behavior is key to the success of their employees’ performance.

This is where “the rubber hits the road” in BPM – at least one of the major areas where this is the case. We all know the expressions: “If you’re not measuring, you are not managing”; and “You get what you set”. We also know that the measures or goals (often referred to as KPIs) […]

Down Under: The Perpetual Question: What is BPM—A New Perspective In his Column this month, John Jeston offers a new perspective on defining Business Process Management that he believes will explain the potential of BPM to senior executives and skeptics who may doubt its effectiveness. Read John’s Column for details of how the technique he […]