The biggest obstacle

Why is it so difficult to deploy BPM in organizations?

Almost at the end of a BPM extension course, Business Process Management, at a university that I accomplished at the end of 2018, lasting 80 hours, a student asked me:

- What is the biggest obstacle to the implementation of BPM in organizations? Now that I know what Business Process Management is and the benefits it brings to organizations, I can not imagine how it is not yet widespread. You yourself have given us few examples of companies that are already managed through their processes rather than through their hierarchical structures.

I answered:

- The biggest obstacle I found in organizations to deploy BPM was the president, the director, the owner, the one who is at the top of the organizational hierarchy. This figure, with very few exceptions, is the main obstacle for Business Process Management to be deployed, regardless of the type of organization we are working on.

And I explained the reason for my statement. Of course, there are exceptions, as in everything, or almost everything, but the entrepreneur, whether or not the owner, can not think abstractly. He is always thinking concretely and in concrete things. He is always thinking about bricks, chairs and tables, air conditioners, buildings, vehicles, but he has a hard time thinking about something like Business Process Management.

Invariably, this type of professional has even heard of BPM, but from there knowing exactly what it is goes a great distance.

In part, the fault is also of the professional who "moves" with processes. Often pseudo-consultants, unscrupulous experts, deliver as a result of documenting and modeling business processes only flowcharts. It is at this time that the one who hired the project feels "stolen". He thinks: What am I going to do with this? And we know that very little or almost nothing can be done with flowcharts, unless they are a part of the process documentation. Never "A" process documentation.

Let me give you an example.

We were once called to deploy Workflow into a power distribution company. We were greeted by a team of 5 process analysts from the company itself whose leader put us the following:

- Professor, our company wants to implement Workflow to increase efficiency and guarantee the quality of our services.

- Good, I said. Is good to hear that. Do you have any priority of which process to deploy first?

- Yes, we have. Let's start with the customer service process, which goes from the Call Center to all the departments involved in the solution or fulfillment of the customer's request.

- OK. We will need to document the service process so we can deploy Workflow.

- It's all right. We already have all processes documented. Let's show it to you.

That was when something dramatic happened. They brought us some thick folders filled with printed documents (believe me, this still happens in the digital age) and together we begin to leaf through those volumes.

Unfortunately, to my surprise, the documentation was summarized as flowcharts. Many, just flows. The entire attendance process was "documented" with dozens of flowcharts.

That's when I said:

- Look, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to document this process detailing it at the level that the Workflow tool you have purchased requires. Ready. That was when the bad surprise came.

- Look, Professor, then you will not be able to continue with the project.

- Why?

- Because the documentation project of our processes took two and a half years to complete and cost more than 4 million Reais. So there's no way we can ask for more money for process documentation work.

- Well, I said, I'm sorry, but we can not deploy a tool like Workflow based only on flowcharts.

Let's go back to my initial statement.

The biggest obstacle I found in organizations to deploy BPM was the president, the director, the owner, the one who is at the top of the organizational hierarchy.

Now, think about how the sponsor of that project must have felt, knowing that all that documentation did not have enough elements to improve the quality of your organization's products.

For me, one of the most interesting and effective approaches to selling a project involving documentation, analysis, improvement and management of business processes is to talk about the benefits it will bring to the organization.

But we have to be careful, because like the high dome, the top of traditional organizations, those structured in a hierarchical way, can not think of anything that is not concrete, we have to "concretize" the benefits that will be obtained at the end of the project.

Only then will the sale have a great chance of being fulfilled and, mainly, the project to be successful.

We'll talk about benefit management in an upcoming article.

A great 2019 for all of us!