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 hurdle 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.
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 work 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.
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 as the high summit, the top of traditional organizations, those hierarchically structured, can not think of anything that is not concrete, we have to "concretize" very well the benefits that will be obtained at the end of the project.
Only then the sale has a great chance to be realized and, mainly, the project to be successful.