Process Minutes

Process management is 90% mindset and 10% toolset. It’s a mind game, not tool time. Tools and techniques are critically important, but they are not the main game. If you don’t think process, you won’t do process.

Too many processes to manage? Good news! You don’t need to! Identify high-impact processes (HIPs) from the process architecture. Establish governance. Define PKPIs. Focus. Focus. Focus.

An airport retailer cares about how travelers spend their money, not how they spend their time. Their measure is spend-per-traveler, not queue time. Step back. Reframe the process. Redefine performance excellence.

What’s the problem you are trying to solve? What net positive contribution will come from the process work you are doing or about to start? If there’s no good answer, stop and find something useful to do.

The CEO said, “Eliminate processes, they cause problems.” A common, perhaps unconscious, assumption is that processes are operational with no strategic relevance. That must change to optimize strategy execution.

You will never be asked to make small changes to a process nobody cares about. We must work at both ends of the spectrum – process improvement and innovation. Does your approach need more innovation?

The documentation is not the process. The most important aspect of any process is the value delivered to customers and/or other stakeholders. What does the process promise to deliver? To whom? Is it delivering?

No organization is a collection of random activities. Even the most innovative achieves its objectives, i.e., gets the right work done in the right way, through business processes.

To optimize the impact of process improvement we must first choose the right process to improve. Making that choice is the essence of active process management. Guesswork is no substitute for mindful choice.

If you could improve only one process, which would you choose? Can the people who evangelize process management & improvement provide their own gold standard example of process excellence? What if they did?

Authoritarian governance does not sit well with cross-functional collaborative management. Consider the Process Owner role with influence, but zero authority. Can that work?

No organization has a business problem called “we don’t have enough process models”. Process modelling needs a business case. What is your Return on Modelling?

Pizza deliveries should always be on time. BUT, when the target is perfection, it’s not a target, just a noble aspiration. BUT WAIT, is 99% good enough for a process delivering children home from school? What’s the perfect answer?

Functional KPIs measure business unit performance. Process KPIs measure how well value is delivered to customers and other stakeholders. One of those is way more important than the other. Which do you do?

The PBC is the closest you can get to magic while remaining statistically relevant. Improve the efficiency of process improvement – chase the signals, not the noise.

Do you reward problem finders? Continuous problem finding is a prerequisite for continuous improvement. Bring me problems!

The organization chart and the process architecture are important, different, and unrelated management artifacts. You need both.

Is the BPM support team an enabler or a bottleneck? Are they helping or just getting in the way? Are you building an OPPI?

The absence of a process mindset is the difference between ad hoc improvement attempts and a sustained systemic approach. How do you rate the process mindset at your organization?

Process improvement projects often make more recommendations than changes. How many improvements have really been implemented? How do you know?

Do you manage and optimize your cross-functional processes that execute strategy by delivering value — or just hope it all works out OK?

Hope is not a risk management strategy. Risk events occur in the execution of business processes. First find the processes.

Without continuous measurement how can you know if you are delivering continuous improvement?

Proven, Valued, Business Benefits. Are you delivering PVBB? What are they? How do you know?

Do you have a BPM maturity development roadmap that takes you from a known current position to a known target state?

To enhance performance, we must also manage across the org chart, but who is in charge?

Why does this process exist? What change should it delver? What Would Good Look Like?

“Mind the gap” is a great 3-word summary of process-based management. Are you minding your process performance gaps?

The purpose of process is performance. Is your process work delivering on that purpose? What do you need to do to sustain or change?

Choosing the right process – if a process is improved and nobody notices, was there an improvement?

To activate process management: select, specify, search.

This video offers the challenge “Who would care?” What’s your answer?