Effective Processes vs. Productive People
Blog: The Tibco Blog
I started this year off with a process-oholic bang and made some resolutions to help make 2016 the year of process. For the last twelve days, I have been diligently working on meeting my resolutions. I have had so much more time since my Pilates studio is overrun with people who made resolutions to exercise more in the New Year. Hopefully, come March, all the Resolutioners will have lost interest and I can go back to a blissfully empty Pilates studio, while still actively working on my process resolutions.
Not long ago, I shared “What is BPM?” in 5 words: process, people, context, actions, and outcomes. I promised follow-ups on each of the areas, and this is the second of the series. (I went a little out of order. I couldn’t resist the timely, “This is not the context you are looking for.”) It is now time to bring process to the people!
It is easy to forget that productive people are just as important as effective processes. Often, processes and their efficiency are the only focus of BPM initiatives. This has led to the perception that BPM is only about efficiencies and cost cutting (the Six Sigma Stigma), and not about optimizing operating resources, innovation, and revenue. That perception is what this process-oholic is trying shed from process.
There are just as many ways to improve and optimize how one is using their operating resources, as there are ways to improve one’s operational efficiency. Even if you have gone through several rounds of process improvement, a predictive operations dashboard and skills-based routing can offer entirely new optimizations.
An organization rarely operates like its reporting hierarchy, which is exactly how the corporate directory is structured… so neither should the processes. The skills, privileges, and authority of operating resources are what really matter.
Let’s look at an international bank:
The above dashboard gives an operational manager in the back or middle office a view into their global resource pool and the work that is coming down the pipe. It allows them to see when work is going to be completed based on historical data, current work in the pipeline, and current resource levels and skills.
The manager is able to adjust more than 20 different settings (priority of work type, language, or region, team staffing, or skill requirements) to run a simulation that will forecast how the specific setting will impact the work completion. When the manager finds the best scenario for the situation at hand, she is then able to take action on insights, rebalance the work, and enact those changes with a single click directly from the dashboard.
This is a continuous cycle. The operating resources are constantly being optimized for the current situation and workload, which is an entirely new way to approach banking operations and processes.
Learn more about predictive operations and intelligent work and resource management here. There is still more to discuss about the people piece of process, people, context, actions and outcomes. Your business ecosystem is larger and more complex than you think. Stay tuned to find out why.
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