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Business Processes - Turning a Bureaucracy
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I was hired by a client who ran administration across a number of
business units delivering services to thousands of customers. The
client had already identified that there was a problem with processes,
but had spent a year using an internal consultant getting no further
than listing the well-known processes.
I worked with
a program team of internal managers working across all the business
units,including the central unit manager.
We mapped the
process architecture for the organisation and identified the many
processes that existed, then mapped processes (AS IS maps) at a
high level. We selected the processes causing the most pain and
developed process profiles that helped us understand all of the
issues, objectives, critical success factors and other matters impacting
on the likely success of redesigned processes. We then worked on
new process designs (TO BE designs), at a sub-process level,.
During this
phase it became increasingly obvious that the central unit was very
efficient in managing processes but was following processes blindly
without regard to the ease of use of the processes by its customers
and staff. In fact the processes were distinctly unfriendly to the
customers because the central unit was driven by a bureaucratic
mindset, which considered following the rules to be more important
than the quality of service, citing 'policy' and their governance
responsibilities as the reasons for their viewpoint.
Working on the
possibilities to improve the processes, the program team was able
to convince the central unit manager that there was a better way
and the TO BE designs started to take shape.
At the same
time I had worked up a strategy that I presented to the CEO and
his executive team. This was to ensure we had full sponsorship and
to get a budget to acquire workflow management (BPM) software to
use to implement new process designs. The budget was provided by
the IT Director, who initially wanted to develop custom software
for every new process, but was persuaded to accept that using a
BPM package would be quicker and more cost-effective.
Once we had
TO BE designs we considered how ro take advantage of using the BPM
package, the acquisition of which was now a separate project within
the program, and came up with SYSTEM high-level designs, ready to
pass to project teams as part of the projects' terms of reference..
Once we had
the target designs for the highest priority process we launched
a project to work on that process. The team comprised a business
manager as project leader, unit manager(s), key staff, IT development
manager and a developer and myself as the BPM subject matter expert.
Because of the
overriding principles that had been laid out in the strategy the
team was quick to look at new ways of how to use an online system
to make the process much simpler to use for customers and staff.
We turned questions on their heads and found ways to use smart forms
to reduce the knowledge the user needed and the number of questions
to be answered. We also targeted significant reductions in process
activity durations and used reminders and escalations to move the
process along.
Whilst it took
quite a while and a number of iterations to complete the detailed
process and system design the final process/system was well received.
We conducted stakeholder consultations sessions as soon as we had
an end-to-end system and we piloted the system in part of the organisation
before going live across the whole organisation.
Whilst the first
process was in pilot we opened up the next process project, and
by the time that was half way through we opened a third process
project. This way we kept the program moving and built on our success.
The customer-oriented approach we had established became key drivers
and pressure rose to redesign more processes.
As a secondary
benefit it was found that staff time was released to enable improved
service levels in other processes and functions, this again had
been established early on as part of the strategy and arose inevitably
out of use of better process designs and online workflow management
systems.
It is better
to focus on customer service and value when designing new processes.
Resource and cost savings will almost enivitably follow on. But
to primarily target cost savings when designing new processes may
lead to reduced service, dissatisfied customers and increasing rectification
costs. In the long run reputation and customers may be lost and
profitability will suffer.
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