Many IT Organizations Lack Skills Needed to Implement Business Processes
The crunch is on to implement technology faster, with compressed business process life cycles leading the charge forward.
Many organizations are using business process management (BPM) to help with agility, though most organizations are sorely lacking in the skill sets needed to implement these business processes.
Interestingly, Gartner Research Vice President Michele Cantara noted in a recent research report: "[S]uccessful BPM requires an agile iterative approach to process change. Many internal IT organizations and external service providers [ESPs] are still practicing business process re-engineering, using ‘waterfall' software development methods and calling it BPM. Instead, BPM is intended to empower business stakeholders to work collaboratively with IT to change the solutions supporting the business processes. Most ESPs do not possess the governance, modeling and change management skills necessary to effectively foster this collaboration."
So because of this lack of skills, Gartner has identified 11 processes to help determine whether organizations should source BPM skills internally or externally:
Step 1: Establish a Holistic View of the Five Dimensions of Multi-sourcing -Gartner noted that while it is advisable to always have a multi-sourcing strategy, it's even more imperative to address the five dimensions of multi-sourcing (sourcing strategy, market analysis and vendor evaluation, contract development and vendor negotiation, multi-sourcing management, and sourcing governance) when investing external resources.
Step 2: Understand the Pros and Cons of Different Sourcing Options - Project-based services are the appropriate sourcing model for most organizations that haven't fully established their own BPM competencies. Once an organization has established BPM competencies, it can supplement its resources through staff augmentation or outsource some solutions.
Step 3: Establish a Big-Picture View of the Three Competencies Needed for BPM - Whether or not an ESP will be used to help with or to take over the BPM project, Gartner said the organization needs to establish business process competencies to sustain BPM efforts over time. Each of the competency areas needs a mix of resources that have both IT and business skills. A successful BPM initiative has strong competencies in process skills sets, tools and process assets, and transformation skills.
Step 4: Identify the Roles Needed for a Typical BPM Project - Gartner said a role is not the same thing as a job. A person's job may require him/her to play more than one role on the BPM team. There are roles needed for BPM success, including business process champion, executive sponsor, business process director, business process architect and application developers. ESPs can help with any of these skills, but an organization must ensure that its services contract with the ESP emphasizes knowledge transfer and mentoring, so it can eventually become self-sufficient, Gartner said.
Step 5: Target Candidate Business Processes and Agree on Nomenclature - Many organizations get mired in endless discussions about "what to call a process" or don't have an idea where to begin their efforts. Use an existing process framework to avoid these roadblocks. Use the ESP's pre-built business process models or templates to determine the vendor's degree of industry knowledge and to assess the vendor's insight into process best practices for your particular sector.
Step 6: Identify Who Implements Process Change and Frequency of Process Change - Organizations tend to underestimate the frequency of process change. Consider compensating for that tendency by setting expectations that the processes are more likely to change. To determine whether an ESP is focused on IT-driven or business-user-driven process change, check references in which the vendor has implemented BPM solutions, Gartner said.
Step 7: Determine the Magnitude of Process Change - BPM can be applied to a continuum of process change. The change may require a more substantial process redesign or even a large-scale business transformation. The transformation will more than likely alter your company's structure and corporate culture, as well as the way in which your company interacts with its partners and suppliers.
Step 8: Decide Whether You Can Manage Change at Three Levels - To be successful with BPM, an organization will need to address change management at three levels: the top-down "push" model, the bottom-up "pull" model and the peer-to-peer model or "middle-out" model. Determine whether the ESP is adept at top-down, middle-out and bottom-up change management when interviewing customer references, Gartner said.
Step 9: Identify Your BPM Buying Scenario - Identify which BPM buying scenario best fits. Examples include an organization that wants a specific process-based solution, buyers undertaking a continuous process improvement initiative, enterprises interested in moving to service-oriented architecture or senior business executives looking to rethink their business processes and transform the business.
Step 10: Conduct a Skill Gap Analysis - Gartner said that when conducting a skill gap analysis, an organization must identify which BPM skills it has and the skills that must be obtained from external resources
Step 11: Determine Which Sourcing Options Are Appropriate for BPM Skills - An ESP can help in any of the roles needed for a typical BPM project. However, an organization will need to develop its own competencies for most of these roles, Gartner said. This means that the organization needs an ESP that will provide advisory services and mentoring, via staff augmentation or project services sourcing option.
What experiences have you had with BPM? Have you used any (or maybe all) of these approaches within your health care organization? E-mail me at rmitchell@advanceweb.com. I'd be interested in hearing what your results have been.