Nancy Bilodeau is a Senior Program Manager at Openwave in charge of corporate process initiatives. Prior to join Openwave, Bilodeau worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers, USi, A&G Consulting and MEI mainly as a customer relationship management consultant. Bilodeau developed an easy project methodology for Openwave that is helping them to improve the alignment of IT and business process resulting in better return on investment, process efficiency and organization effectiveness.
Bilodeau had to start the BPM process with the IT department because the business side was not yet convinced that the BPM initiative would work. One of the early lessons was that the organization needs to provide a structure in which process ownership is valued and supported. Process improvement needs to monitored and continuous improvements need to be rewarded.
The benefits included:
- Quick wins, short term improvements
- Increases cross functional awareness and improve team work
- Facilitate system implementation
- Support ROI definition
- Survive the SOX audit
The challenges included:
- Documented but not enforced
- Duplicated effort, low reuse of existing components
- Isolated work, lack of global perspective
- Process and project fatigue
- Operational efficiency
Bilodeau said it is important after finishing an initiative to continually check back and see how the initiative worked out and is still being used. The organization needs to embrace process improvement in the leadership chain from the top all the way down.
The Process Maturity Level Assessment has five stages. These are:
- Initial: Ad hoc and occasionally even chaotic. Few processes are defined, and success depends on individual effort and heroics
- Repeatable: Basic process established to define cycle time and output. Allow to repeat success
- Defined: Processes are documented, standardized, and integrated into an architectural framework
- Managed: Data are gathered to monitor the performance of the process. Processes are understood and controlled.
- Optimized: Continuous improvement is enabled by quantitative feedback from the process and from piloting innovative ideas and technologies
Key considerations are:
- Reporting structure- Defining authority levels and accountabilities
- Role Design- Defining roles and relationships at all levels
- Work Group- Defining how units or teams will work together
- Performance Measures- Defines how to measure the performance of people, groups and departments
- Integrating Mechanisms- Providing the glue to make the enterprise cohesive
The responsibilities of the process office include:
- Own the process management process
- Defined and enforce standards
- Provide training and support
- Maintain process architecture framework
- Facilitate process alignment
- Assess process maturity level
- Report on quality SMART objectives and process management process performance
- Provide process management governance
The responsibilities of the process owner are:
- Define process scope
- Document processes
- Provide process training, communication and support
- Monitor, manage and improve process performance
- Manage SOX risks and controls
- Ensure documentation is accurate and reflect current practices
- Identify improvement opportunities
- Plan and manage process change
- Work with other process owners to define appropriate integration
- Comply with audit activities
It is important to know your organization’s ability to change. Bilodeau used a change readiness assessment form with 31 categories, rated on a scale. She also instituted a communication plan to facilitate change.
Training is also a good tool for change management, according to Bilodeau. Her plan includes:
- Analyze – identify and access target audience and content and strategies
- Design – refine learning objectives and create course outlines
- Develop – draft instructional plan and prototype materials and evaluations
- Implement – select, train instructors, develop performance measures
- Evaluate – select instructors, schedule students, disseminate materials and do pilot training
Bilodeau says that the process person or group needs to be accountable and there needs to be executive buy-in from the beginning. Build the initiative from the top down to make sure that your BPM initiative is successful and sustainable.
