When analyzing a function for improvement, it is common practice to document the existing operations into what is widely known as a current state. This current state operational view serves as a baseline for improvements. It identifies the inputs, work steps, and outputs (and often a lot more). It serves to ground the team and provide a starting point for designing a future state. In contrast, future states are the destination. They are the sum total of the improvements to the current state to get to a new more effective and efficient operational state. Generally current state and future state views are documented as process maps or flows. Both the current state and the future state are powerful steps for improvement teams to understand where they are today and where they are going in the future.

Let me start with a definition of agile as it applies to operating models or processes: “being able to turn on a dime for a dime” and “being able to change faster and more cheaply than your competitors”.   These phrases are taken from, who was part of the team who coined the term agile as being relevant to the lean and six sigma community.  In this community, agile is associated with short-period (often six-week), test-and-learn projects, at the end of which priorities and direction can be reset based on what has been learned.  It is also associated with “minimum viable product”: the way of testing a new idea.

In today’s demanding business environment that rewards flexibility, speed, quality, efficiency, effectiveness and innovation, a strategically competitive middle- and back-office strategy and its operational execution can be a roadmap to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. Business Process Management (BPM) helps an asset management company achieve these characteristics in the components of its value chain.  Applying the BPM discipline achieves measurable process improvements that lead to organizational performance improvements in the middle- and back-office.

Middle- and BACK-OFFICE challenges

Delivering Agile Projects within Structured Project, Process and Quality Management Frameworks

The most important factor in successful Agile adoption (and expansion) is aligning it to the culture, standards and constraints of your organization.  Even the most effective Agile project work risks losing executive support if it cannot meet the overarching management, compliance, administrative and reporting structures established by the organization.  Unless you are in the unique position of being able to adjust your organizational structures to suit the flexibility of Agile approaches, you will need to find a way for your team’s Agile work to comply with these corporate standards.  Thankfully, this is an achievable goal, although it may take some creative thinking to make it work within your specific organizational constraints.

Once you have your current state model, what do you do with it? How do you share it with the Process Owner and Executive Sponsor and spark their interest? My experience is that executives looking at a model that is 30 to 60 steps long are impressed and say something like, “Wow, that process is complex. I can see it has a lot of steps which could take a long time.” But they are not interested in reviewing every single step and getting into the details.