Recognizing the Human Side of Business Processes Management
— By Garrison Solutions Executive Consultant Cary Paul,
Founder and President Rick Kiehle, and Advisor John Hanasack
The President’s Management Agenda (PMA) — the need
to get to green and stay there—has become part of everyday
life for federal managers and leaders. At this point, nearly all
government executives recognize that they can only achieve the
goals of the PMA by successfully implementing effective business
process management (BPM) techniques.
Effective BPM can lead to the realization of many of the key goals
of the PMA, including:
Although public- and private-sector executives have analyzed
and refined the business management process for decades, the most
essential component of process—people—is often overlooked,
if not forgotten. However, experience suggests that the most successful
BPM implementations not only include, but actually focus on, the
human side of business process.
A Simple Concept That’s Often Overlooked
What is the human side of business process? The concept itself
is really quite simple. Most BPM programs examine only exactly
what the title implies: business processes. Often, in the course
of analyzing and reworking processes to drive the greatest outcome
at the lowest cost, managers forget that there are human aspects
to many processes—particularly processes in a service environment,
like that of the federal government. To truly improve the efficiency
of business processes, it is essential to drive process development
from the individual employee level. This requires:
Focusing on decision-making at the individual level Recognizing that individual employees can impact change by
adopting more efficient processes Establishing accountability at the individual employee and
team levels.
While there are many important factors in integrating the human
side into BPM, in our experience there are four essential aspects:
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Mapping processes, activities,
learning, communications, and resources
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Communicating expectations
and plans at the individual level
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Managing performance, accessing
relevant information, tracking progress
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Evolving and changing the
BPM based upon performance and the dynamics of the organization.
Best Practices in Integrating the Human Factor into BPM
Select and Train Senior Managers With Care
One key to integrating the human factor into BPM is to recognize
that people understand, and interact with, BPM in a wide variety
of ways. Senior managers responsible for overseeing BPM must be
capable of embracing BPM entirely and must understand its interaction
with and impact on strategy. Ideally, leaders responsible for BPM
possess “implementer” skill sets so that they can interact
with their staffs, colleagues, and others to efficiently and effectively
operate a BPM program.
Establish Level-Appropriate Training and Guidance
Another crucial factor to integrating the human side into BPM is
appropriate staff involvement. All staff within a business unit
may be affected by BPM, but different staff members will be affected
in different ways depending upon their understanding of, and involvement
in, the program. Generally, staff may be divided into three broad
groups: those who are involved (1) minimally, (2) somewhat, or (3)
highly. Personnel who are minimally involved with BPM require fairly
little exposure to it, although it cannot be stressed enough that
they do require at least an introduction to the concept. This level
of involvement may require presentations, seminars, and fundamental
training. Those employees who are somewhat involved in the BPM process
will need, on top of the basic understanding, to learn methods,
technologies and outcomes of BPM. Finally, staff who will be highly
involved with BPM must learn knowledge transfer, staff training,
creative solution development, and the overall cultural implications
of BPM.
For all levels of involvement, it is essential to remember that
people learn differently, and therefore various training tools
need to be developed to address, for example, the visual learner,
the tactile learner, and the written learner.
Drive Metrics and Accountability to the Individual and Team
Levels
One of the key tenets of integrating the human side into BPM is
to connect individuals and teams to business process outcomes. Process
goals that do not drive to individual performance by their very
nature disconnect the individual from the outcome. It is essential,
then, that every individual involved in BPM understand the metrics
that are specific to their work, as well as the particular areas
for which they are accountable.
Employ Technology to Gain the Greatest Benefit
The use of technology, such as the deployment of BPM on an intranet,
is essential to gaining the greatest benefit from the integration
of the human side into BPM. Technologies make process solutions
scalable and global. They enable organizations to link various systems,
reducing information input, rework, and information sharing time,
as well as dramatically improving quality by eliminating the necessity
to consolidate data from various systems. Furthermore, the use of
technology helps to drive accountability by placing resources right
at the fingertips of all users.
Case Study: Reducing Time and Expense in Monthly Financial
Reporting
The Issue
One organization that achieved success by integrating the human
side into BPM is a large public company based in the Midwest. The
company has 8 locations and 28 separate charts of accounts. Each
location had several staff members dedicated to closing the books
each month, and a location-specific “close coordinator.”
There also was a master close coordinator at headquarters. In all,
over 2,500 hours were spent monthly to close the books.
Each office maintained a separate spreadsheet file of its financials
and each followed its own processes and procedures for closing the
books each month. On a monthly basis, the close coordinator consolidated
all of the offices’ files. Every month, closing the books
took an average of 18 days. On top of that, the books often had
to be reopened the following month to address changes, omissions,
and updates.
The Process
The company recognized the benefits of decreasing the time and effort
involved in closing the books, as well as the opportunity to improve
quality. The first step in improving the process was to identify
all of the staff who needed to be involved in discovering the solution.
The change project focused on the people rather than the process
to ensure that each employee would have a stake in the solution.
Representatives from each location then got together to develop
a common process at the task level. The common process drove metrics
and established accountability at the individual level.
Once tasks and processes, metrics and accountabilities were nailed
down, the organization implemented an on-line template that all
of the locations would use to update their financials. The on-line
system improved timeliness by auto-populating some standard information,
and eliminated the need to share and consolidate files. It also
dramatically improved consistency and quality because all work instructions
are available at the proper level across the organization. In addition,
the reduced timeframe provided greater opportunity for work review,
reducing unnecessary errors.
The Results
The result of the implementation of these changes has been a reduction
in turnaround time to 5 days and approximately 1,000 hours from
the initial average of 18 days and 2,500 hours. Furthermore, eight
full time equivalencies (FTEs) within the organization, who used
to devote 100% of their time to monthly closing activities, now
spend time on other value-added activities. In all, an estimated
$225,000 is saved monthly, and the books are not re-opened.
While the benefits of a strong BPM program are widely recognized,
the additional benefits of integrating the human factor in the
business processes are still largely untapped. By taking this
vital step in the business management process, organizations can
realize labor and dollar savings as well as quality improvements.
Additional Information
For more information on how to integrate the human side into BPM,
contact Cary Paul at Garrison Solutions (cpaul@garrisonsolutions.com)
or visit Pivotal Insight online at www.pivotal-insight.com.
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