Posted by: peter in Peter Borner on
Oct 20, 2009
It has been quite a while since I wrote a blog entry. This is mostly due to the volume of work I have been experiencing. However, I have recently been able to reflect on how we are trying to reshape our organisation in the UK and how we are working with a number of our clients to implement IT infrastructure and BPM processes to underpin and support their organisational change.
Many leading firms understand the need to fundamentally transform their organisations if they are to succeed in the future. Their objective is remove change-resistant, rigid hierarchical organisational structures to become more open and dynamic. The firms most likely to succeed are those best positioned to build an entrepreneurial spirit among staff and to build long-term relationships with suppliers, partners and customers alike so that the firm has more people willing to challenge entrenched thinking and champion change. They need more people who approach problems creatively; more effective listeners; better communicators; skilled relationship builders; strong negotiators; skilled, diverse business and social networkers; people they can trust to act autonomously and they need people who combine many these qualities.
How does this affect your business? From an IT perspective you will need to implement systems and policies to support people working unusual hours, from remote locations and on the technologies of their choice You will need to provide the ability for staff to build and develop multiple diverse networks that reach out to a wider and wider pool of potential contacts. From an HR perspective you will need to adopt a more flexible approach to hiring talent and your senior management must be committed and lead the effort to drive through these changes.
I am committed to helping driving through these changes at Axispoint and we are working with a number of clients to help provide the IT systems and HR Processes to underpin their change process.
Posted by: peter in Savvion, Peter Borner, PegaSystems, Lombardi, K2.net, iterative approach, Global 360, change, Business Process Management, bpm, Appian on
Jun 10, 2009
Are vendors that describe themselves as System-Centric, Human-Centric or Document-Centric being very short-sighted and missing the point of BPMS value?
Gartner's latest report "People, Processes and Information: United at Last in BPM" says that vendors that describe themselves in one of those buckets as being very short-sighted and missing the point of BPMS value.
At Axispoint we have found that an organisation new to BPM is unlikely to have the right set of skills and experience on hand, a sub-optimal methodology will deliver sub-optimal results and poor communication causes frustration and distrust bringing about resistance to change. The best way to deal with this complex challenge is to adopt a holistic approach. Unlike traditional application development, implementing BPM necessarily involves changes to business process, and invariably to culture, not just to the technology.
People, Processes and Information must be truly united for BPM to be successful.
John P. Kotter, in his latest book A Sense of Urgency [Harvard Business Press, 2008] cites two reasons why, by his calculation, 70% of Business change either fails to deliver or is never instigated in the first place. These two reasons are complacency and false urgency.
He believes that complacent people do not realise they are complacent and that they believe someone else is responsible for solving the challenges the business faces. Kotter goes on to describe complacent people as tending to avoid leading and trying to maintain the status quo. He describes false urgency as being created by people who are very active but not necessarily in meeting the challenges of their company. They tend to be stressed, tired and feeling the weight of too much expectation. They typically spend too much time in meetings where people are more interested in making themselves look good than in meeting new challenges.
Kotter describes true urgency as being fueled by the belief that the world contains great opportunity among the challenges.
If you, like me, are proactively seeking new challenges, have gut instinct and determination to take a challenge head on and win then I reccomend you read this book and find out how to remove complacent and false urgency from situations where urgency is required... How to find opportunity in a crisis.
