Bouncing Thoughts

I am not the type that regularly keeps up with discussions on LinkedIn groups. I want to be that type, though. Unfortunately a rather erratic work schedule, frequent travel, waves of intense 12-14 hour workdays for weeks make it rather tough to be that type. I manage to drop by some groups whenever I get a chance though. Lately I have been following a few new groups and discussions and while there is a lot of noise there, I was quite taken by the quality and insight of some of the comments. One of the topics over at Harvard Business Review’s LinkedIn Group has really left me awestruck. A post by Jeanne Roué-Taylor titled Is there anything we can’t do while texting? has opened one of the most interesting discussion threads I’ve ever seen. Take a look at the discussion here – there are a staggering 537 comments at the time of posting this piece. It’s incredible to see the kaleidoscope of colourful perspectives people bring to some of these forum discussions. << [go to post]

Very thought provoking question on the ebizQ forum today: “What is the biggest barrier to companies starting a BPM project?”

Quite a few interesting responses. My post, was this, IMHO: “ The biggest barrier is really not technology, vendor, product, SI or that consultant or anything else outside the firm. They could become barriers, yes and they well might. But that's really not your biggest problem.

The biggest barrier is not acknowledging the fact that the biggest barrier could be something other than technology, vendor, product, SI or that consultant or anything else outside the firm.”

But really, some of the best BPM projects have failed because of this particular problem. With BPM it is so very important that two hands come together to clap - both the external enablers (vendors, product specialists, SIs, consultants and all of that) and your internal enablers (process owners, users, IT teams,  Management, etc.) .

Just one hand cant pull off a clap.

Last week I'd written on how having a well thought-out change mgt program is critical for BPM success. As a first step, a BPM program has to overcome what I’d like to call BPM Inertia.  Defn. of Inertia from Physics  – The tendency of a body to preserve its state of rest or of uniform motion, unless acted upon by an external force.

BPM Inertia therefore, could be defined as the tendency of a person, group or community in an organization, to preserve their current way of performing duties & activities & resisting change demanded from a BPM initiative, unless acted upon by a strong & persistent change management program.

Bottomline: it's important to involve ‘people’. Some good resources are available in comments of the original article. Here are more from a post by the astute Elise Olding.