Business of BPM

Management Frameworks

I have used this site a few times to look up concepts.  It is called Value Based Management.  It is a data dump of lots of theories.  One theory that I have been particularly interested in lately is called Blue Ocean Strategy.  I have not read all the press on it, but as one friend explained it to me, it is about collaborating with your clients to expand your market.  Rather than go out into new markets seeking new clients (which is the Red or Bloody Ocean), you focus on developing new growth through your client base.  This website above explains it a little different, but you can always go to the official website or read the book to get all the details.

Here is one of their tools called the Four Actions Framework:
To break the trade-off between differentiation and low cost and to create a new value curve, there are four key questions to challenge an industry's strategic logic and business model:              

• Which of the factors that the industry takes for granted should be eliminated?
• Which factors should be reduced well below the industry's standard?
• Which factors  should be raised well above the industry's standard?
• Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered?

The Art of Ware

I was just skimming a story from Guy Kawasaki's blog about The Art of 'Ware by Bruce Webster.  I was a little skeptic, but Guy always has great instincts.  I read a few of the chapters in the book and think you would enjoy it.  Especially if you work with or at a software company. 

Here is some text from the home page about The Art of 'Ware...

Back in the early 1990s, I [Bruce Webster] wrote and published The Art of ‘Ware (M&T Books, 1995), a reinterpretation of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, a 6th century BC treatise on conflict and warfare. My reinterpretation of Sun Tzu’s maxims applied to developing and marketing information technology products, most particularly software. Here’s an example:

• Sun Tzu (Chapter 2, ‘Waging War’, 1910 Lionel Giles translation): Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.
• The Art of ‘Ware (Chapter 2, ‘Supporting Development’, 1995 edition): When your developers are burned out, your technology aging, your resources diminished, and your advantages gone, then others will take advantage of your weaknesses and cut into your market. Even expensive consultants and new CEOs won’t be able to turn things around.

The McKinsey Way

You can certainly never go wrong looking at McKinsey.  Their consultants are usually very top notch and their process of thinking and root cause analysis is great.  Although this post is more about how you analyze a problem (i.e., business process innovation), it also makes a point about how important process and methodology is.  The only way of delivering consistent, high-quality advice worldwide is to have a process of training and consulting that leverages smart people and delivers them to clients.

(Never mind the fact that McKinsey once told me that they only interview people with a 4.0 or people with a 3.8 and above from a top 5 business school.  I didn't fit the bill, but I have several good friends who were there.  I have lots of respect for them.)

The McKinsey Way is actually a book so you can see some insight into the company.  I have read the book and recommend it.  Rather than re-type all my notes, I found comments about the book at MeansBusiness and on blog called Brian Groth's Life at Microsoft and looked at notes on MECE (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive) from a book review on The McKinsey Mind.

My old boss who worked for McKinsey was a genius at asking the probing questions.  She new how to get to root cause better than anyone I worked for.  This is essential is diagnosing any problem not least of which are process problems.  (Since I assume you only look at BPM to drive value where you have some type of problem.)

So MECE, as Brian states in his blog, it suggests you should do the following:

1. Identify the problem using a mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive framework and then map the problem out using some type of logic tree (see example).
2. Create a hypothesis (or hypotheses) about the solution...this drives your analysis.
3. Analyze the data...remember that the only thing that is right is data (assuming some data integrity).
4. Repeat steps 3 & 4 until you find a fact-based solution that makes sense.

  From the book, some of the other key points are:

1. "The most brilliant solution, backed up by libraries of data and promising billions in extra profits, is useless if your client or business can't implement it."
2. "Most business problems resemble each other more than they differ."
3. "If you get your facts together and do you analyses, the solution will come to you."
4. "If you keep your eyes peeled for examples of 80/20 in your business, you will come up with ways to improve it."
5. "Know your solution so thoroughly that you can explain it clearly and precisely to your client in 30 seconds."
6. "It's much better to get to first base consistently than to try to hit a home run and strike out 9 times out of 10."
7. "Just as you shouldn't accept I have no idea from others, so you shouldn't accept it from yourself, or expect others to accept it from you. This is the flip side of I don't know."
8. "When you're picking people's brains, ask questions and then let them do the talking. Keep the interview on track by breaking in when necessary."

5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers

At Express Scripts, all of us on the leadership team (top 1.5%) were given the book The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers.  It was a good book with several relevant tips especially for someone in the BPM space that is likely playing the role of change agent or somone whose career might include an objective of becoming the Chief Process Officer or Chief Innovation Officer. 

From the website, I have pulled in the 5 Patterns.  They also have an online quiz which gives you feedback on whether you are on your way to an extraordinary career. 

1. Understand the Value of You
People with extraordinary careers understand how value is created in the workplace, and translate that knowledge into action, building their personal value over each phase of their careers.

2. Practice Benevolent Leadership
People with extraordinary careers do not claw their way to the top, they are carried there.

3. Overcome the Permission Paradox
People with extraordinary careers overcome one of the great Catch-22s of business: you can't get the job without experience and you can't get the experience without the job.

4. Differentiate Using the 20/80 Principle of Performance
People with extraordinary careers do their defined jobs exceptionally well but don't stop there. They storm past pre-determined objectives to create breakthrough ideas and deliver unexpected impact.

5. Find the Right Fit (Strengths, Passions & People)
People with extraordinary careers make decisions with the long-term in mind.  They willfully migrate towards positions that fit their natural strengths and passions and where they can work with people they like and respect.