Focus level of BPX

Question

Hello all,
I'm new to the community and my experiences with BPM are -for now- on a theoretical level.
I do sense an area of tension of which I would like to hear the opinions of more experienced people.
What I've learned so far is that a BPX should try to create an image of how processes run in the company; top-down. Start with the vision and mission statment, strategy and identiy the end-to-end processes that directly contribute to the goals of the company. These processes should be the starting point of identifying all processes on a lower level.
So far my experience is that people are mainly interested in processes on a lower level. Sometimes people are only interested in the processes they are working in or process descriptions that lay very close to functional diagrams.
My understanding so far is that it's very important to get the whole picture. I'm curious about your opinions and experiences on this one.

Answer 1

The situation as you describe it indeed the ideal situation which we strive for. In daily practive however, customers / organisations are very much inclined to limit the focus on an existing issue or a limited (non end-to-end) proces. As a result (as we have seen so many times in the past during implementation, upgrade and enhancement projects) the solutions found are sub-optimal solutions limited to a restricted set of users and/or processteps.
Furthermore, as R.S. Krishnan describes in the post Who hires BPX?, the focus of IT departments is mainly Technology focussed, whereas the business is usually process or output focussed. In comes the BPX bridging the gap between these 2.
This does require a new approach in defining the project at the customer site, since the project can no longer be driven by IT (technology) which is usually the case. Basically things that we already knew are coming to the foreground. Innovation must be
- driven by technology,
- required and accepted by Business Processes and
- sponsored by Executive level.
Is this a tough job? Yes it is, but if we, the BPX's, can succeed in bridging the gap between techological opportunities, future scenario's and improving business processes by crossing those invisible boundaries of systems and departments the value will become evident and the profession will become clear.