BPM and the Balanced Scorecard

A Good Fit

Wonder where to start in your process analysis and redesign? So do a lot of people. Of course, there are always very painful areas that need immediate attention. Beyond that, what you identify and approach ought to be a reflection of your priorities as an organization. What are your strategic priorities? If you don’t know or if you come up with a list that differs from that of others, you have an issue.

First Things First

Make sure your team represents a wide array of functional and leadership areas within your organization. Then, make sure the team can enumerate your strategic objectives. Keep it simple but make it clear.

Balanced Scorecard

Do you have one? If you don’t, this won’t make much sense. The Balanced Scorecard is an approach developed by Kaplan and Norton in the early 90’s to measure strategy-in-action. It’s no wonder it’s a good framework for workflow and business process analysis. If your organization doesn’t have a Balanced Scorecard, go to Amazon.com and buy a few books. It’s high-time you adopted the approach. Niven’s Step-by-Step book is a good primer and resource.

Enterprise-Wide

What you learn from Balanced Scorecard is to take an approach to BPM that includes analysis of financial metrics, customer metrics, internal processes (workflow) and employee learning & growth. It’s not too hard to see how these disciplines fit so well together. For each dimension, you can:

1. identify benchmarks 
2. model the processes involved
3. apply standardization (ISO)
4. evaluate suppliers and purchases
5. examine your IT and IS infrastructure in relation
6. survey your employees
7. survey customers on behalf of what they deem important
8. improve communication
9. improve efficiency and quality
10. enhance training
11. affect pricing

Take some time, if you haven’t already, and develop a Balanced Scorecard. That way, you can rest assured that you’re doing first things first and making an enterprise impact.