One of most evident but widely neglected reasons for poor process performance in a company is a failure to recognize a process as such. Systematic process mapping is an essential factor for efficient process governance and optimization of business performance. However, organizations often miss to distinguish processes they run and to reveal them as business models.
Another even more typical and closely related reason is that a company creates abstract to-be processes and strives running them while ignoring objective reality. Again, essential mapping of as-is processes is neglected for the sake of an imaginary abstraction often borrowed from a book or ready framework and disregarding crucial aspects of the specific organization.
Not seldom, externally enforced processes are even artificially simulated by workers to satisfy inadequate management requirements. It creates additional inefficiency due to a friction and time loss by workers to observe such a fake compliance. Fictitious processes are not less destructive for an enterprise than double books.
To avoid such situations, companies must always begin their BPM journey from scrupulous mapping of existing process landscape and take all care for timely actualization of business model throughout its whole life cycle. It can be achieved only through wide collaboration of analysts, managers and process owners in a contemporary transparent BPM environment.
Good contrarian advice. Contrarian to me at least as someone new to the field because I’ve read people say they didn’t bother m wasting much time with as-is since they’re going directly to to-be.
Adam Khan, thank you for taking time to comment. We believe that as-is processes are very important as a basis for further improvements. Without them, you don’t have any reference coordinates.