You thought Business Process Management was a comparatively safe field. Think again!

Stay clear of these seven deadly sins of BPM - to avoid eternal condemnation or the need to beg forgiveness. I should add its a personal view and apologies for any of you who were hoping for more on lust or gluttony!

Woe unto he who uses the term management when they really mean automating. Business process management means many things to many people. Just take the words process and management alone different (1) people see these quite differently according to their perspective . For many BPM vendors and practitioners alike process management has come to mean process automation. Automation is important but it doesnt constitute Management. From my perspective Management implies good governance,; each process should be seen as an important asset and therefore owned, understood, correctly applied and improved continuously. The end goal is improved performance. That improvement may involve automation, but not in all cases. After all if you look at the activities in your business the vast majority are performed by humans not machines and thats not going to change any time soon. What irritates me is that so many of the automation focused tools which purport to offer BPM, offer little capability with respect to Management as I define it above. The result can easily be the automation of processes which are suboptimal, not properly understood, not properly applied and not continuously improved.
(1)

Perspectives: An earlier paper What BPM Hat are you wearing? explores the different process perspectives of four main stakeholder groups: End Users, IT, System providers and Risk / Compliance. Access the paper here.

Verily I say unto you that work shall be end-to-end lest ye be functionally silod.

In reality, processes start and end in very different places in the enterprise, often spanning multiple functional areas. There is a risk therefore that process improvement efforts are too narrowly silod. The effect? Different departments fix just their part of a larger process. Its difficult to influence what happens either upstream or downstream from that part. And yet improvement of the full end-to-end flow requires collaboration along the full path. The failure to achieve such consensus could result in worsened performance, as a fix in one silo could be a retrograde step for another. A similar challenge is that different specialist projects spring up all the time that duplicate each others process discovery efforts because the organization lacks a central repository for process knowledge. Take a typical ERP or CRM project as a good example. A team of consultants from a system integrator create a bunch of Visio diagrams. Their use is temporary. Once the system has gone live or the upgrade is complete typically the content sits in a forgotten network folder and is never referred to again. Five years on time for an upgrade. The content - if found - is regarded with suspicion. Its out of date. The next SI (often a different company) does exactly the same recreating a bunch of content that has little or no residual value. Meanwhile, there are all sorts of other projects going on, that all aim to understand and improve process. For example: Compliance, Quality, Risk Management, Shared Services, Outsourcing, Lean, Six Sigma, Merger / Acquisition, perhaps others as well. In a typical business few of these projects share a common source of process truth. Just imagine how much duplicated effort and waste could be eliminated if all of these projects started off with a single source of process trutha repository of process knowledge that was

commonly understood and trusted as up-to-date. It would not only speed up progress for each project, it would enable new ways to demonstrate or enable: Regulatory compliance (such as FDA, EPA, SOx) Compliance to quality standards (such as ISO, TCF) Employee training and task performance support Performance Management where scorecards and metrics are tied to relevant processes activities Customer journeys Alignment to frameworks (SCOR, APQCs PCF), and more. Moving process management efforts from multiple silos to a shared enterprise asset creates the opportunity for huge efficiency gains, and the capability to start leveraging that asset far more powerfully for all manner of business initiatives.

Ezekiel saw the wheel, but he didnt reinvent it. If starting a BPM initiative means starting with a blank slate on which you draw, youre likely reinventing the wheel. Process frameworks were developed to avoid exactly this issue. Through the use of frameworks like APQCs PCF, ITIL, or the Supply Chain Councils SCOR Model, process can be arranged in a hierarchy that has the benefit of thousands of contributing voices and is vetted by use in many industries. Seeing a standardized structure and language for process activities gives the following quick benefits: Content management like a Dewey Decimal System Benchmarking and metrics Sidestepping personalities and political motivations (inconveniencing everyone equally) Scoping of effort and gap analysis \ Preventing duplication When you see this list, you can see that not taking advantage of these benefits considerably slows process discovery and documentation. As an added bonus, there are likely process snippets in disparate databases all across your enterprise, and getting them together in a meaningful way is very challenging if you dont have a central framework on which to hang them.

Seek and you should be able to find very easily. All too often, users are asked to navigate process content on crude websites, intranets or in directory/folder structures to find the key information needed to perform their work. If the worker sees much more than is relevant to their position, the likelihood that theyll come back to the repository as a knowledge source or work aid becomes more and more remote with each frustrated effort. On the other hand, if the system is role-based, it offers each user personalized, easy access to the process content relevant to their role in the organization. In that way the process repository can become a useful performance support system, like an electronic mentor. Personalization means more than having login credentials. People have compound roles serving more than one role in their organization. At one moment, I may be a hiring manager, under the guidance of an HR-owned process, and in another I am a rank-andfile employee that must perform safety procedures in a prescribed, approved manner.

Rather like context sensitive help available from most application software, the process repository should offer me easy access to the process information I require in relation to a task or my role. The absence of such personalization and effective search capabilities leads to information obfuscation and organizational confusion.

Thou shalt assign an owner and that owner shall be accountable.

For any information to be trustworthy, someone who can authorize its initial use and any subsequent changes must own it. Assigning ownership to process is the key to making sure that the people accountable for the success of a process have the proper authority to approve and change what they own. While it seems straightforward, this capability is all too often missing from BPM applications. Once ownership is assigned, there should to be a systematic way for people to suggest changes, and for that owner to approve or reject those suggestions. If this capability is lacking, youre going to have a hard time engaging your workforce in continuous improvement, and the tendency will be for content review to become a sporadic and inconsistent effort. Providing access to out of date information will quickly discredit your process repository, causing users to defect to the old ways of getting work done.

Yea, do not confuse thine followers with strange tongues. Process diagrams need context to give meaning to their symbols and lines. For process to be understood by the end users, it needs to be expressed in symbols that are intuitive and easy to follow. The documents, forms, links and other information that supports those symbols and lines needs to be available at the time the diagram is viewed. Whats more, the documentation needs to be owned and managed by its owner to be relevant and trustworthy. My favorite example of why this matters is the Interview Candidate activity.

Figure 1: Ownership and Execution Model The figure shows how the owner and executor of a process step are often different. And yet they must share a consistent and up-todate understanding of the approved process. That information will often need to be localized, (according to regional regulations and company practices,) at the time the activity is executed. Another example is the procurement process, which is often owned by the global supply chain manager at a macro level and executed by someone elsewhere in the value chain using the services of a procurement resource. To get these disparate functions to operate in a coherent fashion requires that the process is not just centrally managed but delivered with localized documentation that is targeted to the specific process consumer.

Shout your BPM achievements to the heavens and earth so that your BPM system may prosper on the land Some of the best systems Ive encountered have been the ones that had titles that captured the meaning of their existenceHow2, Pathfinder, How We Work. These names dont evoke the image of an expert system used only by a small clique of process experts. They are the names given to systems that meet the needs of all employees across the business. Youll find the names emblazoned on promotional posters, web pages and mouse mats, with attractive logos that promote adoption by all employees. There are launch campaigns and continuing efforts to raise awareness and ensure that the resulting resource becomes part of day-to-day operations for all employees. Ultimately, you cant drive adoption of a new way of doing business process unless you do the following: Provide a single Use frameworks Make it easy Keep it Make it easy to understand source to for of every all truth instead of accelerate discovery employee to find up multiple and what to process they silos adoption need date

This may seem like a large challenge to any organization trying to undergo change, but the reality is that everyone starts somewhere. Start with a pain point, hang it on a framework and use a methodology that makes sense for your workplace. To learn more on this topic and see Nimbus Control in action attend a free webinar here.

Process mapping provides a structural analysis approach and a capability of delivering systematic outputs. But the effectiveness of process mapping is affected by how it is selected as the method of analysis, how it is planned and executed, says contributor Shu-Wing Pang. Here are 4 common ways process improvement professionals go wrong with process mapping. Process mapping is an analytical tool commonly applied by process improvement professionals. By capturing real-world operation and reflecting it through a set of processes, they can, firstly, visualize the inputs, interactions, deliverables and parties involved in an organisations operation and decision-making, and secondly, identify process inefficiencies, disjoints and improvement opportunities. The effectiveness of process mapping, however, varies significantly based on the writers experience and observations. On one procurement process reengineering project, for example, process mapping was appropriately applied to summarize core processes and identify non-value-added activities to facilitate improvement; but on another project, the consultants involved failed to capture the true scale of the operational processes in the organisation and the resultant improvement was unable to address the real underlying problems.

Problem of Ineffective Process Mapping

The following are four common problems which adversely affect the use of process mapping on identifying improvement opportunities. These problems are related to the appropriate use of the process mapping method, how process mapping is planned and executed.

Mistake #1:

Apply process mapping on inappropriate types of processes

Most organizations' business operation can be categorized into three types of processes: transformational processes, transactional processes and decision-making processes. Transformational processes refer to the interactions where specific inputs are reshaped to outputs with changes in physical or virtual forms. Manufacturing (change in physical forms) and systems development (change in virtual forms) are typical examples of transformational processes. Transactional processes refer to the interactions of different input parties where they accomplish to generate specific outcomes. Call centre support and most sales activities are examples of transactional processes; Decision-making processes refer to the interactions of different input parties where they accomplish to make decisions. The decisions made can be within a pre-defined range (e.g. approve or reject an application) specific or open-ended (e.g. what is the optimal market entry price level?). Pricing, market forecasting and inventory control are examples of decision-making processes. Process mapping is more effective on identifying improvement opportunities on transformational and transactional processes than on decision-marking processes, especially those involving high-level, open-ended decisions. This is because, firstly, the outputs from such transformational and transactional processes tend to be more specific and objectivelydefined (e.g. specific products and service outputs) and secondly, process variations are more traceable. By contrast, high-level, openended decision-making processes tend to be abstract and intangible. Also, the fact that such decision-making involves a lot of dynamic, unpredictable factors mean that it is the quality of individuals gathering, processing and analyzing the information which matter. Process mapping is seldom the most optimal method of identifying and visualizing improvement opportunities in these circumstances.

Mistake #2:

Being unclear about the focus of your process mapping

Preliminary analysis can point to areas where process inefficiencies or disjoints occur, but their underlying causes may reside outside the processes where these problems are diagnosed. For example, I was once involved in a hotel process improvement project where the problem of room service was addressed. The delivery process was mapped and analyzed and no major shortcoming was identified. But when it came to interviewing and Gemba assessment, it was found that the problem was not caused by room service delivery but because staff lifts were frequently occupied by housekeeping team for transporting laundry. This case showed that cause of process inefficiency can be caused outside the process being addressed. Additionally, the effectiveness of process mapping will diminish if the process improvement team is ambiguous on determining whether it is the core or secondary processes (i.e. variations from core processes to cater for exceptional and unique scenarios, transitional (interim) processes or supplementary processes) on which they should focus on.

Mistake #3:

Trying to create the perfect process maps (and forgetting why youre process mapping in the first place)
Improvement professionals and their business-side counterparts sometimes bury themselves in process mapping analysis and forget the goal of improvement (i.e. improving the business) and instead focus on building perfect process maps. For instance, when business communities visualize how their processes are reflected on process maps, they are tempted to describe and explain it in a way which will make the processes join together and make logical sense.

Mistake #4:

Weakness on cross-party responsibilities

As a format of presentation, process maps are never ideal when it comes to showing multiple responsibilities among different parties, especially when one of them plays a leadership role. For example, on a swim-lane diagram, a cross-team activity is usually indicated by a task which extends across several swim-lanes to the responsible parties; it, however, is difficult to display a leading party in a clear way graphically. Less experienced process analysts and improvement professionals may overlook the leadership dimension on the analysis.

Developing Better Practice for Process Mapping

The effectiveness of process mapping as a continuous improvement tool diminishes when process improvement practitioners are not aware of the problems mentioned above. The following guidelines are recommended to address these problems.

Establish Clear Continuous Improvement Objectives:

What are the objectives of the improvement initiative? Is the goal of improvement to resolve existing operational problems (e.g. error reduction) or capture emerging market opportunities? Is process standardization the objective of improvement initiative? Is it primarily

driven by technological change? Is it a major restructuring effort or an incremental change? These are key questions which help continuous improvement practitioners clarify the goals and objectives of the improvement efforts and therefore identify suitable methods of analysis. For example, in an IT-related process improvement exercise, for example, process mapping can be highly valuable to outlining existing processes, identifying problems and areas where technological changes can facilitate the improvement. Process mapping also produces concrete deliverables which become an input to system requirements. However, for an organisational transformation which involves drastic changes on organisational structures, job roles and responsibilities, and staffs knowledge and skill-sets, process mapping may not be the best method to be used at least at the beginning (vision planning may be better suited in this case). It is essential that continuous improvement professionals have the capability to clarify improvement goals, objectives and requirements at the beginning, understand the pros, cons and applicability of different improvement methodologies, and apply the right methods in the right situation.

Use Process Mapping Where Its Most Appropriate:

Process improvement practitioners should proactively assess the nature of processes being addressed and decide if process mapping can yield most benefits in identifying improvement opportunities and assessing the scope of change. They should also determine if process mapping can be as a standalone tool or in conjunction with other analysis methods such as document analysis and Gemba It has been explained before that process mapping tends to be more effective on transformational and transactional processes. Performing process mapping on a high-level and open-ended decision-making process may not yield the best results in identifying improvement opportunities. Therefore, when attempting to analyze such processes for driving change, process improvement professionals should apply such as decision-making schemas and documentation analysis in addition to process mapping in order to look at the quality and congruence of decisions made.

Make Use of Process Architecture (if it exists):

In organizations where process maturity is relatively high and process architecture is established, the process architecture is a valuable and structural input to process improvement professionals. Process architecture, which includes process map structures, process management guidelines, standards and methodologies, is a comprehensive visual representation (in graphical, diagrammatic or other forms) of an organisations key processes and interactions. It provides an integrated Organisation-Process-System-Information visibility and is used to assess how the organisations structure and process can support its strategy.

Assess the Impact of Organizational Structures (Look at the Big Picture):

When conducting process mapping, continuous improvement professionals should pay attention to macro-level features such as organizational structures and headcounts because these issues may be hidden within formal processes and it also generates new ideas on what to improve.

Identify Multiple Responsibilities on Tasks:

To tackle the limitation that process maps are less effective in showing cross-party responsibilities, especially when some of them play a leadership role, process analysis practitioners should pay particular attention when analyzing relevant processes or activities to ensure that such multiple responsibilities and the roles of each party are clarified. Documentation analysis, for instance, is a good, complementary analysis method in this aspect. Such clarification on multiple responsibilities and ownership may also yield insights on potential improvement opportunities which can be explored further (if no clear ownership can be identified or responsibilities among different parties are blurred, for example).

Conclusion
Applying suitable analytical methods to study current processes and spot opportunities for improvement is key to the success of such initiatives. Process mapping, with its structural analysis approach and capability of delivering systematic outputs, is a widely-used methodology. However, like other continuous improvement methods, the effectiveness of process mapping is affected by how it is selected planned and carried out. Whether or not process mapping is actually an appropriate method of continuous improvement in a particular situation is also a determining factor. Therefore, continuous improvement practitioners should be clear about the strengths and limitations of different process improvement methodologies, and their applicability in different improvement initiatives. The above discussion points out several areas where the practitioners should pay attention to in order to maximize the benefits of improvement through process mapping

Too often teams spend a considerable amount of their valuable resources trying to figure out what it is they are supposed to do, writes contributors John Moran, Grace Duffy and Michael Rudis. Before starting any type of a process improvement work, it is important to know where you're headed. Here's how a Team Charter can help. A Team Charter is the official document from the team sponsor that empowers the team to act. It is a written document describing the mission of the team and how this mission is to be accomplished. The Team Charter is one of the most under-used and under-valued tools available to sponsors, team leaders, and facilitators for helping a team succeed. But it is often overlooked because it is time consuming to develop. To write a clear, concise, and inclusive Team Charter requires great forethought and effort. Often the sponsor is in such a rush to start the teaming process that they skip the basic step of filling out a Team Charter that clearly defines the goals and objectives to be achieved. When a team is started without a formal Team Charter many meetings are often wasted trying to figure why we are here, what we should do, and when it should be done. The team spends a considerable amount of time and energy trying to second guess what the sponsor really wanted when the team was formed. This is a loss of valuable time and talent that could be avoided by designing a clear mission statement prior to the teams formation. That's why a sponsor must take the time to fill out a Team Charter. The Team Charter is an official work contract. This document delineates the strategic goals, boundaries, measures of success, constraints/limits, and available resources. The Team Charter provides a framework for ongoing discussions between the team and its sponsor with regard to the teams direction and progress. It is an iterative process until a base line acceptance is established. It must be reviewed on a regular basis by the sponsor, the team leader, facilitator, and team members to ensure that it is reflective of what the team is doing or will be doing in the future. The following example of the use of a Team Charter in a Public Health Department is an excellent adaptation of the concepts in the original team charter article to provide a guidance document to beginning Process Action Teams. Delaware (US) Public Health PROCESS ACTION TEAM (PAT) CHARTER The DPH Process Action Team (PAT) Charter is the official document from the executive sponsor that empowers the PAT to act. It is a written document describing the mission of the team and how this mission is to be accomplished. The DPH Process Action Team (PAT) Charter is the official document from the executive sponsor that empowers the PAT to act. It is a written document describing the mission of the team and how this mission is to be accomplished. The PAT Charter is one of the most under-used and under-valued tools available to executive sponsors, team leaders, and facilitators for helping a team succeed. The PAT Charter is often overlooked because it is time consuming to develop. To write a clear, concise, and inclusive PAT Charter requires great forethought. Too often folks are in such a rush to begin the teaming process that they skip the basic step of completing a PAT Charter that clearly defines the goals and objectives to be achieved. The executive sponsor must take the time to complete a PAT Charter so the team will clearly understand the why, what, who, when, and where of the process they are to undertake. The PAT Charter is an official work contract. This document delineates the strategic goals, boundaries, measures of success, constraints/limits, and available resources. The PAT Charter provides a framework for ongoing discussions between the PAT and its executive sponsor with regard to the teams direction and progress. The Team Charter is a repetitive process until a base line acceptance is established. It must be reviewed on a regular basis by the sponsor, team leader, facilitator, and team members to ensure that it is reflective of what the team is doing or will be doing in the future. After a few iterations of this charter, the executive sponsor, team leader, and facilitator will have a written document that describes in detail what the team is to accomplish. This becomes the official work contract for the team leader and the facilitator to begin the teaming process. As an option you may use the Working Copy of the PAT Charter to draft the document (freely available for download here). When you have a document that the executive sponsor, team leader and facilitator agree upon, enter the information into the form copy. This will serve as the official document that all players will sign and work from. For a full downloadable version of the PAT Charter forms please download the PDF here: Creating a Project Team Charter - Template

Essential Components of a Team Charter

The table below describes the different components that a good team charter requires for success. The following tables are included for download the in the Charter Template document. SECTION WHAT IT DOES? WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? EXAMPLE TIP

PAT Name

Identifies the team. Identifies the area of focus.

WIC (Women, Enables the team to Infants, and Children) distinguish the effort Waiting Room Time from others. Reduction Team. Clarifies the intent of the project. Orients team and

Keep it simple, unique, and easily stated.

Subject Process

WIC Intake Department waiting Make it clear and succinct. time This is the most important

Improvement Opportunity

States why this effort was initiated and what will be affected by the outcome.

others to the true need for the effort. The source and analysis of the data that identified the problem or opportunity should be included and used as a baseline.

WIC applicants are part of the Charter. It is complaining that it the foundation for PAT takes too much time formation. It's important to to process their inensure that it is well person application thought through and and there is a lack of agreed upon by the privacy while giving Executive Sponsor, Team information to the Leader, and Facilitator. clerk.

Charter Dates

Keeps the team focused on beginning with the Signifies the day Make sure these dates end in mind. This is Charter Start Date: the charter goes are reasonable and not necessarily the September 17, 2011 into effect and agreed upon by the date the Team Charter End Date: the date the Executive Sponsor, Team Leader reports December 20, 2011 team adjourns. Leader, and Facilitator. results to the Executive Sponsor. This Leadership Team member has overall authority and responsibility for organizing the team that will address the Process Improvement Mary James, Local Opportunity. They Health Department have overall Administrator operational accountability. The Executive Sponsor will be expected to break down barriers and go to bat for the team. Establishes who will conduct team meetings, provide focus and direction, and will ensure productive use of team members time. This person is not necessarily the same individual who will be in charge of the process, but should be a person who will lose sleep over the outcome.

Executive Sponsor

Identifies the senior leader that supports and/or initiated this effort. Designated by the leadership team to hold overall responsibility for the strategy and its execution.

Its a good idea for all members of the PAT to meet the Executive Sponsor prior to the initiation of the Charter.

Team Leader

Identifies one individual who will guide the team to achieve successful outcomes and who will communicate to senior leaders.

Josephine Smith, WIC Manager

Select a Team Leader that has a broad understanding of the process improvement opportunity.

Facilitator

Quality facilitators Moves a team use observation, forward through intervention, a series of feedback, coaching, scheduled and team member meetings aimed personality at attaining the differences to goal established conduct effective by the team and meetings. Quality team leader. facilitators are not subject matter

Joe Bagodonuts, Facilitator Extraordinaire

To eliminate the possibility of personal bias and the risk of getting involved with decision making and solutions, its important to select a facilitator that knows as little about the process as possible.

experts, but rather focus on how effectively the team is working.

Team Assure that all the Member/Section/ Defines who will people necessary to Area of be on the team effect change will be Expertise and why involved.

You may have people that you do not need on the core team. However, they are key stakeholders and must be consulted with, and made aware of, Team Member: changes. These Wilma Bates WIC individuals should be Intake supervisor. identified in the Charter. Refer to the high level process utilized to define the scope to verify that the team has representation from each major process step.

Process Improvement Aim

It describes what the team intends Clarifies where the to do, providing team is going and Most successful the team with a enables them to improvement efforts have focus and a way know when they get a succinct aim with a to measure there. A well stated measurable stretch goal. AIM: To reduce the progress. The aim affords a team The measure should be waiting time by 50%. aim should be the opportunity to monitored over time and derived from a improve many tracked in the form of a known problem aspects of the system statistical process control (data) and need or process related to chart. for corrective the aim. action. Group similar objectives and give them a descriptive title; for example, Eliminating Waste. Grouping objectives into change concepts facilitates creative thinking with improvement teams.

Process Improvement Objectives (SMART = Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Dependent)

Listing out the specific and Eliminating Waste It enables the team to measurable Eliminate reach consensus on objectives for unnecessary waiting what will be the effort will time addressed during the help define the Reduce duplicative course of the effort. opportunities to data entry improve.

Be specific. Agree to definitions & data sources. Metrics help the team It is ideal to have a Defines how you and sponsor to balanced set of measures: measure the Overall applicant understand when and Identify one overarching Success Metrics success of the cycle time to get if an implemented measure that can be a (Measures) improvement service and complete improvement is gauge for the entire effort, effort or the an application will be meeting the desired measure it over time and project as a reduced by 50%. goal. use a control chart. This whole. Use sampling. should relate to the Process Improvement Aim. Marks significant Holds the team expectations accountable. Maps and/or progress. deliverables the Current State Schedule milestone Assessment due reviews on senior March 15th. management calendars Recommendations to well in advance to make

Key Milestones

team can expect.

be presented to sure time is available senior leadership in 6 when the team is ready to weeks. present. Validate availability of resources as part of the Facilitator: Joe definition stage of the Bagodonuts. Training process improvement workshops. project. The team sponsor Up to $5,000 for or process owner is miscellaneous office usually the function that expenses. controls resource availability.

Available Resources

Articulate who and what is available to support the team. This might include a facilitator, trainers, or funds.

Provides both the team and senior leadership with an opportunity to negotiate what the team needs to be successful.

Required Resources

Resources are scarce in most Recognizes any organizations. It is additional Physical layout changes best to be realistic in resource the may take time to design, the use of resources Support from team believes is schedule and implement. and identify Location Facilities necessary to Have the team think requirements at the department to re-work achieve the ahead to anticipate onset of activities. If client waiting areas or objectives of the bottlenecks that may resources are create client booths. process occur during the unavailable, then improvement improvement project. options can be project. pursued for alternative strategies.

Describes both positive and negative factors that must be discussed and understood prior to the work beginning. Assumptions: statements of requirements Considerations that must be (Assumptions, accepted; Constraints, Constraints: an Obstacles, element that Risks) might restrict or regulate project actions or outcomes; Obstacles: factor that might impede progress; Risks: a course of action that might pose a hazard or cause loss. Specifies the boundaries of the process you are involved in. They may be stated in time

Clarifies expectations; requires people to reflect on the effort in a more thoughtful way; can redefine the work; may facilitate the removal of known obstructions in advance; gives credibility to teams (that they have considered possible issues).

Assumption: The WIC intake area can be rearranged to make for private booths Constraints: Information Technology solutions will not be entertained at this time (system upgrade planned in 2 years). Obstacles: Departmental practices related to scheduling applicants differ widely. Risks: Changes may not conform to legal requirements

Communicate with all areas of the organization affected by the process improvements anticipated. Record any barriers or obstacles identified during these conversations. Some items may be simple to address, others may need significant effort. The sooner these are identified, the better.

Boundaries

Sets the stage; provides focus; identifies limits.

The time the person arrives in the WIC Department to the time they have successfully filled out the application and

Map out a 7-9 step highlevel process flow for the scope youve defined. This will help you understand what you need to be successful, including

frames and/or process steps.

leave.

validating team membership.

Identifies individuals and/or departments that may be Key impacted by the It recognizes their Stakeholders/ outcome. These importance and John Smith Area of Concern individuals increases the teams Information Systems should be awareness. sought out as a resource and communicated with on a regular basis. Identifies everyone who is expecting to receive communication on The entire team will this team effort. The give a report out to Clarifies your communication plan the stakeholders 6 activities for has two purposes; 1) weeks from the start keeping Identifying how the Communication of the project (~ necessary and team will work Plan Nov15). The Team useful functions internally to achieve Leader will update the or leadership smooth interaction, 2) Executive Sponsor aware of project Establish weekly (agenda item progress. requirements for at the regular staff keeping stakeholders meeting). and other external decision makers informed of project activity. Serves as a contract Creates buy-in, agreement everyone has an between the opportunity to meet Signature Page Executive all the players Sponsor, Team involved in the Leader, process improvement Facilitator, and opportunity. Team Members

Stakeholders may be affected directly by the anticipated changes or be politically essential to the acceptance of the recommendations. Stakeholders can ease the progress of the project or greatly delay progress.

Over-communicate rather than under-communicate. Communication should match the style of the audience. If a senior leader likes to see charts and graphs, format the status report accordingly. If the Quality Council wishes to have the whole team present a milestone, then practice with all members contributing to the communication.

It's a good idea to have all parties sign the Charter at the same time and place.