Puzzle pieces come in all different shapes and sizes. The one thing they all have in common is that the edge of each piece will touch the edge of another piece. The notion of “top” or “bottom” isn’t embodied in the piece, it’s in the picture that the piece is helping to form.
Looking at the transformation picture in the previous post, each piece represents a concept under management and each conceptual piece is related to another piece. There is a chain of dependency across these pieces which must combine as a network to realise the big picture. Traditional management practices focus on a hierarchical chain of command so the orientation of the pieces were shaped to support the management of functional communities and the delegation of responsibility.
One of the first significant changes to this top down view occurred with the introduction of matrix management structures. These structures began in response to attempts to focus responsibility on certain project, customer, product or regional dimensions of operations and this view required a different configuration of pieces than came out of the traditional functional box. Matrix management was supported along the way by the adoption of more comprehensive and more accessible management information systems and this in turn enabled other more pieces to be joined through integrated enterprise wide management systems.
For many people who experienced the changes to management practices which were enabled by integrated management systems, it seemed a logical step to continue the pattern and formalise collections of pieces to be managed for specific end to end outcomes. Over the past 10 years (give or take 40 to 60 years of consulting theory), the practice of Business Process Management has raised the profile of the horizontal end to end dependencies which span the vertical hierarchies of functional responsibility.
Despite the unassailable logic of process management and the rapid development of inexpensive and powerful technology to support it, business process management is still not taught or practiced as a mainstream management profession and in the absence of a recognised business stakeholder, BPM is slipping from a management theory to a management tool to something which is buried inside the IT and Project stakeholder communities where it is used to analyse workflow fragments, document system usage scenarios and get systems to talk to each other .
For someone who invested quite a few years promoting BPM, the current state of the practice can be depressing. On the other hand, it can also be seen as one of many steps in a longer journey towards a more dynamic, multi-dimensional form of management. While this journey will take time, there are many rewards for those who can steer the course better than their peers.
Some suggestions to help make your journey a happier one:
- Make sure that the pieces of the puzzle which you are managing have clear edges and clear joins with others
- Become used to the continuous re-shaping of pieces to suit the ever changing environment
- Start to focus more on the interface between your piece and others rather than the piece itself
- Utilise collaboration technology to improve the quality of communication which links the people who are responsible for the pieces
- Use collaborative governance methods to highlight and enforce the double sided need for each piece to fit with its neighbors
