When was the last time you visited a retailer only to find they were out of the product you needed?  Stock-outs are too common in retailers of all sizes from private to big box.  In many cases, the product you need is there, but instead of being on the shelf, it is in the backroom still boxed from a recent shipment.  There is a series of events that the product must go through before being available on the selling floor:

Understanding emotional intelligence (EI) is critical for most professionals but it is uniquely important for those who are instruments of change in an organization: process improvement professionals, project managers, and organizational change management SMEs.

In the last 10 years, there has been a widely known shift to using technology in business transformations.   With all the positives that have come from this shift, there is still the importance of following the right process when initiating business changes.   

I am a proponent of BPM (Business Process Management) and certainly technology in general as an accelerator for business transformation.   Today, you hear a good bit about technology, advanced modeling, and monitoring tools to provide a pulse on your business processes.   This is an excellent addition to traditional improvement philosophies.   However, it takes time to get there and you certainly cannot start there. 

Too often, organizations start with automation and advanced technical solutions to fix a broken process.   In these scenarios, a non-optimized process becomes emulated through technology.  The result of this is not always total failure.  Through trial and error and system modifications, the process can be optimized after technical implementations but this is the long and expensive road.  Sometimes, an implemented system on top of unstructured processes will remain in place for years with only minor fixes.  All along end users are frustrated and process owners claim they are not receiving the stated benefits promised by the vendor.   We have seen this with significant application upgrades, workflow, content management, and portal tools, and Business Process Management Suites (BPMS). 

The right way to start is to fix the process before using technology.   Here are the fundamentals I have followed to properly establish a best in-class process prior to using technology:    

1) Have the right team

2) Prepare the organization

3) Capture baseline metrics

4) Spend time in current state

5) Use process improvement tools