What are the common pitfalls and challenges of BPI and how to overcome them?

I believe the most common pitfall to BPI is not staying the course. Too often an organization will want to improve their process but aren't willing to make the changes necessary to see fruition. This is why it is so important as the BPI professional to have leadership involvement with the process. For instance, on paper, removing a feedback loop seems like the right thing to do, and for the process almost certainly is. However, that feedback loop is attached to jobs that the company might not want to lose. Having leadership involved in the improvement process throughout ensures that they are aware of the "why" behind the "how". I watched this exact scenario play out in a government contract that I was working.

I have been a part of BPI teams that failed due to securing executive sponsorship and support. In addition to defining clear goals and objectives, BPI requires executive sponsorship to reiterate strategic initiatives and goals in order to help overcome BPI challenges and resistance to change.

You must set clear goals and objectives before heading down any project or program path. You need to understand the following: 1. What is the leading business problem? 2. What is the goal of fixing the business problem? 3. What are the process or processes that go along with the business problem and goal? You'll need to answer these three things in the form of a project charter before you begin your BPI projects and programs.

It is through continous business process improvement that you realize the most sustainable positive impacts in efficiency, quality, cost-effectiveness and control.

Because of the typical startup inertia for business transformation initiatives, it is imperative to deliver quick wins early in the BX road map. These quick wins may not have the needle-moving outcomes of the larger, longer-term goals, but they help build excitement and confidence within the organization that the BX initiative will actually get completed. For the longer term goals, like others have stated, it is imperative to decompose those goals into steps that be accomplished quarterly or even monthly. Weekly might be too granular. These types of initiatives typically fall into the important-but-not-urgent category, and creating an artificial or unreasonable sense of urgency that disrupts daily operations could backfire.

It is critical to gain alignment over BPI's strategy, goals, and objectives with the leaders and teams who will be working on the project. If you are responsible for shepherding the BPI project, you have to make sure the leaders who are contributing time and treasure agree on the strategy, plan, and actions. If you spend the time to gain alignment, tactical implementation will proceed much more easily. Leaders and teams tend to jump to tactical implementation first because they feel pressure to start and show progress. Speaking with multiple stakeholders to achieve consensus requires a leader to embrace low ego and high-level diplomacy. If you invest the time to gain alignment, you can have BPI success.

It is especially important to have a cross-functional team composed of a member from each department that could possibly be affected by the changes you intend to make. In my experience, this is a key factor that isn't taken seriously enough by many companies which leads to negative unintended consequences once that changes have been made, thereby adding problems and inefficiency in one area, while attempting to streamline the process for another area.

While it seems counter-intuitive, the more voices you include early on in the process re-design, the greater the likelihood of success the initiative will have. The more groups that provide input, the more buy-in you create. If everyone is bought into the solution and feels ownership of it, they will all help to make it succeed. Even if it is not a perfect solution, it can still be successful because everyone gets some level of improvement from it and wants it to win.

When involving stakeholders it is important to implement feedback loops and schedule sessions to allow for stakeholders to provide feedback at all stages of BPI. Stakeholder input is invaluable to success BPI initiatives.

As a process improvement analyst in a credit union, involving stakeholders in BPI is vital for our success. Operating within the dynamic financial landscape of a credit union, I recognize the importance of actively engaging customers, employees, vendors, managers, and regulators. This inclusive approach ensures that our BPI initiatives not only meet regulatory requirements but also address the specific needs and expectations of our internal teams and valued members. By leveraging the collective expertise of stakeholders, we enhance the relevance of our process enhancements, making them more tailored to our operational nuances and fostering a culture of continuous improvement within our credit union.

We try to get our staff excited about the big hairy audacious goal that we’re going to hit in a decade, and where we need to be in five years, yearly, quarterly, monthly and weekly. But what they get interested in most is hearing about the weekly and monthly goals so we start each Monday morning meeting by presenting. Like a blood bank drive, we have a chart that shows how close we’re getting to hitting our targets. Some weeks are great, and some we’re far off, but having a clear target and metric really helps our team focus on solving problems and making progress.

Implementing change—whether it's technology, leadership or process change—will impact the employees and teams working in the organization. So, having the right stakeholders involved from the start in BPI efforts pays off in spades later on through improved communication, increased productivity, and reduced stress.

The #1 source of failure from any BX initiative is a failure on the part of key departments to adopt the proposed process, communications, and technology changes that are intended to transform the enterprise. Teams and leaders will not adopt changes when they feel disenfranchised during the definition of those changes. They will either actively or passively resist the change rollout because they were not involved in the change definition. By moving at a measured pace early during BX, it ensures broad stakeholder involvement, and with that involvement, the change management and adoption part of BX goes much smoother. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

Communication is King when it comes to change. Recall a time you felt blindsided by new information. Whether or not that information was valuable to you, frustration most likely greeted it first. This is how BPI fails. Every entity that may be affected by whatever you're working on needs to be informed throughout the process. This doesn't mean company wide meetings or votes. Inclusion should only fuel progress. If done correctly, you'll get higher quality insight when deciding on a solution, support when implementing, and maintenance when it's done. Allow those affected to help solve their problem too.

BPI endeavor is not owned and driven by a special group or team. It is most effective when it is a company culture that permeates through out the organization. Senior leaders have to set the tone and use the philosophy, terminology & tools in their daily lives. They id and celebrate evangelists for the continuous improvement process. They are responsible for providing inputs, direction and set the tone of the undertaking. It is important that stakeholders are bought in and committed to make things better. They have to understand the believe in the methodology.

Developing simple charts really helps communicate to the team in simplistic terms where we’re at, how we’re progressing, and what we need to address to get closer to achieving our goals. Some things are clearly measurable, and some are more conceptual. But we always seem to find a way to capture and express it in a chart, whether that requires customer service, peer commentary, or perceptual analysis.

Sometimes that data you gather may not be as useful as you hope if it is not accurate data. So be sure to have a subject matter expert spot check the data and do a reality check based on their own expertise to validate that the data is accurate enough to be used. Otherwise your analysis will lead you to the wrong conclusion, and you'll end up "fixing" the wrong problem (which may not really be a problem at all).

Data and analysis tells the story of the problem: why it's a problem, how severe it is, who/what it affects. This story should clearly answer the question of "why does it matter" for your stakeholders across the entire business. That story may be different for each stakeholder so it's important to gather data specific to each group. Their job is to ensure their individual team's success at the end of each day as it serves the larger picture and mission. If the data doesn't tell them they have a problem worth solving then there is no problem to improve upon.

There are two types of measures that you need for analysis. Outcome or quality measures and process measures. The former tells you how a process or set of processes is doing. In contrast process measures help id where the problem is. Sometimes collecting data can seem daunting and onerous. Don't let this deter you. Get the frontline team engaged and usually once the team understands the focus of the data collection is not to assign blame, they get creative about collecting, tabulating and visually representing data.

The data is a crucial part of the story because it helps to show the problem and point you in the right direction by evaluating the root causes. But before you start any data analysis, you must ensure your data is accurate. You should always conduct an MSA (Measurement System Analysis) to confirm that your system and people data are correct.

Collect relevant data, analyze it for patterns and insights, and use visual tools to present findings. Apply these insights to improve decisions and processes, and regularly monitor data.

Using data and analysis is key to making informed decisions during Business Process Improvement (BPI). Without data, changes might be based on assumptions rather than real needs. In one project, we initially skipped detailed data analysis and made changes that didn’t address the real bottlenecks. When we started using actual performance data, we identified the true issues and improved the process effectively. Data ensures you’re solving the right problems and helps track progress, making BPI more successful.

Continuous improvement is always depicted as a circle as it is iterative and persistent. The resolution of one issue leads to measurement and identification of the next biggest root cause element to tackle. Putting a fix in place and trusting it is going to work is a fallacy. You and the team need to measure and illustrate that the process is demonstratably better.

As much as organizations talk about change, we find that most people are resistant to it because it takes a long time to get good at something. People that are more tactical in nature get particularly frustrated with all the talk of strategy, goals, and objectives. They see it as naive, abstract and top down. So instead of asking them what they think of the strategy (change), we ask them what would it take to get around an obstacle or through a particularly challenging roadblock, which is when their technical, problem-solving gift kicks in because they are better at troubleshooting real world problems versus envisioning theoretical ideals. If you truly want to get people involved, it needs to be framed more as a question than a mandate.

If there is a way for you to automate the reporting on the new process, particularly in the aspects of it that were changed, do it! Auditing or monitoring anything is a non-value-added activity, and one that most don't find enjoyable. So if you can make it easier and faster to do so by automating the reporting, it lowers the burden to monitor and maintain the process because reviewing the automatically generated report(s) on a regular basis is all that's necessary.

A post-implementation review is crucial in evaluating whether a BPI effort and change has achieved the desired goals. It's also an excellent opportunity to identify any long-term risks to sustaining the change and take appropriate actions to ensure people are adequately supported. We usually recommend that our clients check in with their stakeholders for a few months after implementation through a survey or a focus group.

Much like the process followed with risk management, the "monitor changes" needs to involve awareness of any residual or substitute changes that may have been unintentional. It is important to not become so focused on monitoring only the processes that were directing implemented but also adjacent processes. Not keeping an eye on the big picture can actually mean that you made things worse but don't realize it yet.

This is one of the hardest phases of BPI if the pre-work was poorly done. If stakeholders were left out, adoption will be difficult and even prevent the project's success. Before implementing, chaos engineer your solution. Try to break it, what happens. Seek feedback, make adjustments. Be careful not to let perfection stifle progress though; some issues won't be identified until it's out there. KPI's will be your feedback once implemented. If they are ineffective, new problems won't be easily identified. If new problems are left unresolved, team's will have less buy-in next time. Be sure KPI's tell you the health story of the long-term mission/goal.

When I lead BPI initiatives, I schedule a check in every 30, 60, 90 days to ensure the change is sustained and to remind stakeholders that transformation is a journey and everyone needs to be flexible to change. During the check ins, we discuss what is working and what is not working as intended to reiterate the behavior that needs to change and possibly modify the process so it improves the adoption for end users and SMEs. Additionally, KPIs help organizations understand how well it is progressing toward stated goals.

Plan the changes clearly and communicate them to all stakeholders. Execute the changes according to the plan, ensuring that all necessary resources and training are provided. Set up metrics to baseline it and monitoring tools to track progress and measure the impact of the changes.

Implementing and monitoring changes in Business Process Improvement (BPI) is essential to ensure success. If changes aren’t monitored, you may not notice problems until it's too late. I once worked on a process overhaul where we made improvements but didn’t track the results closely. This led to unnoticed issues that slowed down progress. After setting up regular monitoring, we could fix problems early and keep things on track. Monitoring lets you adjust and refine the process as needed, ensuring long-term success.

Feedback is often described as a loop because they supposed to be continuous like a cycle. When you have successfully implemented a process improvement that delivers positive change it is important to take a moment to celebrate the team's efforts. But, be careful not to lose your momentum and get started on the next goal or objective while "win" is fresh in everyone's minds. It is critical to share the win with your organization so they are aware of the progress. Too often, an issue is highlighted by an employee and addressed by leadership but the employee may not realize it. If you don't promote the successful solution (close the loop) some may think the issue was ignored. Promote your wins!

In order to create an atmosphere of continuous improvement, the decade goal has to be so big and bold, that it motivates the organization towards marshaling all its resources towards greatness. But the purpose of the weekly monthly quarterly and yearly goals is to keep people feeling a sense of progress and victory. It’s between these dynamics—the short term, the medium term and long term—that keeps the organizational energy alive and motivated. I like to think of it like winning your local tournament, then advancing to the playoffs and ultimately making it to the Super Bowl of your industry., but I’m surprised at how many companies can’t describe what their Super Bowl is for their company.

Be intentional about listening to the complaints and frustrations of the front-line employees. That will tell you what processes are likely good candidates for your next BPI effort - there will always be something that can be improved.

We should always be seeking to adapt and improve. This can feel daunting, like we must always exist in the hard part that is change. The reality is not changing is harder. Putting up with obstacles is an uphill battle. Give people the freedom to remove them; make change easy. Encourage feedback and ideas. Recognize and celebrate those making changes, big or small, that improve the business. Fostering this culture will organically motivate people to solve problems for various reasons. The why behind it doesn't matter if the outcome elevates everything. People will choose change over an obstacle when given the safe opportunity to do so.

Una cultura de mejora es la mejor arma que una organización puede tener. La calidad no está en los servicios o productos si no en la gente, colaboradores que piensen en ser mejores reflejará en su trabajo la excelencia!!!

Este apartado me parece muy interesante e importante. Los que estamos inmersos en procesos financieros sabemos perfectamente la ruta del proceso: Inicio, Función específica, guardar datos y Cerrar transacción. Esto en cuanto a cualquier producto de la Entidad Financiera, entonces estos procesos deben existir YA en las aplicaciones, solamente darles las condiciones necesarias para que se cumplan y ahorrar TIEMPO y Código.

Fostering a culture of continuous improvement means encouraging everyone in the business to look for ways to get better all the time. Without this mindset, improvements may be temporary and progress can stall. In one company I worked with, we focused on making small, regular changes. This kept everyone engaged and always looking for ways to improve. Over time, this led to big results, like increased efficiency and happier customers. By creating a culture of ongoing improvement, you ensure that the business keeps growing and adapting.

Depending on the scope of process improvement and numbers of people and departments impacted, be prepared for both active and passive resistance, multiple requests to customize, and simply lack of cooperation. This is often the case in the public sector - example civil service payroll system in Ottawa. Solution - strong governance with overarching authority, and failure mode analysis conducted BEFORE you start the project, with strategy to address every conceivable reason the project can fail.

Like discussed earlier, by engaging your teams at all levels you will get buy-in. This ownership of the solution is a great antidote against the resistance to change that often slows BPI. The cliche that people don't like change is incomplete; people don't like change that is forced on them.

BPI is three things. Design, Implementation, and Control. There is no doubt that change management is a major part of being successful but what commonly happens is efforts go straight to implementation and give scant attention to either design or control. Another common problem is failure to apply the basic science of operations (Opscience.org). If one is going to improve a process, it’s important to know the practical science that governs all processes.

Here are the most common challenges I come across in almost every project: 1. Resistance to Change - Employees may resist adopting new processes because they are out of their comfort zone and want to maintain their routine. 2. Lack of Clear Goals - Without clear objectives, it's challenging to define what success looks like. 3. Poor Communication - almost always results in misunderstandings, confusion, and a lack of buy-in from team members. 4. Lacking Resources - Limited time, budget, or technology can slow down the successful implementation of new processes. 5. Unrealistic Expectations - Setting goals without a realistic understanding of the organization's capabilities leads to disappointment and frustration.

Post implementation BP maintenance: Keep in mind that business processes are integrated with learning, governance & controls, risk management, data & reporting, other functional processes, etc. Management of change in any business area should therefore always include a change impact assessment and process updates for all these areas

Create a KPI that prompts cross-silo action Too many times a process remains broken because none of the teams involved want to engage in aspects that fall outside of their specific mandate. Think of the Sales Reps who provide inadequate deal information to the Operations team that issues ordering documents. By training the Sales team on how to create a complete and accurate request, Operations could save cycles of back and forth, and issue the documents more quickly. But since training is not part of Operations' mission, the time-wasting habits continue. Deals slip into the next quarter as it takes longer than necessary to issue the paperwork. KPI's should be used to reward all efforts toward cross-silo improvement.

Execute with empathy and you'll find success. Recall a time you experienced change, personally or professionally. What were things you didn't like, you did like, you would've preferred instead about the process? Apply this to the stakeholders. How may they feel about this? Don't know, ask them. At every step along the way, ask how. How will this affect this person or process? How will this be perceived? How will this improve the business? The more questions, the more answers, the higher quality the solution.

It is important for executive leadership and stakeholders to stay the course when committing to a BPI initiative so that individuals involved in and affected by the work don't view initiatives as a "flavor of the month" and understand that even in challenging BPI initiatives, support will continue for its success.

Business process improvement emphasizes cultural change and mindset shift rather a short-term event. In other words, it is a circle. It is an iterative process. The diagnosis of one process will open the door to the diagnosis of another and so on. It is a collaborative process that addresses dynamic business needs in order to remain competitive. The key challenges include alignment of the right resources and stakeholders, lack of clear and specific purpose in line with stakeholder expectations and one's personal goal, scope creep, budget constraints to implement the transformation agenda, resistance to change and lack of spirit to establish the DNA of continuous improvement including goal planning, rewards and recognition mechanisms.

Our firm works in the retail and food industries, which are always changing because of generational shifts, cultural shifts and competitor dynamics. Instead of having money and profit as the primary metric—which often leads to an inability or resistance to change—we prefer to measure the success or failure of an organization by measuring consumer satisfaction and loyalty rates as our primary metric. This helps us think about competitive alternatives and money as a byproduct of staying relevant and top of mind with customers first and foremost. It also reminds of how we have to be constantly evolving and changing to not like keep up with consumers and competitors but far enough ahead of them to anticipate directional changes.