Category: OutsideIn

Compass Business Club soft launch…. for those in the know

We are very near to the BIG day. Go get a sneak preview and review the goodies, articles, videos, forums, FREE training & exclusive thought leadership from these global Guru’s.

Excited isn’t the word. http://www.compassbusinessclub.com

  • I’m basically a big kid, there’s a part of me that has never grown up. I love to have fun and make people laugh.
  • Steve Towers is a world-renowned thought-leader who has helped hundreds of companies revitalize their management approaches.
  • Seasoned, innovative enterprise business architect who believes the success of an architecture should be measured by the business value it delivers, rather than the models or diagrams it produces.
  • My goal is to enable organizations to transform to the digital age. This requires that organizations be successful at creating processes built for change..
  • Senior leadership expert, demonstrable experience inspiring teams to embrace strategies that aid growth, improve customer relationships and produce high performance benchmarks.
  • Steven Bonacorsi, President at the International Standard for Lean Six Sigma (ISLSS)
    Master Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma Methodology.
  • A proven leader in formulating and delivering solid solutions for the most pressing business challenges organizations face in creating and delivering value to customers and shareholders. Senior Executive consulting services delivering extraordinary outcomes in all client engagements.
  • I am an action biased leader with an ability to execute change at multiple levels of an organization. My experiences range from strategic to operational level in financial, manufacturing and services industries. I enjoy my profession and find problem solving exciting. Below are some of my professional certifications:
  • Twenty five years working in the Technology Services, Consulting, Supply Chain, and Utility industries in South Africa, Europe the USA and Asia comprising:
  • Lawrence D. (Larry) Duckworth is a former Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Board(s) member, Growth and Liquidity Adviser, Financing Adviser, Boards member, and Adjunct Professor.
  • Proven track record of leading and consulting on many complex projects with diverse teams across different departments and companies. Developed and currently lead an extensive Lean Six Sigma training and mentoring program used across the Sprint enterprise.
  • Pradeep Henry is driven to turn software projects into strategic initiatives. To make this change happen, he brings a strategy-driven Discovery-and-Design method. Previously, as innovator, de facto innovation & change leader, and practice director, Henry played a proven role in the competitive differentiation and storied fast growth of Dun & Bradstreet spinoff Cognizant Technology Solutions.
  • Founder of i-nexus, the leader in cloud-based software for strategy execution. Respected thought leader, adviser and co-architect of the Strategy Execution 2.0 “Business System” that is rapidly becoming the de facto blueprint for how large organizations successfully deploy and execute their strategic objectives.






It is here now.

6 Tips for Understanding Customer Needs (with 4 min video and Guide)

Get your hands on SCO’s. What are they? How can they help?

Need a handy Guide (13 pages)?
Download the SCO101 : http://bit.ly/SCO101



Certified Process Professional Masters (CPP-Master) Program
Orlando USA March 16-20, Denver USA March 23-27, Dubai UAE Apr 12-16http://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html
An internationally recognized program with proven track record delivered by been there and done it coaches more than 130 times, in 52 cities with delegates from 105 countries.
The program, now in its tenth year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service.
Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.
Become a qualified CPP-Master and demonstrate your professionalismhttp://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html

Customer Experience – do you get it?

Did you miss THE webinar discussion Customer Experience?
Fear not my astute colleague, follow the link(s) below and fill your boots.

Webinar Foundations of Customer Centricity (45 mins)
**New Book** Foundations of Customer Centricity
Not as new Book Outside-In (2010)
http://bit.ly/Outsidein2015
CEMMethod Webinar & Download
http://bit.ly/cem2015
Connect with Steve Towers http://twitter.com/stowers
Connect with James Dodkins http://twitter.com/jdodkins

Visit the site http://www.bpgroup.org


Certified Process Professional Masters (CPP-Master) Program
Orlando USA March 16-20, Denver USA March 23-27, Dubai UAE Apr 12-16http://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html
An internationally recognized program with proven track record delivered by been there and done it coaches more than 130 times, in 52 cities with delegates from 105 countries.
The program, now in its tenth year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service.
Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.
Become a qualified CPP-Master and demonstrate your professionalismhttp://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html

Understanding Customer Needs

You have to understand the Customer Need and work backwards into the organisation to ensure everything you do aligns to that need.

And that is not about asking customers what they want – you have to understand the need even when the customer doesn’t know it themselves. Until Apple invented the iPhone 3 none of us knew we needed it.


We call this thinking and the resulting actions Outside-In.


Certified Process Professional Masters (CPP-Master) Program
(Dubai UAE Dec 7-11, Orlando US Jan 22-23, Denver US Jan 26-30, London UK Mar 2-6)
www.bpgroup.org/certification-by-city.html

An internationally recognised program with proven track record delivered by been there and done it coaches more than 130 times, in 52 cities with delegates from 105 countries.
The program, now in its tenth year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service. Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.

Become a qualified CPP-Master and demonstrate your professionalism.www.bpgroup.org/certification-by-city.html

Where is your work ethic mate?

One day a fisherman was lying on a beautiful beach, with his fishing pole propped up in the sand and his solitary line cast out into the sparkling blue surf. He was enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun and the prospect of catching a fish.

(from the desk of James Dodkins)

About that time, a businessman came walking down the beach, trying to relieve some of the stress of his workday. He noticed the fisherman sitting on the beach and decided to find out why this fisherman was fishing instead of working harder to make a living for himself and his family.

“You aren’t going to catch many fish that way,” said the businessman to the fisherman, “you should be working rather than lying on the beach!” The fisherman looked up at the businessman, smiled and replied, “And what will my reward be?”

“Well, you can get bigger nets and catch more fish!” was the businessman’s answer. “And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman, still smiling.

The businessman replied, “You will make money and you’ll be able to buy a boat, which will then result in larger catches of fish!” “And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman again.

The businessman was beginning to get a little irritated with the fisherman’s questions. “You can buy a bigger boat, and hire some people to work for you!” he said. “And then what will my reward be?” repeated the fisherman.

The businessman was getting angry. “Don’t you understand? You can build up a fleet of fishing boats, sail all over the world, and let all your employees catch fish for you!” Once again the fisherman asked, “And then what will my reward be?”

The businessman was red with rage and shouted at the fisherman, “Don’t you understand that you can become so rich that you will never have to work for your living again! You can spend all the rest of your days sitting on this beach, looking at the sunset. You won’t have a care in the world!”

The fisherman, still smiling, looked up and said, “And what do you think I’m doing right now?”

6. Breakpoints – 5 steps to heaven (continued)


Best Practice Tip:
As you name your breakpoints try using the syntax
– do something, to something to get something.
An example might be
“open the email to action the request”

Make sure you follow the instructions we’ve provided in identifying the Break Points in the target area. Getting this right will play a very big part in determining the degree of benefit achieved.

Also, make sure you write them in a descriptive enough way that you can come back a day, a week or a month later and know what each Break Point is…

Enter this information into your template.

Step 3 – Describe your Actions

You are now ready to describe Actions that can be taken to eliminate Break Points. You have the Break Points documented, now what would it take to eliminate some of them from your target area?

For each Action you identify you need to know what the Action is (describe it) and what Break Points it eliminates. Most often Actions will eliminate multiple Break Points.

The number of Actions you identify and describe will depend on many factors. Try and get as many good Actions as you can, doing so will help you create the most beneficial cost reduction plan.

Enter this information into your template.

Step 4 – Do the Cost and Benefit Assessment

What else do we need to know? We need to place our Actions into perspective, which we do by answering three questions:

How Much? How Long? How Beneficial?

“How Much” is the cost (time, expense) of taking the Action? It’s best to judge cost by using the three categories of High, Medium and Low*.

“How Long” should be expressed in days, weeks or possibly months – but never years. Because eliminating causes of work is actually much easier (and less complicated) than fixing effects, most Actions will take 90 days or less*

(*many Actions will take less than 30 days to complete).

“How Beneficial” is the number of Break Points that would be eliminated combined with our judgment of the overall benefit of the Action. It’s also best to judge benefit as High, Medium or Low.

* The use of the High, Medium and Low scale plays an important psychological role in this technique. We really don’t need more detail than this to know which Actions we should take. By choosing to do a more detailed cost/benefit analysis we will create more work and distract ourselves from the goal – which is eliminating costs!

Enter this information into your template.


Step 5 – Build your Cost Reduction Plan

Choosing which Actions are to be taken should be pretty obvious at this point. From the information already gathered we can see which Actions have the most “bang for the buck.” But for the order of the Actions it’s important to create a mix that makes it easy for us to be successful on a regular basis.

Try starting with a “quick win” to get people enthused about the plan. Mix other “quick wins” into the plan to create “breathers.”

Also consider prioritizing an Action that addresses glaring issues – those we all know are “not right.” Doing this communicates your understanding of the people in your organization and your empathy with their concerns.

Number your Actions in the order in which you want them to be taken. Use the same number for Actions that should be taken simultaneously.

3. Breakpoints – how much work do they create?

A variety of studies exist that place the percentage of time the average employee spends on non-value added work at 40% to 90%. Regardless of where you fall on that scale one thing is obvious…

Identifying and eliminating the causes of non-value added work presents an opportunity for cost reduction of at least 40%. And that’s a prize worth pursuing.

What are Break Points?

Any point within a process where work is handed off is a Break Point. There are four main types of Break Points:

1) person to person

2) person to system

3) system to person

4) system to system.

Break Points are places where stuff goes wrong more often than any place else. Handoffs fail, work is incomplete, and stuff gets duplicated in a cycle that produces a perpetual drain on the organization’s resources.

Like the baton hand-off in Track and Field relay races; if something happens at the hand-off, something unplanned, the next runner must stop running and deal with the resulting issue.

They can’t continue with the race, which is their professional skill, until they have dealt with the failed hand-off. So when something unexpected happens at a hand-off we must stop what we are doing and perform an activity that is nothing to do with our professional skill.

What could go wrong at a Break Point?

For the relay team, the runner waiting for the baton could start too early, either runner could drop the baton, the runner receiving the baton could start too late, either runner could use the wrong hand*, the baton could be slick for some reason causing it to slip… you get the point.

*Many Break Points cause work when the patterns we (people) are used to get changed for any reason. People always create patterns of work behavior. It makes it much easier for us to do things that have repetition. The patterns we’re talking about are not documented anywhere, they are the naturally evolving patterns people in our organizations create to help them do their work.

But these patterns are often violated. For example: a new person is involved (they don’t know the existing pattern), someone is using a different software program, somebody changed a form or document, a new policy went into place requiring people to follow a business rule in how they do a more generic activity like making a request or sending an email, someone’s job changed slightly and they have created a new personal work pattern, a new manager comes in, etc, etc, etc.

To identify with the concept of Break Points (BP) all you have to do is think about the work you do on a daily basis. How much of that work is caused by Break Points?

Think about it.

Upcoming BP Group Certified Process Professional (CPP) opportunities

Thinking about investing in your future? Needing to extend your Professional scope?
Here’s the next 20+ Open classes delivered by the BP Group and the Certified Process Professional (CPP) program:

Country Event Starts Level Duration (days)
USA San Francisco, USA, CPP Professional®, Masters® April 2013 Apr 8, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
India Kolkata Certified Process Professional Masters®, April 2013 Apr 8, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Canada TORONTO, Canada BP Group CPP Professional®, CPP Masters®, April 2013 Apr 8, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
USA Chicago, USA, CPP Professional®, Masters® April 2013 Apr 15, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
USA Atlanta USA, CPP Professional®, Masters® April 2013 Apr 22, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Kenya Nairobi, Kenya – CPP Professional®, Masters® April 2013 Apr 22, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Australia SYDNEY – Advanced Masters® & CPP Champion®, 22 April 2013 Apr 22, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
India PUNE Certified Process Professional Masters®, April 2013 Apr 22, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
USA NEW YORK CPP Professional®, Masters® April 2013 Apr 29, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
South Africa CAPE TOWN, CPP Professional®, Masters® May 2013 May 6, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
South America Sao Paulo, Brazil – CPP Professional®, Masters® May 2013 May 13, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
China Beijing, China CPP Professional®, Masters® May 2013 May 20, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Malaysia Kuala Lumpur CPP Professional®, Masters® MAY 2013 May 20, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
South America Buenos Aires – CPP Professional®, Masters® May 2013 May 20, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
China Hong Kong, China CPP Professional®, Masters® May 2013 May 27, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
UK LONDON, UK CPP Professional®, Masters® June 2013 Jun 3, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
UAE DUBAI, UAE CPP Professional® & CPP Masters® & CPP Champion®, June 2013 Jun 16, 2013 6-7-8 4
Australia Brisbane CPP Professional® & CPP Masters®, July 2013 Jul 29, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Australia SYDNEY, CPP Professional®, Masters®, August 2013 Aug 5, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Singapore Singapore CPP Professional®, Masters® September 2013 Sep 2, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Malaysia Kuala Lumpur CPP Professional®, Masters® Sept 2013 Sep 9, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Philipines Jakarta CPP Professional®, Masters® September 2013 Sep 16, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
Australia BRISBANE CPP Advanced Masters® & CPP Champion®, September 2013 Sep 16, 2013 6-7-8 4
Japan TOKYO CPP Professional®, Masters® September 2013 Sep 23, 2013 1-2-3-4-5 5
South Africa CAPE TOWN, CPP Advanced Masters® & CPP Champion®, 23-26 September 2013 Sep 23, 2013 6-7-8 4

BP Group 20th Birthday – Bridging the Business IT Divide

Yesterday we posted BPM and Scorecards……

Today we cover the Challange of bridging the IT Business divide.
 
In a few weeks time the BP Group will be twenty years old. As part of the celebration we are publishing an article a day – all are evergreen and provide an insight as valuable today as when they were originally published. 

Business Process Management 2 Bridging The Gap Between Business And Technology from Steve Towers

In our fourth article we will cover Virgins Crown Jewels – winning with Successful Customer Outcomes.