Theodore Panagacos, authored the book, The Ultimate Guide to Business Process Management: Everything you need to know and how to apply it to your organization and I had to ask him the similarities between Lean and Business Process Management.
Related Podcast and Transcription: Business Process Management
Joe: If Business Process Management (BPM) stems from Dr. Deming, what is the difference between BPM and Lean?
Theodore: There are several change management functions that I guess that are out there in the consulting industry at the moment. So, we’ve got Business Strategy that is the highest level of business architecture. Next, Business Process Management and then underneath, we have a Lean and Six Sigma components. I think the Lean, Six Sigma colleagues will probably argue with me on this, but basically how it works is that your Business Strategy folks develop the long term plan as an organization in terms of where that organization is going, the directions it’s going to take and how it is going to position itself with its market competitors. The Business Architects then take their strategic plans and develop what the Business Model should look like. Underneath that the Business Process Management people that reside within a people center of excellence takes the models that the Business Architecture developed and models the process that create the optimum business functions and activities that the business is expected to perform. Then what happens is that the Lean and Six Sigma people will work with the business process management teams, optimize the processes that are being developed. There are definitely fundamental differences between BPM, Lean and Six Sigma. I just explained, I guess that holistic 50,000 foot view. More fundamentally, Lean and Six Sigma practitioners tend to look at optimizing the absolute tactical levels of processes within the organization. Whereas the BPM team, BPM process analyst tends to focus throughout the operational level at a higher view of the organization.
Joe: What we are trying to accomplish with BPM is the strategic side and then we hand off the operation or tactical side to the Lean and Six Sigma folks?
Theodore: Yes, that is correct. The BPM folks will set up the framework for how the processes will be managed, and they can do that in a repository or other various means. They will identify what those processes are align those processes to be a functional part an organization. The Lean and Six Sigma practitioners will work with those process analysts and further optimize and refine the processes so that they will perform at their optimum level.
Joe: If I want to start with Business Process Management, how do I start? How does an organization start?
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