Business Process Managers Are So Immature
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By Edward J. Correia
May 20, 2008 —
Grow up! What’re you, two? These words, perhaps most often spoken by parents to kids, might just as well be those of upper managers to their reports. Because according to a report published in February, most middle-managers and the organizations they govern act as if they are two; CMMI Level 2, that is.
That’s the finding of “The State of Business Process Management 2008,” the 54-page report by Business Process Trends, a BP think tank and advocacy group. The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) scale classifies as Level 2 those organizations that have formally documented their processes and done little more. Is your department’s maturity level on par with the majority?
The survey of 287 companies from around the world showed that a majority of organizations (55 percent) document their processes only occasionally, and were just as diligent at keeping them up-to-date. As a result of their limited enterprise process architecture, the study concluded that such companies were less able to “implement standardized process models [or reuse] components across subsequent implementations or define consistent measurement strategies.
These terms should sound familiar if you’ve studied CMMI.
Organizations at CMMI Level 3 are those that have successfully implemented enterprise process architecture, and folks at Level 4 can measure performance in a systematic and consistent way. Those at the highest level, 5, are able to “continually improve process efficiency and effectiveness at the enterprise level,” as characterized in the study.
Half of the respondents said they were pursuing business process management “as a strategic discipline,” according to the report, with 26 percent describing BPM as a “major strategic commitment by executive management.” Another 24 percent said their company is making a “significant commitment to multiple high-level projects.”
The data also showed that BPM is gaining ground in terms of awareness and understanding. In a similar study conducted in 2006, 16 percent of respondents identified BPM as “exclusively a set of software technologies,” compared with just 9 percent currently. Instead, most of the latest respondents (40 percent) describe it as “a top-down methodology designed to organize, manage and measure the organization based on the organization’s core processes." Another 29 percent called it “a systematic approach to analyzing, redesigning, improving and managing a specific process.”
Following an analysis of data from 2007 versus 2006, it became clear that companies better understand the benefits of BPM adoption. More than half (56 percent in 2007 versus 33 percent in 2006) identify as top reasons for adoption a “need to save money by reducing costs and/or improving productivity” and a “need to improve management coordination or organizational responsiveness” (51 percent in 2007 versus 23 percent in 2006).
The survey was conducted between November and December, 2007, with respondents describing themselves as process practitioner or business analyst (55 percent), business or line business manager (17 percent), IT manager or developer (15 percent) and executive (12 percent). The geographic split was North America (42 percent), Europe (30 percent), Asia/Australia (16 percent) and Africa/Middle East (5 percent). Companies were pulled from BP Trends’ 20,000-person membership base and represented 15 industry sectors.
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