Interview with Jim Boots – how to approach process modeling and make people care about BPM

One of the main struggles of BPM practitioners is how to make organization care about Business Process Management. How to make sure that people will be interested in models you create? How to get the executive support for the process management initiative and what kind of support is sufficient?

Does it sound interesting? Read on…

I have spent last few weeks working on a website for the new version of ADONIS – process modeling tool available in a cloud that my company offers. Reading all the texts made me think about the changes in process modeling in the recent years.

Process models are no longer something that only experts can prepare, read and use. They can serve as a common language for an organization and help get the work done. But only if you manage to make people care about the models and the results they provide. Otherwise – if the models are not used by people – they will be useless “shelfware”.

And it is the same with BPM in general. It can provide great results for the company, but only if it is applied and executives support the BPM initiatives.

But this is only my perspective, so I thought it could be interesting for you to hear about modeling processes and running BPM initiatives from someone who did it for a large corporation for many years.

In this interview you can listen to the experiences of Jim Boots who worked at Chevron Corporation for 30 years and was the primary force behind building Chevron’s BPM foundation from 2005-2010. Jim shares lots of great tips, so prepare something to take notes…

RSS readers – go here for the audio.

jim-boots-electrical

About Jim Boots

Jim Boots worked at Chevron Corporation for 30 years in a wide array of functions including sales, total quality management, business development, supply chain management, business management, e-commerce management, health safety & environment management, enterprise architecture, and Business Process Management (BPM) program development.
He was the primary force behind building Chevron’s BPM foundation from 2005-2010.

He also is a Principal IT-CMF Professional at the Innovation Value Institute with responsibilities that include a role as Lead Architect of the BPM Critical Capability.

He is author of the book, “BPM Boots on the Ground: How to Implement Strategic Business Process Management: Lessons Learned from one of the World’s Largest Organizations” and co-author of a recent book “Questioning BPM?”. Jim runs his own BPM consultancy known as Global Process Innovation.

Quotes

“The single most important success factor for an initiative intended to build BPM capability is the quality of executive sponsorship”

“The hard reality is that almost all efforts to increase BPM maturity that do not have sustained executive commitment and involvement are destined to fail quickly”

“For an organization to achieve the highest level of BPM maturity, it will commit to use of specialized software that will become an organization-wide learning, collaboration and work facilitation platform that people refer to all the time”

“Commitment from the top management to document the organization process architecture is a major milestone on the journey towards BPM maturity”

“Process mapping should begin in areas that are most important to the organization and/or are causing the biggest problems”

“As the subject matter experts map their processes it is typical for them to take pride in their process diagrams and want to get the diagrams right”

“Diagrams can be treated as an ever-improving standard that everyone can contribute to”

“Keep drilling down until it is all clear”

“What we are looking for are intuitive diagrams that all employees can understand”

“If your model becomes complicated and starts to look like an electrical diagram then you’ve probably lost people”

“By simplifying the diagram you are helping people see the forest rather than being right amidst all the trees”

“People want to get the big picture first”

Social Links

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-boots-1162307
Email to Jim jimboots.gpi@gmail.com

Resources mentioned in this episode

Global Process Innovation: http://www.globalprocessinnovation.com

BPM Boots on the Ground: How to Implement Strategic Business Process Management: Lessons Learned from one of the World’s Largest Organizations: https://www.amazon.com/BPM-Boots-Ground-Management-Organizations/dp/0929652169

Questioning BPM?: https://www.amazon.com/Questioning-BPM-Paul-Harmon/dp/0929652541/

Q9 Elements: https://q9elements.com

Innovation Value Institute: https://ivi.ie

Articles on Process Excellence Network by Jim Boots: http://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/contributors/16576-jim-boots

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