Six Sigma DMAIC and BPM (or BPx acronym Bingo)

Back in the mid 80s I worked on the original Six Sigma team at Motorola.

Soon there after I took a job in Motorola Semiconductor World Marketing to:

"Leverage Six Sigma in the Field".

In reality “World Marketing” was really “Sales”; and “Six Sigma for World Marketing” was really “BPM”.  Demand forecasting, change notifications, end of life… Business Processes Impacting Customers.

Funny thing is, in the early 90s BPM was gaining momentum as BPR (which in many ways was really sort of BPA centric).

As far as the acronyms:

BPM = Business Process Management

BPR = Business Process Re-engineering

BPA = Business Process Analysis (as opposed to automation)

As far as the point:

Having done a lot of Analysis and Re-Engineering (the “As-Is” to “Should-Be” approach), I think the early work we did, now enabled by technology, is at the leading edge of best practices enabling inherently agile operational excellence (Arguably the goal of BPM).

I’m not saying that Six Sigma (or what it has evolved into) = BPM

Rather that the basic DMAIC principles of Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control are at the heart of many leading edge BPM initiatives.  Rather than decomposing processes and analyzing them in detail, companies are defining business processes at a higher level and using process intelligence (PI) to measure process performance, these measurements are analyzed and a specific part of the process that generates sufficient ROI is improved and controlled.  After which the process is further defined, measured, etc… DMAIC’d.

The result, a BPM approach which delivers value in the near term and is “Process” centric in and of itself.  This in turn drives not only top and bottom line improvements, but helps to create a company that is much more agile and able to respond to change and opportunity in the marketplace.

Momentum as a Deliverable

I have a colleague who has an incredible wealth of experience in BPM.  In talking with people about it, he always emphasizes that when it comes to any BPM project "Momentum is a Deliverable".  This philosophy is driven based on experience.  Although one can actually accomplish projects that add value in less than 90 days, BPM is a way of approaching operational excellence that is inherently iterative and innovative, being as dynamic as the markets you serve or the opportunities that arise within them. 

As such when you loose momentum, you loose opportunity.

Last night the SF-SV chapter of ABPMP had its first meeting.  We had attendees from over 70 miles away (driving a hybrid).  When it comes to BPM organizations I believe that Momentum is also a Deliverable.  Good news is, last night I believe we got some.

Thanks to all that participated.

When I came up with the name "Blog Bytes" I was attempting to make a play on “Sound Bites” suggesting that the content provided here would be short, concise, to the point.  The Bytes part was just my software background bias and an attempt to write something catchy.  All the same, having worked business process optimization for longer than I care to admit, I believe we are at a point in history where technology plays an incredibly powerful role.  Things I did 10 years ago that took more than a year to implement can be done in a couple of months these days with much greater impact.  As the ABPBP CBOK states: “BPM is both a management discipline and a set of technologies that supports managing by process.”  From my perspective, software is truly enabling, and will only play a bigger role as new technologies are developed and leveraged.