Business process management/Charter for bpm investment

Executive Summary
The investment strategy governs how quickly the BPM program can become operational and deliver value in a repeatable fashion. As a BPM program matures, it will require different investments than it did at inception. This Charter examines the types of investments that are needed, from where those investments will be sourced, and considers the time element.

It is disadvantageous to ramp up too slowly. The benefits of a BPM program would not be maximized and could potentially cost the organization any potential competitive edge provided by the selected opportunities. Similarly, attempting to ramp up too quickly will incur inefficiencies and excessive costs. Returns would be diminished.

A funding model for each stage is explored. It is essential that the Leadership team can effectively identify in which stage a program exists and knows ways to get it to the next stage.

Objectives
This Charter
 * Explains a simplified diffusion curve for program maturity,
 * Defines standardized criteria for identifying each transition boundary, and
 * Discusses how to accelerate the evolution process in a manageable fashion.

Scope
The stages of BPM program maturity are described with their identifying characteristics. As a program evolves, its progress on the maturity curve can be measured. The investment model must change according to the current and the future needs of the program.

Implementation
The steps should be common across organizations. The only difference is the pace of evolution which is determined by how quickly these steps can be practically completed.

From Validate to Adopt

 * Determine the critical success factors for the Validate stage. What are the functional capabilities and operational capabilities that must be proven to advance to Adopt.
 * Pick opportunities that are quickly delivered to meet the critical success factors above. This may mean that necessary integrations already exist or that the solutions rely on limited integration functionality.
 * Provide infrastructure support to the BPM project teams. Let them focus on solution delivery.
 * Dedicate subject matter experts who are familiar with the operations being addressed by the Validate opportunities. If these resources are not available to quickly and to readily address questions and to clarify requirements then that only slows down the ride up the maturity curve.
 * Develop and communicate on the roadmap for solutions. Not all features need to be delivered in the first release.  It is important to set the expectation that BPM projects are ongoing and will deliver production functionality with regular releases rather than with a monolithic release.
 * Select tools that support rapid delivery and complement the methods chosen.
 * Prioritize benefits of the selected opportunities against benefits to the program. It might be more important to uncover some program obstacles than to deliver a specific feature in the solution.  The long-term advantage might be leveraged across solutions.
 * Invest in the IT capabilities and capacity ahead of the BPM demand.

From Adopt to Transform

 * Pull the experts out of their originating business units. Place them in the core engine, and coach them on how to ramp up other individuals.  This preserves the momentum established earlier in the program.
 * Establish sharing guidelines that allow for leverage and reuse of common assets. If the common repository of shared assets is of a reasonable size consider investing in a team to maintain and to enhance those assets.
 * Establish prioritization guidelines for interactions between the BPM program and other programs. This is discussed further in the Charter for Conflict Resolution.
 * Establish a funding model that supports ongoing projects and their roadmaps. Analyze and prioritize the requirements roadmaps for possible further benefit to the organization.  If the benefits are prioritized higher than those of other opportunities then consider continuing the project, especially while the solution team is still intact.
 * Include refresh cycles in the funding model such that the infrastructure and tooling are regularly improved.
 * Provide education and training options for both the new and existing members of the engine.
 * Communicate the benefits and the progress so that it is clear how an inclusive BPM program benefits everyone in the organization.

Assumptions

 * Too often, opportunities are funded for a limited time period that neglects the overall program and organizational benefits. This is sometimes due to fiscal timelines and to a lack of discipline about prioritizing opportunities.  Those opportunities that can clearly demonstrate an alignment with strategic goals and can deliver on a regular, frequent cadence should be provided continuing funding.  BPM solutions provide increasing returns with each release.  This is usually because the early releases provide a functional baseline whereas the subsequent releases add the management capabilities.
 * For a continuous funding model to work, there must be regular reviews to ensure that the solutions still provide the anticipated benefits. Do not be afraid to enforce the reviews frequently and to terminate the projects if they no longer align.  In conjunction with a centrally funded model this technique can quickly mobilize other opportunities that move forward in the priority queue.
 * The model presented in this Charter is expected to deviate in practical application. Some organizations will find that some aspects occur sooner and others later.

Behaviors

 * Sharing - Infrastructure Cost Models
 * Staging Platform Growth

Conclusions
A comprehensive program maturity lifecycle covers three stages: Validate, Adopt, and Transform. The source of investment at each stage is a result of the types of activities and the desired outcomes for that stage.

The Validate stage almost necessitates a distributed investment model. People, infrastructure, and cash funding have to come from the few groups who are interested in the success of the solutions.

As the organization's appetite for BPM increases and as the pipeline depth increases, it makes sense to begin consolidating assets that can be better leveraged. This includes the people who now have experience, and it includes the infrastructure that has been started for the pilot solutions but that may still have capacity.

During Transform, as more programs come onboard, the Leadership team can use a centralized funding pool to manage the demand pipeline. The actual source of the funds during Adopt and Transform may come from the increasing the number of teams that participate in the BPM program, or it might be provided as a top-level line item.