Bpr Tips and Tricks

Business Process Reengineering Tricks and Traps

Introduction

This report takes a new look at an old subject, business process reengineering. There have been many books and articles written about the subject and all its theories, techniques and limitations. So why one more? As you know from reading our other works and reports, our philosophy at Xalles is to try to arm you with a few key tools and concepts that are often underutilized and relatively unknown to give you an edge on the competition and your peers. And that is the purpose of this report. There are a number of tricks and traps. If you can correctly apply the tricks in a timely fashion while avoiding the traps, it will usually mean a world of difference in the results of your efforts.

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Trap #1: Subject Matter Experts

This trap is really a series of traps that many companies fall into. Some projects use the same team who created the current processes to reengineer the new ones. Some projects load the process reengineering team with too many like minded people. This can take the form of too many systems people versus business people, too many business people from the same department, too many people with the same demographics (location, age, educational background) etc. Be careful of how “subject matter experts” are chosen. Experts on the current processes need to be balanced with people who can bring fresh ideas to the process.

Trap #2: As-Is and To-Be Modeling Method

Mapping out the current processes and then embarking on the subsequent effort to create a new process is a common practice. Often the act of mapping the existing processes can limit the creativity of the effort to develop something better. Human psychology theories warn us that too much exposure to one model can stifle our thinking and creativity. There are a couple of ways of avoiding this trap if you have complex existing processes that need to be mapped. One tactic is to start the reengineering by setting...