Published: September 11 2008, 12:40 PM | no comments
by Steve Romero

When you hear the word "process," what comes to mind?  For most IT folks, the word evokes negative feelings.  Process means bureaucracy, slowing people down and making things overly complex or unnecessarily difficult.  But I see things differently.  

For me, the word "process" conjures up very positive feelings.  It means focusing on the customer and providing stellar products and services.  It means making work possible and practical.  It means empowering people and enabling them to be successful.

Unfortunately, the former perception is often closer to reality.  Despite our best intentions, many of our processes are ineffective and inefficient and are deserving of their bad rap.  I attribute this to what I consider to be the most neglected discipline in most enterprises today--good process management.

In every presentation I deliver, no matter what the subject, I mention the need to enable and provide good process management.  I spend a few minutes describing the absolute necessity of good process design, even better  process implementation, accountable process ownership, and effective process governance. It has been frustrating to have only a short time to get this critical point across to my audiences.

That has recently changed with the lastest seminar I am involved with,  "Bringing Clarity to Process Management."  In the seminar, we spend up to 3 hours providing an overview of the critical aspects of process management including case studies of organizations that have successfully automated processes and an overview of process management roles and responsibilities. This event was born of numerous requests from attendees of past events who diligently filled out their audience surveys and requested more information on how to enable and ensure success in their process efforts.

I am immeasurably passionate about good process management and am thrilled at the opportunity to speak at length on the subject.  We piloted our new theme last month in Minnesota and held our second event in Dallas last week.  In each case we had large audiences and the response was overwhelmingly positive.  It was extremely gratifying to see folks get excited and energized at the prospect of introducing good process management concepts to their organizations.  

I would love to hear about your process management efforts and the perception of process in your organization.

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