Week 13 - Process Redesign (3) and Implementation

Week 13 - Process Redesign (3) and Implementation

References:
http://projectmanagement.ittoolbox.com/documents/successful-bpr-implementation-strategy-13101
http://www.bus.iastate.edu/nilakant/MIS538/Readings/Integrating%20BPR%20with%20ISD.pdf

This week we picked up process redesign from where we left off last time at the workflow software supported process transformation stage. We have now finished the last step of the process redesign phase which is the Planning Process Integration step. We also covered the next phase after Process Redesign, Implementation and Organisational Transformation.

In this step, we investigated the options for IT integration for BPR. Starting from 1990, primitive custom applications were developed to support the growing demand of e-business. These IT platforms have since come a long way in their evolution to the state-of-the-art XML-based Process Integration Suites that they are today. In between the two ends of the evolution, they have gone through the stages of being simple workflow engines, integrated enterprise applications and specialised e-process automation software. Let's have a look at each of those stages.

Custom Application Development

A stage where custom developed applications were starting to be integrated into IT architectures. Customisation is still common presently as a result of the growing IT differences propagated by the legacy systems between organisations.

Nowadays however, the trend has been to emphasise core functionality of systems rather than integration.

The Workflow Engine Operation

A business process model is generated by software, where all information, databases, activities, authorisation, data routing are maintained to facilitate automated business process execution.

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)

This was where Business-to-Business software was used to manage the process flow and interactions across supply chain partners. Using EAI effectively had the advantage of integrating without having to make major changes to the current infrastructure. It created an ordered framework to an organisation as it served as the central coordinator between different business stations.

Note that EAI was differed from middleware in that it focused on the integration of both business-level processes and data as opposed to just data. EAI included reusing as well as distributing business processes and data. EAI also allowed integration of applications that did not understand each other.

Specialised E-Process Automation Software

The different departments within an enterprise were all connected by an intranet network, which was itself connected to the supplier portal and logistics through Internet network. This meant that all employees of the enterprise could order supplies directly online and keep track of payments.

XML-based Process Integration Suites for E-Business

This is the latest incarnation of IT integration technology. XML marks up a document with user-defined tags which enables simple organisation of data in computer or human readable formats and improved communications between different customised applications or enterprises.

Apart from that, XML has the capability to make plug-and-play seamless connectivity between processes of various enterprises.

We finished the Redesign Phase here and moved onto the next phase of BPR.

Implementation of Organisational Transformation - Change Management

The concept of change management is really a structured approach from current to desired state, while avoiding the inevitable user resistance to changes. This phase is mainly concerned with the people's side of issues and the goal is to use structured techniques to transition through the changes. Most of those techniques are based on Lewin's theory of unfreezing, changing and refreezing.

Unfreezing - Managers move employees from their comfort zones to the next stage

Changing - Transition time needed depends on the extent of change required

Refreezing - Stability at the desired state may be temporary since business typically involves rapid changes

HR Problems

• Fear and anxiety
• Resistance to changes
• Hard to work properly while undergoing changes
• Perceived erosion of human capital
• Employees like to keep their old skills and think of changing as a disposal of their old skills

Remedial Actions

• Establish sense of urgency
• Form powerful guiding coalition
• Create and communicate vision
• Empower others to act on vision
• Plan for and create short-term wins
• Consolidate improvements and produce more changes
• Institutionalise new approaches