Well, maybe not everything, but quite a bit.  And not exactly the Pinewood Derby, per se, but the “Pixelwood Derby,” which is a grownup version held annually in Austin, TX.  Like the Cub Scout inspired merit badge event, the Pixelwood requires competitors to craft their own vehicles to a tight design spec using a small block of wood, four aluminum nails (axels), and four plastic wheels.  Where it likely differs is with the fancy, electronically timed racetrack, a perfect replica of the Back To The Future Delorean off to the side, at least five folks walking around in movie quality storm trooper outfits, and a welcome stream of Tito’s vodka and Stash IPA. 

When Grant Chambers, the CEO of Workhorse, a key marketing partner of ours at iGrafx, asked us to participate in this charity event I agreed.  I mean, it’s for a great cause (The Settlement Home for Children), and it offers a chance to network with some really cool Austin-based companies, like Indeed, Phunware, Yeti, Grande Communications, Offers.com, ShipEngine, etc.  Plus, I was fairly confident that I could find someone at iGrafx to pawn the actual car building off on, so what did I have to lose?

Well, it turns out that the whole pawning-off thing backfired and I became the designer, builder and race car handler.  And given that my nights and weekends are pretty full, it wasn’t like I had big chunks of spare time screaming out for wooden cars to build.  So, that was life lesson #1: if you’ve got something important to do, be prepared to do it yourself.  Lead by example.  Fall on the grenade for your team.  Something like that.

Lesson number two was that if you need to learn anything, no matter how arcane, there’s a YouTube video for it.  I could’ve watched videos on the scientific approaches to constructing Pinewood Derby racers for days if I hadn’t peeled myself away from the computer and headed out to the garage.  Seriously.  People have spent A LOT of time analyzing, quantifying and pontificating about little wooden Cub Scout cars.

Lesson #3 was a reminder that if you own a compound miter saw and a table saw, they will be used as places in the garage to pile years-worth of clutter, making their extrication a project in and of itself.  Sigh.

After finally getting the power tools out, my plan was to make a very simple design, but a very fast car.  All the YouTubing had me convinced that I held the secrets to speed, and that iGrax would be a shoe-in for the fastest car award.  So, after making a few cuts, doing some sanding, painting, polishing, bending, cursing, weighting, aligning and graphiting, lesson #4 materialized – have the right tools for the job.  Turns out that the vast, underground world of Pinewood Derbying has a dark web network of places to buy everything from precision axel benders to custom aerodynamic weights.  And I had none of that stuff.  My best laid strategic plans left a bit to be desired in final execution.

Still, lesson #5 was pretty fantastic, and it came to me when my 15-year-old, high school sophomore son actually volunteered to help me with the project.  Simply, if you want to find a way to get your elusive, exceptionally cool, very rarely around son to spend some time away from his friends (and Fortnite), and hang out with you at home, start building a little wooden car in your garage!

When the paint dried, even without the high-tech derby car tools, I was fairly pleased with the way everything had come together, and honestly thought that we’d have a chance at winning the fastest car contest at the event.  Seriously, how many of the other corporate competitors would take the time to watch the videos and implement all of the sciency tips and tricks?  Turns out, lots of them.  Lesson #6, YouTube is available to everyone, and lesson #7, there are a lot of folks in Austin who take this stuff incredibly seriously!  Our car wasn’t bad, and typically ran second or third in each of our many heats.  But that wasn’t enough to get us first place, or even in the top 8 out of 20!  Two tenths of a second is an eternity on a Pinewood Derby track…  And don’t get me started on the cars that looked cooler than ours AND were faster!  Form and function.  Poetry in motion.  Copious time on people’s hands… ;)

Lesson #8, and the one that ties back to iGrafx, is that I wish I’d had the ability to use our own collaborative mapping, modeling, simulation and performance management software to create the car.  I could’ve quantified and controlled risks and automated workflows to ensure that I closed the gap between strategy and execution.  Elon Musk would’ve been jealous.  It was a perfect case of the cobbler’s kids lack of shoes.

In the end, though, it’s all about lesson #9.  And that is, win or lose, racing little wooden cars down a track is fun and perplexingly addictive.  I’m already planning for the iGrafx tour de force in 2019!

Thanks again to Workhorse for making it happen.

It’s true in every industry, we want to implement faster, feel more secure, and be more efficient.  I have a great idea.  Let’s buy a tool or some technology for that.  Technology will make it all better, Right?  Wrong!  This is however the unfortunate situation that many organizations face time and time again.  It is also a conversation that plays itself out repeatedly at many conferences.

Last week I attended ABS Technologies Fall Tech Fest in Roanoke, VA, and it got me thinking about this again.  The event was great, and pulled in speakers from Cisco, Global Knowledge Training, and Schneider Electric, who shared some interesting perspectives and advice.  Unfortunately, though, the conversations were almost solely about throwing technology at problems.  Yes, I get it, the event name “Tech Fest” does tell you that there is obviously going to be a focus on Technology, but this neglects some very important factors that really should be considered before thinking about any technology.

The day started with a great presentation from Dave Buster who traced back the Target security breach of 2013.  You all remember how big an issue it was, impacting over 60 million customers.  Chances are you were probably one of them.  This sent people clambering to find an IT solution to close the vulnerability.  But as you listen to the story, it all traces back to human error driven by poor IT and data security policies at a 3rd party vendor.  Here is the thing though, technology won’t solve that problem.  If you don’t know what those systems are connected to, who has access, or why they are used, it is very difficult to define an effective policy.  It also nearly impossible to ensure you are implementing the right technology. 

We have all seen the PPT triangle, or some variation of it, that represents People, Process, & Technology. 

Do you notice what comes last in the list?  I’m sorry to my IT brethren, but it’s Technology.  There is a reason for that.  You can not deploy technology without competent people, supporting processes, and an overall understanding of your strategy.  Well, you can if you aren’t concerned with ROI…

There were other sessions at the event on IoT and Capabilities Mapping that would have benefited by connecting the dots between the three.  One even started by showing the PPT triangle and saying that we were mainly going to focus on people & process, but unfortunately that was the last time people or process were mentioned as the presenter only talked about technology.

I would love for this conference to have taken a broader approach.  There was so much potential to really open-up the discussions and provide true perspective and guidance, that technology is only a tool.  And like all tools (technology), if they are in the hands of someone (people) who does not know how to use it (process), they can be dangerous and the results catastrophic (See what I did there with Technology before People and Process). In the case of Target, that was $18.5m, 47 state lawsuit, AND a $10m class action settlement. 

iGrafx has been connecting the dots of People, Process, and Technology for over 25 years.  We have a Proven Process that captures and aligns your strategy, people, process, and technology to unite your entire organization.  Contact us to find out how we can help you.

I’m embarrassed to admit that BP3’s Driven event took place a solid month ago and I’m just getting around to watching all of the excellent video resources that were created there.  The first one that caught my eye was a conversation between BP3’s VP Marketing, Krista White, and Forrester’s VP & Principal Analyst, Rob Koplowitz, talking about “the critical role of process in digital transformation.”  Holy cow, this is important information for any business leader thinking about “digital transformation,” or “automation,” or any of the related derivatives and acronyms.

In a nutshell, what you’ll see in this short (2:09) video is Rob explaining that you can’t really automate until you understand the processes you’re trying to improve, and you shouldn’t really think of customer journey mapping as anything other than process mapping.  The “art of the possible” lies in cogently tying all of this together.  And with 83% of organizations (per Rob) looking to significantly increase their use of customer journey mapping, it would sure behoove said organizations to understand this bigger picture before throwing dollars at technology.  “Rules before tools” as the cool kids say.

How does iGrafx fit into this you ask?  And why are we posting BP3’s videos?  Well, as we’ve mentioned before, we’re proud partners with BP3.  They’re fellow Austin, TX technology providers and really smart folks, and together we’re a classic “complementary offering” story.  Do any of you who remember back to the ‘70s and ‘80s, when “you got your peanut butter on my chocolate,” and we simultaneously realized how delicious the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup was that we’d created.  It was kind of like that, only a bit less accidental, because it was clear that the transformation services, support and best practices that BP3 offers would align perfectly with the transformation software solutions that iGrafx provides.  We knew we had a 1+1=3 scenario for our joint customers right away.

Thanks to Rob, Krista and BP3 for this excellent content.  We’ll be sharing more in the Transformation Weekly later this year.

In the following article I want to reflect a few of my project management experiences. Attention: could be a bit exaggerated and sarcastic, but there is a lot of truth!

The Beginning

Before you can play pinball, you have to throw in some money. It’s the same with projects. Most of the time, you need to budget for the project before it begins. This usually comes from the technical budget managers or management. And means the people who have initiated the project also have a high interest in the success of the project. So far so good!

Getting Started

Money is in and the first ball is released. Pull once - maybe pull through completely, maybe only up to a certain point, and off you go. The ball picks up speed and rolls rapidly towards the pitch. In projects, this is the so-called kick off. There, the project manager takes on the task of getting the ball rolling. For new projects, the enthusiasm is usually still quite high; everyone is highly motivated, everyone wants to do their best.

The Ball Starts Rolling

The thing about pinball is that the ball picks up speed, but you actually have no idea where it will land or what happens next. Sure, the more experience you have, the more often you play pinball, the more likely you are to guess the track and landing points. But it’s just a guess, because on the way there are many unpredictable factors. If the ball bounces the wrong way, it’s over and done with. No one knows, or can predict, which course the silver bullet will take. That’s why a pinball player will never plan anything except a reasonably focused start. Then he waits to see what happens.

This is a little bit different in project management. Despite the introduction of agile methods, projects are usually planned and done in a very classic way according to the good old waterfall method. Which means, I determine at the start what has happened, when it’s happened and where it’s happened. Once a phase is complete (with the result set), I then move on to the next phase. And so on and so forth, across different milestones, right up to the end of the project. So that’s a little bit like pinballing - planning exactly where and when the ball bounces, how many points are scored (= milestones), and what the order is until the ball eventually goes out.

Act and React

The pinball player is waiting to see what happens. He knows that the ball does not take a predictable path and is always ready to react accordingly. Does the ball fly back and forth between the bumpers? You don’t stop; you hold on and take the small success quickly. Does the ball unexpectedly jump towards one of the flippers? React quickly and bring the ball back into play. In an emergency, tug on the pinball machine and push to nuance the direction of the ball.  Just don’t tilt!

Business projects are very often geared to the very big goals and results. You often want to break the record on the pinball machine and do it as fast as possible. The small scores are not satisfying. But it is precisely the small successes that decide on the overall score in the end.

Long-term project planning also loses many opportunities to act quickly and flexibly. In waterfall projects this means considerable effort for new planning. Not to mention that you would have to admit mistakes in the planning in the first place.

The Right Hits

Even though every hit scores points, every pinball player knows exactly where to get the highest score. He tries to hit it every time. Why does he know this? He knows the pinball machine. He sees the structure, knows traps, paths, and points of individual hit contacts. Like a golfer who checks the green for bumps every time he putts. For the pinball player, the game is completely transparent.

Process Transparency and Agility

Projects in companies, especially when it comes to changes in processes, usually start without having this transparency. Project leader and team go on a path, which they do not know, and also cannot control. A common reason for the failure of projects is that the effort to analyze actual situations is not made at all, or not scheduled but must be made later which takes time and budget. This often means that projects go off in a silo instead of going hand in hand with business process management, which can provide the necessary transparency and a sound basis for the project.

The Next Ball Please

Yes, at some point the first ball rolls out. For most pinball games this is not a big deal, because you have several balls per game. So, shoot the next ball. Unfortunately, this is not a luxury project managers usually have. When the budget is exhausted, there is usually no room to really keep the project alive. The project dies or you must live with the results achieved so far. No one is really satisfied.

Conclusion

As is required with pinball, businesses should be a bit more agile with their projects. The right funding is necessary, and everyone should start the game knowing that there will be setbacks along the way. This requires quick reflexes in order to get fast, visible results that motivate and lead the project team toward the big picture.  Last but not least: without business processes, transparency and a solid foundation, it will always be difficult to set the high score and achieve project time, budget and quality goals.

I recently listened to this great podcast from Just-In-Time Café at goleansixsigma.com. The episode was titled “The Journey from Plastics & Axles to Shingo Prize Featuring Tracey & Ernie Richardson.” You can listen to the whole episode here. It highlights the story of a couple who started their work life at the first Toyota Plant in North America and then wrote a book about it. It’s a very interesting and entertaining story.

We wanted to thank the podcast team for their shout out to iGrafx in their introduction. They recently reviewed our software and decided that it could “probably simulate your bowling game.” That’s high praise! Among other things, they discussed how powerful our software is, allowing for a fully integrated platform that allows organizations to visualize all processes and manage them in one place. They talk about the ability to allow collaboration and to add measurements of performance that feed into the company’s processes. Other praise included the ability to methodically document and track performance of all processes, the ability to see all interactions and to experiment with simulation to understand the impact of changes. They also mentioned how easy it is to share and organize everything – it’s real time information meaning users will see the most current data and understand how it’s used and shared.  They mentioned that iGrafx promotes web based visible transparency with flexible access, while also automatically organizing historical process documentation to see exactly what changed between versions. Essentially, they suggested that if you put the work in to build out your processes using our integrated process collaboration platform, the results are incredible control and the ability to manage all of your process.

Again, we must thank the folks at goleansixsigma.com for such kind words! Take a listen to their entire podcast here.

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As an avid outdoorsman, I’ve spent much of my free time exploring and enjoying the beautiful land and wildlife that central Texas has to offer. On most weekends, you’ll find me loading up my truck and heading out in search of the next off-road adventure with family and friends.

At least once on any giving outing, one of our group members will inevitably get lost or separated from the rest of us attempting to navigate the narrow and winding paths on some type of 4x4 vehicle. Throw a rapidly setting sun and unfamiliar territory into the equation, and you’ve got a recipe for an all-night tour of the countryside. Fortunately, our wandering group members always seem to find their way back and are met with a collective sigh of relief (along with a healthy dose of ridicule and finger pointing).

I’ll regretfully admit that I’ve been in the same situation myself.  On a particular trip about two years ago, I hopped in my truck to begin making my way back to our camp after a ride out to get some firewood. Within minutes of bouncing my way down the rocky terrain in front of me, I realized that many of the trails looked the same and that the low light conditions were going to make it even more difficult to navigate my way back. To make matters worse, my limited cell phone service prevented me from finishing a call with a friend, instructing me on where I should meet him and the description of how to get there. Without the necessary information and a good plan, I picked a trail and put the pedal down. To say it was a long night would be an understatement.

As you can imagine, it was a stressful evening filled with a variety of questions such as “where am I right now?” “how did I get so lost?” “am I on the right track?” “where is everyone else in relation to me?” and of course, “Why isn’t there a simple and easy way to get to my destination?” Fast forward to a month ago. I’m sitting in a conference room with a potential customer, joined by one of our senior consultants discussing their interest in diving head-first into a full-blown enterprise modeling and business transformation program, complete with RPA and several other advanced technology solutions. My colleague applauded the client’s eagerness to get started and responded simply by saying “Let’s straighten the path before we pave the road.”

Those words brought me back to that night two years ago and helped me realize that the journey to digital and business transformation was much like my own experience. So many companies begin planning for (or starting) their efforts without having the full picture of their organization, the current processes, systems, and strategies that drive it, where they want to be, and how it impacts others within the company.

My colleague continued his analogy by explaining that the “straightening” part had to do with understanding the current state of their org structure and their key processes, followed by an exercise to prioritize and improve these processes and align them with the appropriate people and groups. Only then, he explained, would we begin to align this with company strategy, automate, and “pave the road” into a highway leading directly to their transformation goals.

Whatever your process, organizational performance, or digital transformation initiatives are, there is one universal takeaway. The journey to a more efficient, effective, and successful organization is a set of endlessly curving dirt roads. Focus on making data driven decisions to “straighten” that road and “pave” it into a superhighway leading your organization to industry leadership.

“The entire process portfolio of the organization is unclear or not transparent”, “Compliance is viewed independently of processes”, “Process knowledge remains with individuals”... we hear this and much more from process managers in companies again and again. It is reason enough to deal more intensively with these topics and challenges. That’s why we invited our customer Sylwia Miedza, Manager Process & Project Governance at Panasonic, to the expert dialogue of the BPM Club last week in Berlin, where she shared her own experiences. With 275,000 employees worldwide, including more than 11,000 at Panasonic Europe, and headquarters in 35 countries throughout Europe and the CIS, the Japanese electronics group is a true global player.

At first hand, Sylwia Miedza told the approximately 30 participants about Panasonic’s journey to a process and customer-oriented company in a very structured way: starting with the common problems of process documentation to the organizational requirements of process management up to the successful introduction of the iGrafx BPM platform.

Sylwia Miedza also gave the participants a clear idea of what Panasonic’s process management should look like in the future and what further steps still need to be taken. Many questions from the participants followed, and an exciting and lively discussion began. We are happy that the feedback of the participants was so positive and would like to thank Sylwia Miedza for the successful presentation and the fresh ideas!

The last ten years have shown great promise in operational change with new and different ways of communicating how a business should be structured to deliver value to its stakeholders. Materials have moved away from stuffy journals and methods, often kept under lock and key by transformation consultancies, to bright simple and vibrant books and materials.

However the main themes stay in place - the concept of a strategy to execution journey that follows a series of interlinked phases:

• Strategy Formulation
• Operating Model Development
• Implementation
• Operational Control and Feedback

Historically the above steps were presented in a rigid way. One developed a strategy - a set of goals for a journey, then designed a delivery model and then implanted it in a very sequential “waterfall” approach. This often took a long time and no longer reflected market conditions by the time the transformation was completed.

The final phase of control is frequently overlooked; the basic requirement here is ensuring that your operating model stays on course within business as usual activity delivering the strategy. There has in recent times been a strong recognition that, although described as phases or stages, there is fluidity between the phases with some overlap, repetition or iteration; both back and forth across the phases, and up and down in the levels of detail where, as is well known, “that the devil is in the detail”).

A key improvement we have seen are the development of tools and techniques that are readily accessible and simply explained; one approach in particular is the use of “canvasses”.

Business Model Generation

In 2010 Alex Osterwalder published his now well-known book Business Model Generation using the idea of a canvas, a pre-set template to stimulate structured thinking. The book, published in a colourful landscape format was highly visual, low on text and gave numerous examples of how to apply its ideas. The business model canvas became a new “strategy statement” to accompany the more traditional statements of vision, mission and goals. It gave focus to the creation and grounding of a business model as a way of showing how value was created and delivered to stakeholders. It is one way of expressing how value generates revenue and how costs are created by serving that value creation – a business model.

The Business Model Canvas of course has its limitations and isn’t perfect, but one has to say it has been really successful in getting executives to think about how their business “ticks or could tick”.

One point coming out of this was that the left side of the canvas – the cost creating part – was the operating model. Costs constrain the way value is delivered and the two sides have to be in balance. One informs the other and vice versa, therefore presenting a circular repeated piece of thinking that gets more confirmed as different ideas are tried out and tested.

The canvas helps us by suggested “links” and connections. All this prompts thinking which is really helpful for people starting out in this type of skill set. Others have added arrows and action words on lines between boxes on the BMC canvas providing a more explicit and better understanding of the mechanism of delivering value.

Since 2010 the BMC has been modified and added to and has been applied to organisations beyond its original target of the profit centred firm.

For all its advantages, the Business Model Canvas lacks the crucial ‘how to actually do it’ element. The BMC is only at the high level – too high level some critics say – only having the two zones of key activities and key resources to address the operating model; these are not nearly enough from an operational perspective. One does really need more detail to inform whether the operational practicalities fit in to deliver the business case, the cost element,  for the proposed business model.

Enter the Operating Model Canvas

The brevity of the two zones and the need for greater focus in the operation led to the Andrew Campbell et al (2016) publication of the same name. A similar style of book, again in landscape, colourful and text light, it uses six themes: Process, Organisation, Location, Information, Suppliers and Management Systems to structure operating model design. The emphasis presented in the book was the flow of value and how each category assisted that flow. It leaves the value to be defined elsewhere; it simply gives focus to how the operation serves that value. The book describes an eclectic mix of thirteen supporting tools without going into details of how to do this work at a practical and ground level.

Just to point out, splitting the operating model into themes or zones is not new. CCPPOLDAT (Customer, Channel, Product/Proposition, Process Organisation, Location, Data Application and Technology) served us well since the early 2000’s and still does as a structure for operating model work. In fact, one could argue that CCPPOLDAT does the job of both the BMC and the operating model canvas. It is an alternative approach and has its merits too.

As contributing authors to Andrew’s book, we have published six companion articles each taking an Operating Model Canvas Zone and looking at how each aspect affects both the cost and value models. These assist the practitioner to “drop down a level” beneath the high level conceptual ideas of how to operate, starting to flesh out the practicalities rather than staying in the “consultancy plane”. In tying back to our original statement that rework and iteration are essential in this sort of work, only once you explore the practicalities and detail of the operation can you be certain that the costs fit with the original business case. Indeed, in many cases the transformation team has to revisit and modify its high level ideas once the real outcomes are understood to some depth.

Although Andrew Campbell presents the Operating Model canvas as “plug in” to replace the Key Activities and Key Resources in the Business Model Canvas, it is not really necessary to have a BMC as a precursor. In fact, just knowing ‘what one wants to achieve’ is often enough to start working on operating model design!

Regarding Implementation and Control & Feedback themes of a transformation journey several models exist, too. But herein lies a problem, in most instances, these too are discreet and stand-alone ‘modules’ not directly connected to phases before or after them. The absence of a clear, logical and easy to understand A to Z approach to transformational activities from strategy to ongoing operational improvement complicates decision making and reduces the chances of success. Importantly for organisations and decision makers, the absence of clear transformation project A to Z roadmap hides the costs, diminishes employee engagement and risks client attrition; it makes fluid ‘agile’ approach to transformation effort impossible.

Both Business Model and Operating Model Canvases are just “jigsaw puzzles” in the overall transformation activity. To succeed, they must have a head (Strategy) and a tail (Implementation), all seamlessly connected into one narrative. Over the course of next months, this is what we will be working on to make things real and practical for our clients and the operating model space in general – so stay tuned!

Written by Guest Blogger, Ian Hawkins, Editor at PEX Network

The way that people are talking, writing and thinking about Intelligent Automation is changing; IA is moving on from being a novelty and starting to become part of everyday reality for businesses of every size, around the world.

But what does the future hold? A new report gives a few hints to the terrain we can expect to be crossing in the near future.

Implementation

Automation is going to be more common and ubiquitous - and the flexibility of the technology is part of what makes the future difficult to predict: it has the ability to touch and transform so many industries, and respond to so many different problems, that RPA and IA are able to adapt themselves to a business rather than forcing a round problem into a square solution.

And just as the benefits of IA will depend on their specific uses, obstacles to implementation are going to differ according to the individual circumstances of the business concerned. Younger businesses - or those with younger workforces - may find they don’t have the cultural issues that longer-established businesses have, though they may find that established organisations are more robust, able to manage change better and have more resources for things like research and development.

This robustness may prove to be a deciding factor; whilst agility and flexibility are big advantages in a rapidly changing world, the ability to dig deep when a broadside hits is not to be underestimated. And in a discipline that’s developing rapidly, new ideas can mean the obsolescence of the old ones - with potentially devastating speed. Businesses that don’t invest wisely - or with the benefit of a crystal ball - need to be able to cope with a sudden need to upgrade, change tack and make decisions.

What might these changes look like?

Trends

The RPA and IA drum is being loudly beaten by traditional Finance and Administrative services, understandably. These areas are both clear candidates for the sorts of easy wins promised by RPA. But like any new technology, when it becomes more quotidian and the price starts dropping, the people using it for one thing may soon wonder if it can be put to work elsewhere, and it begins to creep into other parts of the business.

HR, for example, includes a lot of manual work, and while the non-standard nature of the processes may be an issue now, it’s going to become less and less of a problem as the technology gets smarter. The advantage of automating tasks made complex by legal issues is that robots always obey the rules. This is just one example of how a business might start to use robots for driving down costs and increasing efficiency, and quickly find that they are just as good at mitigating losses and avoiding expensive expert advice when things go wrong - by getting things right the first time.

Attitudes

Businesses are looking for efficiency, effectiveness and cost reduction - and IA is delivering it in unexpected ways. Every organisation seems to be aiming for the same destination, yet each is taking its own route. As with truly disruptive technologies, businesses are no longer entities in themselves; as part of a wider ecosystem, how a company uses automation will depend as much on how their competitors are using it as any other factor.

Any organisation that begins using IA has to understand what they are doing, and how the technology can make a specific difference to them. It’s simply unrealistic to replicate another business’s success exactly, and the future may well belong to those who want to explore, discover and pioneer technology in a way that’s right for them, rather than copy what’s working for somebody else. Not only are we in a situation where one size cannot fit all, the possibility is that what looks like a jacket to one company will be a pair of socks to another.

Many businesses are in the position of exploring new uses for their robot co-workers, and we will quickly find that the future for machines is not confined to number crunching. If wave one of IA has swept in with efficiency gains and cost savings, wave two will include the applications for technology forged in the hot crucible of hands-on real world experience. What will that look like? You will know when you have invented it.

We recently co-hosted a webinar with our partner, BP3, around how to identify, assess and prioritize your automation and RPA (robotic process automation) projects. It was a lively discussion between two industry experts, Aaron Bozeman, Regional VP of Major Accounts, North America at iGrafx, and Lance Gibbs, Founder & Chairman at BP3. You can download the webinar here. The discussion started at the very top – understanding your company’s major initiatives. Whether it’s new capabilities, operational excellence, or digital business transformation & customer experience, RPA can be key.

And as iGrafx CMO, Jamey Heinze, tweeted they also talked about the “Rule of 5” for RPA and automation. Our presenters explained the rule, and discussed why companies should look for tasks with 5 or less decisions, 5 or less applications, and 500 or less clicks.

They continued the discussion with the cycle of improvement, explaining why it’s not a single or continuous loop and why you may start at any point during the cycle. They also took a dive into front end methods, and the actions you can take immediately following the webinar. They included 6 keys areas where you can begin inside your organization, as captured in the tweet below. 

Aaron and Lance wrapped up the webinar by drilling down and talking about the process analysis. They provided answers to questions like should you automate a bad process and is there such thing as too much automation? Download the entire webinar to hear their list of recommendations to help you identify, assess and prioritize your next RPA initiative.

Download Now

We are proud to announce the immediate availability of a streamlined version of our Enterprise Cloud offering designed for small organizations, or as a simple, initial implementation in large enterprises. We have heard, time and time again, from the market that it’s more difficult than necessary to drive business transformation. Purchasing the necessary tools is also harder than it should be especially for multi-user, collaborative cloud solutions.

Well, we at iGrafx listened. This feedback translated directly into our newest offering, iGrafx Core Edition. With a low entry price, new customers can purchase the new offering and take advantage of prebuilt templates, frameworks, glossaries and reports, as well as live training for the life of their contract. And we believe in the product so much that if customers don’t see their expected ROI, they can leave after 6 months. Other key components include a flat rate package with ten users, pre-loaded content, ongoing training, satisfaction guarantee, and the ability to “plug in” additional users and modules at any time.

If you want to learn more about this exciting solution, download our latest press release. Or contact our team to see if it’s the right solution for you.

Contact Us

Written by Guest Blogger, Kelly Sewczwicz, Process Manager at Cox Communications.

It seems like everywhere I turn, I hear about customer journeys and how important they are.  In 2016, Forrester research said “63% of marketing professionals rely on customer journey maps.  Yet, many companies have said that they don’t understand the customer journey”.  A customer journey is all the steps a customer takes to achieve a specific outcome. 

Brian Manusama, a research director for Gartner said, “Ten years ago there weren’t as many engagement channels, whereas now we have so many channels we’ve basically lost the customer.  We don’t know where they are, how they work with us.  I’m not even sure the customer knows this.” The interactions with customers are no longer linear.  A customer jumps between channels and has the expectation that they can pick up on where they left off.  In addition, customers have more choices of companies to engage with to deliver products and services to them.  Customers want to interact in a way that is convenient for them.  McKinsey talked about “top performing companies” in the Harvard Business Review, saying that they “are increasingly managing journeys as they would any product.  Journeys are thus becoming …as important as the products themselves in providing competitive advantage”.

Mapping customer journeys can be tricky if you are trying to use traditional process mapping tools to describe non-linear relationships.  Creating customer journeys is a “mixture of art and insight” according to Matthew Fairweather, director of a customer experience design consultancy firm.  As a BPM professional, I wonder how does the customer journey fit into the process landscape?  How can I connect the customer moments from the customer journey to the processes and the other elements that different organizations within Cox care about?  How do I ensure that customer moments align to our organization’s brand principles? 

Companies need to look for mapping tools that focus on the relationships between elements.  I need to create dynamic models that explain the relationships between customer moments and the elements that bring that moment to life, including tools, language, resources, information, and context.  I’m excited to share Cox’s story using iGrafx as our BPM tool to build our customer journey framework at the Building Business Capabilities conference, November 5-9, 2018 in San Antonio, TX.

Risk Management is part of our daily lives. It is so entrenched in our routine activities that we may not even realize it. What is Risk Management? Effective Risk Management is the ability to forecast and evaluate Risks with the objective of identifying procedures to minimize or avoid their impact.

To illustrate, when cooking a meal, there is a risk that you will leave your food in the oven too long and burn it. The impact of this occurring could be wasted time, wasted money, and disappointed family members and guests. To minimize or avoid the impact of this Risk you set a timer to remind you to take your food out of the oven at the appropriate time. This is a low-cost control to ensure that you meet your objective of enjoying a tasty meal.

When it comes to Business Process Management, a proper view of Risk Management can provide control over your core processes.  With the addition of automation, we also ensure fewer deviations, errors, and loss of production.  This can even drive strategy by leading to more focused business decisions that enable the ability to clearly see which activities need our attention, identifying other possible automation opportunities, which can provide further improved efficiency, higher quality, and even better service.

Because of this, successful organizations make Risk Management an essential part of their culture. By identifying, evaluating and controlling Risks, business and strategic objectives are much more likely to be achieved. However, even organizations that make Risk Management a priority lack the tools necessary for process owners and practitioners to communicate Risks effectively.

To address this need, iGrafx has developed ROPE (Risk & Opportunity Process Excellence).  With ROPE, organizations can:

• Automate risk discovery to ensure consistent reporting, reviews, and approvals across the organization.
• Provide a continuous cycle of improvement for identified risks.
• Ensure standards and requirements are properly captured for audit compliance.
• Identify possible compliance issues with reporting on process and risk gaps, impacts, costs, etc.
• Ensure Risk Management remains a part of the culture with transparency of where risks exist along with clearly identified ownership.

If you would like to see iGrafx ROPE in action, please join us at the BBC Conference on Thursday, November 8th at 11:25 am.

Transparency and communication are key for any organizations processes to work.  In most companies, the people that perform those processes, may not be the ones actually documenting them. 

As a result, sometimes what happens in production may not align with the processes and procedures.  This can lead to viewers not having confidence in the documentation and disconnecting from a process.

In the latest release of the iGrafx Platform (17.4.1) this problem is resolved.  Now all viewers of approved documentation can identify possible gaps and provide comments to have it updated.

Additionally, they can now also easily see process relationships such as ownership, risks, controls, performance KPIs, systems in use, and how it relates to the company’s overall strategy.  All of this provides a complete picture of the process and breaks downs possible communication barriers created by work silos. 

To read more about other features and updates implemented in iGrafx 17.4.1 please see the release notes.  If you would like to download or upgrade to the latest release of iGrafx, contact us or give us a call (503) 404-6050.

Good business processes are essential to be competitive. The current digital economy requires us to re-design and to improve our processes with agility and focus on how our organization can reach strategic objectives. Indeed, success in improving a process is to ensure that any invested money will produce an advantage and help achieve corporate Key Business Objectives.

Originated by Albert S. Humphrey in the 1960s, the technique of SWOT (an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) is usually used as part of a strategic planning process in business context. The aim of this article is to provide a method to design a one page report to analyze a business process using the SWOT analysis. My contribution is to apply it as a good approach to analyze a business process as we can study the “AS-IS” (the current state) and the “TO-BE” (the future state) process in order to decide the priorities to improve it. This analysis has to be implemented with the current performance of the business process, the clear strategic corporate objectives and the feedback of the stakeholders and customers.

How it works

The methodology consists of identifying the relevant strengths and the weaknesses related to the “AS-IS” process, and the opportunities and the threats related to the “TO-BE” process. The result will be a one page SWOT analysis of the business process, where you will find all the details to facilitate key decision making. You should have modeled the business process using BPMN (Business Process Model & Notation) and you need to have current relevant data about the process (KPIs – Key Performance Indicators). The four quadrants of the SWOT matrix examine the following:

1.  About the “AS-IS” business process model:

Strengths:

What are the best current outputs of the business process as aligned to strategic objectives, and what are the benefits of the process? The usual KPIs are based on the following four fundamental metrics:

• Time: which measures the duration of a process
• Cost: which measures the economic value associated with a process, in terms of the resource cost required to complete the process, and the opportunity cost, which is the value that is lost if a resultant output is not obtained
• Capacity: the viable volume that a process can produce
• Quality: satisfaction, variation and the error or defect rate

Weaknesses:

What are the current disadvantages of the business process in terms of faults, inefficiencies, problems…? To find these, it is possible to apply methods for continuous process improvement like the Theory of Constraints (to detect restrictions or bottleneck), Six Sigma (to eliminate variability and waste) and Lean (to eliminate everything that does not contribute value into the productive process).

2. About the “TO-BE” business process model:

Opportunities:

How to improve the business process? For this, you can get feedback and suggestions from stakeholders and customers, you can study the weaknesses to evaluate what corrective actions to apply, you can analyze what automation could be done (e.g. RPA – Robotic Process Automation, to automate repetitive and routine tasks that can be solved without a human) and what disruptive technologies could be applied (e.g. Machine Learning).

Threats:

What uncertainty and obstacles do I have to control? What events could cause trouble to the business process?  Risk Management is required to control the uncertainty of a business process. You need to study the current patterns, the trends, the dependencies… so you can evaluate how these will impact your business and how to be proactive and not reactive.

Once you have completed the four quadrants in your One Page SWOT Analysis, you probably need to use the technique of Process Simulation to detect the possible behavior of the process if you apply the opportunities to improve it; therefore, you can decide what business process improvements to implement, how and when, according to your priorities, criteria, strategic objectives and budget. But remember, you only have to improve the processes when you need to solve problems that can damage the success of your strategic business objectives.

We are proud to announce that a leading Australian property group, Dexus, has selected iGrafx for business transformation support and to help scale their business excellence.

Dexus is a Real Estate Investment Trust, with $27.2 billion of assets under management. And for the past 6 months they have been using iGrafx to maintain alignment, maximize efficiency and ensure continuous improvement. They now have more than 320 processes documented and shared centrally, which helps the organization run a high functioning Business Excellence initiative.

Prior to implementing iGrafx, Dexus launched a formal Business Excellence initiative in 2014 with the goal of making things simple and easy for customer tenants and their own workforce. Three years later, it was determined that a cohesive, collaborative business transformation platform was necessary to ensure standardization and adoption, and after an assessment of options, iGrafx was selected.

We are excited to have Dexus as a customer and welcome them to the iGrafx family. You can read more about this partnership in our latest press release here.

Business Process Management & Enterprise Architecture Conference in London

In October, the Business Process Management Conference took place in London together with the Enterprise Architecture Conference. The combination event was excellent on many levels, and I’ve been feeling remiss for not sharing the highlights.  Please accept my humble apologies and read on to see what you missed :)

As both conferences were merged, attendees had a unique opportunity to discover new and innovative approaches and synergies in the areas of enterprise architecture and process management. We benefited from a very large international event with guests not only from Europe, but also from the Middle East, Africa and even Australia. As different as the countries were, so multifaceted were the discussions at our booth.

The Process Management Journey of DHL

We were happy to welcome one of our customers to the conference, who shared his experiences using iGrafx.  Tim Bolam, Vice President Project Delivery of DHL Supply Chain, spoke in his presentation “A Process Journey - Develop, Proliferate & Standardise” about the challenges of a company-wide process management standardization initiative. DHL Supply Chain has set up a dedicated department that create templates for corporate processes. The company is a business unit of Deutsche Post and the world’s leading contract logistics service provider. The goal is to standardize processes in warehouse logistics. Although it has not yet been possible to standardize all processes, DHL has currently achieved a cross-location standardization of 60 percent and iGrafx is already in use in seven countries.  The ultimate goal is 80% standardization, so the end is well within reach.

Tim Bolam showed in his presentation that iGrafx allows you to create processes and templates quickly and easily and then make them available via a central repository. Users can easily view the standard processes and modify them where necessary. The next steps? DHL is planning a Center of Excellence and would like to analyze whether and how the introduction of robotic process automation (RPA) can lead to further process efficiency.

The feedback from the participants on Tim’s presentation was consistently positive due to the strong practical relevance. So there was plenty to talk about during the evening buffet and I’m sure many of the participants will meet again next year.

This stuff isn’t new. Industry analysts, journalists, pundits and everyone else who makes a buck or gains a follower with buzzwords and jargon may want you to think it is, but it’s not.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” Socrates said that about 2500 years ago, and it’s still true – in both your personal and business life.

I just did a search for “Transformation” in Google, and in 0.63 seconds, I had about 1,020,000,000 results at my fingertips. That’s a lot. We’re inundated with promises and warnings when it comes to business transformation. 54% of respondents to a recent Couchbase poll are worried that their business will fold if their digital transformation fails. And with the hallmark stories of Uber crushing taxi companies, Airbnb crushing hotels, and Amazon crushing brick and mortar, the fear of disruption is ubiquitous.

At the end of the day, though, transformation simply means change. Smart businesses understand their processes and how their customers prefer to engage. They measure and monitor risk, and plan controls to mitigate issues. They do the work to become and remain compliant with emerging regulations, and they strive to continuously improve the quality of their output and the satisfaction of their customers and employees. It’s all about understanding and managing your current environment while keeping an open mind and an open eye on better alternatives that inevitably appear.

There are no sacred cows. Change when necessary. Your customers, your employees and your shareholders will thank you. They’ll enjoy better products, services, experiences and ROI.

I hope that the insights in our latest whitepaper help you to assess and prioritize the steps that you can champion to help your organization capitalize on change and avoid disruption.

One of the most important things to be done in a CoE is gaining or maintaining compliance with various standards. And as you’re painfully aware, there are plenty of standards to be complied with…In addition to the old standbys like SOX, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, FISMA, and GLBA, we now have GDPR if your business touches the EU in any way, and the CCPA is heading down the tracks from California.

If you’re a SaaS company (like we are at iGrafx), you also have SOC-2 (Service Organization Control-2) to contend with. SOC 2 compliance is a component of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) Service Organization Control reporting system. In a nutshell, it’s an auditing procedure to make sure that service providers securely manage client data.

Becoming SOC-2 certified isn’t easy. It’s a rigorous process where a CPA firm conducts a comprehensive audit of a company’s availability, security, privacy, confidentiality and system integrity. You might care about this for a couple of very important reasons: 1) You’re choosing a service provider that will be storing your personal data (or your company’s data) in the cloud; and/or 2) You’re a service provider that needs to go through the process of becoming certified. Likely, and wisely, you’ll be thinking about both.

As the head of iGrafx’s engineering department, I just led our team through the process of becoming SOC-2 certified, and I’m happy to say that we passed without issue after the very first audit. I’d like to say that my own personal brilliance earned us the result, but honestly, I had an ace in the hole – our own iGrafx software!

Here’s a quick example of how iGrafx used iGrafx to achieve SOC-2 compliance. First of all, because iGrafx is essentially the system of record for a CoE, it allows the simple creation of relationships between Roles and Resources and Processes and Documentation. You can also input risks and controls and generate reports such as heat maps, all of which allow you to see any compliance gaps that may exist.

After that, the iGrafx workflow ability helps you maintain compliance. In the case of SOC-2, for example, you will need to ensure that each employee has a job description and that the employee understands their role, with a checkpoint every year. You will also need to highlight where a role might be related to security (i.e. have access to personal data). By building and linking roles, documentation, approval requirements and reports, you can relatively easily become compliant with the part of SOC-2 that relates to having job descriptions for each employee and an audit trail that employees have discussed their roles with their managers at least once a year. If the role has access to secure data, you can create a relationship for that, too!

I’d be happy to talk to you about all of the ways that iGrafx used iGrafx to achieve SOC-2 compliance, so please comment or reach out to me directly. While we’re chatting, I can also tell you how iGrafx used iGrafx to become GDPR compliant!

For more information you can also download our latest press release, iGrafx Completes Service Organization Controls 2 (SOC 2) Report under AT-C Section 205. Enjoy!

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For the past 10 years iGrafx has been a proud sponsor of Building Business Capability, the official conference of the IIBA.

This conference focuses primarily on the role of the Business Analyst.  The talks given during the event are designed to provide the BA with insights to help them truly understand their role now, as well as how to their role may change with new and emerging technologies, tools, and best practices.

The event this year was no different with the many talks focused on how to define and capture business processes and requirements.  The theme this year dealt with analysis, what should be their key performance indicators (KPIs), how it relates to their Business Architecture, and how to make decisions quickly.  These topics came up again and again and many that stopped by to speak with us asked how to best capture and map their capabilities. Because iGrafx provides the ability to capture this information, but also relate it back to the overall business architecture, we were uniquely qualified in the room of vendors to address these concerns. 

Another big topic was how to best capture the Customer Experience & Journey with multiple sessions held by various companies relating their current understanding of, and sometimes struggles with, the practice.  Speaking on this topic, Kelly Sewczwicz, Sr. Manager Cox Communications and iGrafx customer, explained how they use iGrafx not to just capture the customer journey, but to measure the experience and relate it back to the overall business architecture, providing a full rich picture of what is involved in providing specific services to a customer.  She explained how this approach has helped them break down the barriers commonly created by silo-based thinking and has allowed Cox to be more agile in their approach to process changes and new services.  Additionally, they can prioritize work more effectively because there are clear relations to the overall corporate strategy.  This was the most well received presentation on the topic, with many expressing their jealousy over how far Cox has come within a very short period.  There is no doubt they will be viewed as a leader in their market based on how they relate to the Customer Journey.  (You can read more about Cox Customer Journey experience part 1 and part 2.)

Finally, as with every BBC event, it is always great to have the opportunity to socialize, network, and catch up with our customers.  In the context of customer experience, we took the opportunity to sit down with our friends at World Bank, Wells Fargo, and Cox to talk about how they are using iGrafx.  (Fun fact: over 90% of enhancements made to our products are the direct result of customer feedback). 

We thank everyone who stopped by our booth to say hello, get more information, or just to get a stamp for their BBC passport.  And because we are serious about ROI, as promised, all the prize winners had our stamp.  We look forward to seeing you next year in Hollywood FL.