Prism Canada
BPM Summit Survey: Results Emphasize the Importance of Measuring BPM Project Goals
Published: 17 August 2012 Analyst(s): Samantha Searle
Organizations that struggle to measure the business value of BPM projects risk losing credibility and further funding, and therefore often fail. Business process directors should use these findings to learn best practices and avoid project pitfalls and missing desired, improved business outcomes.
Key Findings
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There is a clear discrepancy between how organizations rate the importance of a particular business process management (BPM) project goal and their success in achieving that goal. Fifty-one percent of organizations established formal measurement criteria prior to the start of the project, as opposed to doing so at the midpoint or on project completion. Only 15% said that they had no formal measurement program in place. Organizations that do establish a formal measurement program achieve a higher rate of success compared to those that don't have formal measures. Sixty-four percent of organizations didn't know the average ROI on their BPM projects, but those that had a formal measurement program in place achieved an average ROI of 65%.
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Recommendations
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Baseline the process involved to determine its current process performance before starting a BPM project that will change it. Use this information to quantify how much you aim to improve it and validate whether those improvements are achieved. Verify that current metrics are valid, visible and aligned to key enterprise business goals. Where possible, display the relevant set of metrics to the appropriate stakeholders. Establish staged goals at regular time intervals during the project to ensure that incremental improvements are positively impacting process performance. These should be in addition to tracking project progress — for example, ensuring that the current-process-state analysis is completed in two weeks. This approach will improve the
Published: 17 August 2012 Analyst(s): Samantha Searle
Organizations that struggle to measure the business value of BPM projects risk losing credibility and further funding, and therefore often fail. Business process directors should use these findings to learn best practices and avoid project pitfalls and missing desired, improved business outcomes.
Key Findings
■
There is a clear discrepancy between how organizations rate the importance of a particular business process management (BPM) project goal and their success in achieving that goal. Fifty-one percent of organizations established formal measurement criteria prior to the start of the project, as opposed to doing so at the midpoint or on project completion. Only 15% said that they had no formal measurement program in place. Organizations that do establish a formal measurement program achieve a higher rate of success compared to those that don't have formal measures. Sixty-four percent of organizations didn't know the average ROI on their BPM projects, but those that had a formal measurement program in place achieved an average ROI of 65%.
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Recommendations
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Baseline the process involved to determine its current process performance before starting a BPM project that will change it. Use this information to quantify how much you aim to improve it and validate whether those improvements are achieved. Verify that current metrics are valid, visible and aligned to key enterprise business goals. Where possible, display the relevant set of metrics to the appropriate stakeholders. Establish staged goals at regular time intervals during the project to ensure that incremental improvements are positively impacting process performance. These should be in addition to tracking project progress — for example, ensuring that the current-process-state analysis is completed in two weeks. This approach will improve the