In today's fast-paced business environment, executives face the challenge of effectively "making change stick".
The elements of this business transformation remain people, processes and technology. People change management is a challenge in itself, but if this can be accomplished, how can processes and technology be combined to make change stick, and make this change flexible in itself?
The solution lies in end-to-end process transformation enabled by agile technology. The process linkage makes the change visible and the technology makes the change work. The combination delivers measurable, trackable results.
Viewing such change initiatives as a project or as a big bang initiative often does not work as they become compartmentalised in either ICT, or in pockets of business divisions, often defeating enterprise-level objectives and falling back under the radar.
Making change stick requires delivering change against key performance objectives of C-level executives by using new or modified business processes to create differentiated competitive advantage. In the public sector, this would translate into the creation of improved service delivery models.
The essential components of embedding change are thus:
* Measurable effect on C-level performance objectives.
* Effective architecture of both processes and the underlying technology layer.
* An ecosystem to deliver this change.
Business-driven approach
An SBPM initiative will be ineffective unless surrounded by a change ecosystem to ensure it does not become a business silo in itself.
Michael Barnard is senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers
It is this ecosystem which is the focus of this Industry Insight. To address key business challenges, or cause new initiatives to drive business results, requires an ecosystem to deliver change across people, process and technology. The approach at business level involves process architecture coupled with a service-oriented technology architecture (SOA), in effect a service-oriented business process management initiative (SBPM) change machine.
An SBPM initiative will be ineffective unless surrounded by a change ecosystem to ensure it does not become a business silo in itself. How can this be delivered? Analysts have long argued the top-down and bottom-up approaches to this problem. The change ecosystem follows neither, rather it uses both in an all-in approach, where high-level key management sponsors, the business process team, the architecture team and the SOA team combine to form an SBPM ecosystem to make change stick.
The ecosystem approach is business-driven and under the hood, SOA "slices" are developed as part of an incremental architecture. This approach delivers short-term results, while keeping the long-term objectives in mind of building an agile infrastructure.
Typical divisions and silos are overcome, and the ecosystem team is unified to think in terms of value delivery as opposed to a purely technical approach. This value delivery mechanism is developed further below.
The first component of this ecosystem is the key performance objectives of one or more senior executives who seek a culture change to drive out a measurable business result. This will ensure the approach is not within an ICT silo or a specific department, but at enterprise level. The budget will also be controlled by this sponsor, which means business drives the initiative against deliverable results. A good example of this is an initiative to enhance the customer experience, which can apply in both the private or public sectors.
A bilateral business ICT initiative is launched within an enterprise solution architecture. This unites these usually silod "departments" with a single objective. The process view will drive ICT process and technology changes, not for the sake of an IT project, but as an organisational change initiative. In this manner, IT transforms itself behind the business objective, on the back of a business project.
Governance considerations
The ecosystem approach is architecture-centric instead of application-centric, and changes the state of the enterprise due to the inclusive nature of the ecosystem, where the components depend on each other, but combine to achieve one goal. By doing this, a new structure will emerge of necessity, rather than for its own sake.
Another key element of this ecosystem is that it operates incrementally, using the agile software development philosophy in a business context. Carefully chosen business processes are selected for incremental proofs of concept, while beneath the hood incremental investments are taking place in foundational technologies.
Executives are impressed with redesigned processes, and front-line satisfaction with ICT improves. It becomes much easier to measure and articulate the benefits of transforming the ICT function and technology.
Expert advice will be needed to ensure the governance issues of managing a process-driven ICT organisation are handled correctly, to avoid change without the appropriate controls. New policies and practices also need careful management as part of this ecosystem to effectively embed change.
By concentrating on business impact points and avoiding the common mistakes of viewing SOA as a project or an application, innovation can be channelled into embedded change using the SBPM ecosystem as an agent of business change.
* Michael Barnard is senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
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