Fast Route to Efficiency

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This has been written based upon the success achieved by microsoft through proper planning analysis and requirement gathering and above all understanding the vulnerabilities of the market. The downturn in the global economy has gathered pace and businesses everywhere must achieve efficiencies quickly while still serving clients and otherwise 'getting the job done'. Companies are looking to create efficiencies, and rapid process re engineering could provide a practical way to achieve this. But can you justify a rapid process re engineering project when headcount reduction may seem the only available fast-payback approach? A look at the principles and practicalities of rapid process re engineering will answer this question.

Didn't We Try that Already?

Reengineering is not a new topic. In the 1990s the western world was swept by a wave of reengineering projects that promised to remake major corporations from the ground up. In July 1990, the Harvard Business Review published a now famous (some say infamous) article by reengineering guru Michael Hammer, entitled Reengineering work: don't automate, obliterate.

Hammer's thesis, widely accepted in corporate board rooms at the time, was that small improvements in working practices were simply not enough to meet the business challenges of the early 1990s. A wave of economic troubles was bearing down on the corporate world and the only option was major change. Tinkering at the edges of business processes would fall short of achieving the change needed � incremental business process improvement was out, and major business process reengineering was in.

But the promise of reengineering, though delivered in some cases, was frequently unrealised. While a growing church of reengineering evangelists ministered to the needs and ambitions of executives, the disappointing truth emerged � reengineering often fell short. Reengineering programmes were frequently too big; their ambitions too grand; their results too meagre; their expense too great. By the end of the 1990s the reengineering wave had itself crashed. In its wake lay a trail of failed initiatives and, among the wreckage, a wealth of lessons to be learned.

A Way that Works Today

Fast-forward to 2009 and business processes are again centre stage. The scale of today's challenges is greater and, critically, the challenges are even more urgent. Executives recognise the criticality of efficient and effective business processes to company success and know also that processes must quickly change to meet new realities. Yet the shortcomings of the 1990s reengineering approach mean that it cannot be taken unchanged off the shelf for reuse. A new approach is needed that takes advantage of the best practice of 1990s reengineering, adds some new best practice learned since then, and provides a way that works today.

Let's review the principles that underlie a new, rapid reengineering approach that is already proven to work in 2009:

Business value quickly � Whatever phrase you use to describe the cost/benefit comparison � return on investment (ROI), business value capture, investment payback � the cost/benefit of reengineering must be understood before the initiative begins. But this is nothing new � it was also true of old-style reengineering. What is new in rapid reengineering is that the ROI timeframe must be short. A period of months is too long to wait for value to emerge. Weeks, and preferably days, is the payback period that matters today. To paraphrase an executive to whom I spoke recently: "I'm not sure what I need, but I need it now!" This executive is not stupid � he's just under pressure to show results quickly and doesn't have the luxury of months to analyse his issues.

Early visualisation of result � Start prototyping immediately and move rapidly toward implementing the most beneficial solution your prototyping identifies. Develop an early visualisation of the result (within three days) and then build it 'for real' in a few short weeks (preferably days). Don't spend weeks analysing your current processes or defining new ones. Adopt the 'show me, don't tell me' rule � insist on seeing now how your future business will work and don't rely solely on requirements documents, process analysis reports or graphical models to understand how your future business will work.

Agility of result � Implement business processes in a way that equips you to quickly change them when you need to. The processes you implement now must be open to rapid change; after all, your business faces market-driven change every day and if your processes are not agile you cannot respond effectively.

Agility of approach � Rapid reengineering does not assume that processes must be designed first and then implemented. Rather, it accepts that processes should be redesigned while they are being implemented. The traditional reengineering approach to change � typified by what is often called the 'waterfall' sequence of vision setting, analysis, design, testing, and finally, after months have elapsed, implementation � is simply unacceptable today. Continual, fast iteration lies at the heart of the new rapid reengineering approach. Ironically, some aspects of this fast-iterating approach were being developed in the 1990s, in the IT world under the auspices of a group called the Agile Coalition, while the Hammer-born reengineering wave was at its height. Now, the best elements of these 'agile methods' are being adapted to the task of rehabilitating process reengineering for today's quick-moving world.

Drive innovation through internal competition � Consensus and collaboration have been cornerstone principles of almost every change initiative in the past 20 years. Now it's time to add a dose of competition � not to undermine the virtues of consensus building and collaborative working, but to spark more innovative thinking, to undermine 'lowest common denominator' thinking, and to push the pace of change.

ASAP � A Proven Approach

Singularity is in business to populate the world with agile companies. Our clients use our rapid reengineering approach, branded ASAP and based on the principles above, to become more agile, quickly. ASAP packages the best practices of reengineering and agile methodologies and equips our clients to fuel innovation by unleashing the positive forces of internal competition. It also uses business process management technology as a delivery platform, to enable early visualisation of the result, support rapid implementation and add agility to processes. This approach is not just a new theory of how to make beneficial change achievable quickly for businesses � it's practical and is proven to work today.