Business Process Adoption requires a combination of organizational change management and continual service improvement (CSI).
You have found and documented your phantom processes and have brought a great team together to identify potential IT and Business improvements. You built an improvement plan and are ready to create the perfect process!
The first thing to understand is that you will never have a perfect process – a process that works today will, in all probability, need refinement over time.
Business processes are not static; they need to change with changing business and IT requirements. That is, after all, what continual service improvement (CSI) is all about.
However, you will have a good process built with both the business and IT in mind, one that will meet the needs of all stakeholders. So, now the question is, how do we ensure people use it?
Business Process Adoption
Creating and documenting a process is easy; getting people to change how they work is hard.
Knowledge of how people react to change is essential, as is knowledge of organizational change management practices.
You can't just throw the new process over the wall and expect everyone to start using it without questions.
Getting the process owners and managers involved in the design phase helps get buy-in, but that is just the start.
Dr. John Kotter, Professor of Leadership, Emeritus at the Harvard Business School, developed the 8-step model for change. This model can prove invaluable in garnering adoption for your business processes.
The steps include:
- Create a sense of urgency by helping others see the need to change the process
- Build a guiding coalition of people who are passionate about making improvements to the process
- Form a strategic vision and initiatives by communicating how the change will improve future operations
- Enlist a volunteer army by getting people excited about improving the process
- Enable action by removing barriers by ensuring management support and sponsorship
- Generate short wins to prove the value of the new process
- Sustain acceleration by delivering process improvements and communicating them
- Institute change through process education and governance
Business Process Adoption Requires Effort
Do not underestimate the work required to make the new process stick.
You will know that the new process is working when it is just second nature, and people no longer regard it as a process to be followed.
Don't forget to conduct a process assessment before making changes and use it as a baseline to measure improvement. Communicate the progress made and celebrate your team's success.
Remember to assess the value of your IT and business processes continually, keep talking to the business and the IT team, and continue to revise and improve the way you work.
Originally published Jul 19, 2016 16:51, updated May 27, 2022
