Our business simulation is intended to show the business impact of improving and even redesigning a rather simple business process – the effect of Business Process Re-engineering (BPR). Basic yet powerful tools come to play. Process KPIs as well as customer satisfaction and customer KPIs are a gauge for the degree of improvement. We have been running this simulation nearly a hundred times with teams from different industries.We had employees at various organisational levels. Yet, we have observed the following interesting behaviours:
- After experiencing the initial round of the simulation with intentionally sub-optimal process design, teams very frequently raise two requests: need more staff, need IT support.
- When given the chance to re-design the process, 90% of all teams tend to move their team members around to cover up process weaknesses instead of analysing and closing gaps.
- More often than not, teams focus on internal matters rather than customer requirements.
The sobering fact is, that teams tend to automate before understanding the process.
Why is this like that? It seems that IT support, an Android or iPhone App serve as silver bullets for many problems. Nowadays, Cloud-computing is the up-to-date method and can’t be wrong. Opposing against these approaches is like fighting against the time. Good old process mapping and process improvement seem like outdated approaches that belong to previous generations. Michael Hammer, the godfather of business process re-engineering, once said
Automating a mess yields an automated mess.
Simulating BPR – Conclusion
