Time Commitment Time commitment is extremely important to the success of any project. It can be difficult to get enough dedicated staff time for the BPM effort. In most cases the business experts are busy doing the daily work. As difficult as it seems, it is important to set scheduled time aside to complete the modeling process. If time is not dedicated to this effort, the models produced will be incomplete, unverified and prone to errors. A poor model introduces new process errors and creates more confusion than no model at all. Dedicated Team Any BPM project should have a dedicated team. The team members may belong to different groups or functions but are assigned to activities on the BPM project. The team needs a balanced set of skills, especially if some team members are specialists. Without balanced viewpoints, the project can suffer from missing requirements, details, or user acceptance, resulting in incomplete processes. The overall success of the BPM effort is directly related to the time dedicated. Schedule The schedule is the list of the BPM project's milestones, activities, and deliverables, with start and finish dates. Schedule elements are designed to closely relate to a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). A WBS includes an effort estimate for each task and a resource list for each resource. If this information is not available, create it. If the schedule dates do not have the approval of the people who are assigned to complete the work, the schedule will be inaccurate. In order for a project schedule to be healthy, the following criteria must be met: The schedule must be continuously updated. Weekly updates are best. The remaining effort must be appropriately distributed among team members (taking vacations and other commitments into consideration). Success Factors and Measures The ability to measure success is key to any project. On the next page, Figure 1: Process Modeling Success Factors, possible factors that influence the likelihood of success in a BPM project. Every BPM effort is different, and yours may have other success factors not mentioned here. Figure 1: Process Modeling Success Factors
Time Commitment Time commitment is extremely important to the success of any project. It can be difficult to get enough dedicated staff time for the BPM effort. In most cases the business experts are busy doing the daily work. As difficult as it seems, it is important to set scheduled time aside to complete the modeling process. If time is not dedicated to this effort, the models produced will be incomplete, unverified and prone to errors. A poor model introduces new process errors and creates more confusion than no model at all. Dedicated Team Any BPM project should have a dedicated team. The team members may belong to different groups or functions but are assigned to activities on the BPM project. The team needs a balanced set of skills, especially if some team members are specialists. Without balanced viewpoints, the project can suffer from missing requirements, details, or user acceptance, resulting in incomplete processes. The overall success of the BPM effort is directly related to the time dedicated. Schedule The schedule is the list of the BPM project's milestones, activities, and deliverables, with start and finish dates. Schedule elements are designed to closely relate to a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). A WBS includes an effort estimate for each task and a resource list for each resource. If this information is not available, create it. If the schedule dates do not have the approval of the people who are assigned to complete the work, the schedule will be inaccurate. In order for a project schedule to be healthy, the following criteria must be met: The schedule must be continuously updated. Weekly updates are best. The remaining effort must be appropriately distributed among team members (taking vacations and other commitments into consideration). Success Factors and Measures The ability to measure success is key to any project. On the next page, Figure 1: Process Modeling Success Factors, possible factors that influence the likelihood of success in a BPM project. Every BPM effort is different, and yours may have other success factors not mentioned here. Figure 1: Process Modeling Success Factors
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