Why Process Projects Really Fail

Regular readers of my articles will know that I have written an ebook called 'The Perfect Process Project' which details some of the reasons behind - and the solutions for - failed process projects.

I recently came across an article published in the MIT Sloan business Review entitled "Where Process-Improvement Projects Go Wrong" and I was thrilled to see that this article - an academic study based on data gleaned through investigation and survey - basically confirms the information noted in the book.

The article makes a number of recommendations which I believe are absolutely spot on in terms of my experience. Amongst them are two that I want to bring to your attention:

• Performance appraisals need to be tied to successful implementation of improvement projects.
• Executives need to directly participate in improvement projects, not just “support” them.

These two particular recommendations link into the recommendations I make in the book about assigning someone to be responsible for the process ownership and having senior management buy-in.  The article actually goes a step further than I do regarding 'buy-in' by recommending that the executives not only need to support this across the organisation but need to physically be involved in the project itself - another recommendation I fully endorse.

The article itself is well worth a read as it discusses the concept of a project being like a spring:

". . when confronted with increasing stress over time, these programs react in much the same way a metal spring does when it is pulled with increasing force—that is, they progress though “stretching” and “yielding” phases before failing entirely. In engineering, this is known as the “stress-strain curve,” and the length of each stage varies widely by material."

They also quote some statistics which are frightening in themselves but not really surprising: "Recent studies, for example, suggest that nearly 60% of all corporate Six Sigma initiatives fail to yield the desire results." This is worrying considering the amount of money and effort that large corporations are 'wasting' on these Six Sigma efforts.

I fully recommend reading this article - even if for no other reason than to understand that Six Sigma is merely a tool to help solve problems rather than a solution in itself

Let me know if it throws up any blinding 'Ah ha's for you. If you would like a copy of the book then please click the link below.

Any process blogger who would like a free copy of the book for a published review on their blog please contact me to discuss or leave a comment

Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project Second Edition' is now available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.

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All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

See related info below

The Perfect Process Project v2: Just released

I am pleased to announce the release of "The Perfect Process Project v2". This is an update to my process eBook released last year.

Anybody who has purchased the original 'Perfect Process Project' eBook and registered for updates will have automatically received the latest version of this book last week. For anyone who hasn't got a version of this book feel free to head over to the eBook page and get yourself a copy.


What are the changes?
The changes are quite minor. There have been a few grammar and typographical updates. But there is a new section on 'What the movie 'Office Space' can teach us about following process' as well as some interesting observations about the role of change management in making process projects successful.

This eBook will take you through the main problems with process type projects and help you understand real solutions to the key problems.

For those of you who bought V1, thank you for purchasing the book. If you wish to purchase a further copy of this book please do so by clicking this link to go to 'The Perfect Process Project' purchase page. Better still pass this link onto a friend or colleague who might benefit from it.

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All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

Who's running your process project - The Chicken or the Pig?

Over my 20-odd years in the business I have worked on countless projects. Most of them have been deemed to be ‘successful’ (sometimes in the context of ‘We put a project in place to implement xyz and we have implemented xyz therefore the project has been successful’) and a number of them have, unfortunately, been unsuccessful. It is always easy in hindsight to look back and understand what it is about a project that made it less successful than it may have been - and the reasons are numerous. But in my experience the main reason that a lot of projects fail is change management (or lack of it). I have written about this previously. What I want to do today is to look in a little more depth at one facet of change management which is - in my opinion - a prime candidate for ‘reasons most projects are unsuccessful': Lack of senior management buy-in.

Processes by stealth - Gartner recommends it!

In a recent comment about how to set up organisational supports for BPM initiatives, Gartner's Jim Sinur remarked:

Establishing a process competency center is first prize, but you might have to sneak up on it by getting a small group of skilled process folks to work on a number of small projects before you put together a process program with clearly defined roles

I almost jumped for joy when I read this as it, basically, aligns with a concept I tried about 7 years ago known as 'Processes implementation by stealth'. The basic issue was that the company I was working for at the time had very little knowledge and understanding of how to start a process management capability. As a result they were reluctant to move forward with creating this in light of other, more pressing, business issues. To try and move things forward I became involved with a number of projects where we 'insinuated ourselves' into the project and started to define process type activities as part of this. For example I worked with a department that was looking to outsource a large part of the work they were doing to a third party organisation. I managed to convince them that if they had a neatly defined (and agreed) process map of what their department did, they would be able to take that to a prospective third party and easily identify the hand off points and the deliverables. As an added bonus we were able to remove a number of non-value-added activities as part of the process discovery exercise.

Over the course of a number of months we took this concept of process discovery by stealth and enlarged it to some more important projects. What this gave us a chance to do was to identify a business case for including process work in all projects. Once that case was approved the organisation mandated this across all IT projects and the capability was started from there.
The end result is that a little bit of 'process management by stealth' led to a global process organisation being created where a direct approach to create that would not have happened. Ultimately the CIO took responsibility for the process capability and this gave us the senior management ownership that we needed to make this happen.

Processes by stealth - it can happen and it does happen. Where is it happening in your organisation? Or alternatively - where should it be happening in your organisation?

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Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.

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All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

What does "Free Consulting' Mean?

Image by Ivan Walsh via Flickr

I want to say a few words (about 1000 really) on giving away consulting following the re-opening of the Free Consulting Offer

Obviously giving away what you do is never going to make you rich. In fact studies have shown that things which are ‘free’ are not treated with as much reverence as things which are paid for. So why would anybody give away anything for free? Well the easy answer is ‘To allow folks to try it and see’.

It’s a similar model to the one which hundreds, nay thousands, of software manufacturers work off: You download some of their stuff, try it out for a while (either fully functional but limited in some aspect such as saving completed pieces of work, or hobbled to allow a majority of things to be tested but not everything) and then either you like it enough to buy it or you don’t.

This isn’t the open source model where you an have the software fully functioning and at no cost. This is ‘try-before-you-buy’ware. If you are serious about using this tool long term (i.e. after the trial period) then you need to start dishing out some wonga (That means ‘paying for it’ in the venacular).

The free consulting offer is similar in nature. As a potential customer you get the opportunity to try me before you end up paying anything. It is a chance to evaluate me, my company, my ability to work with your organisation, and to determine if you think I bring value to the table. Conversely it is an opportunity for me to determine whether I feel your project or proposal is set-up to succeed and if I can add value to it by my presence. Usually one or both of these things will occur. In which case you, as a customer, can then look at what is being offered and determine whether this is something you wish to invest in.

Working with a company such as mine is an investment - on both sides. You will invest time and effort in understanding my methods and deciding if we are compatible in a working environment. In return you want, presumably, a reliable resource that can help ensure your project will stand a better chance of being successful, or completed, or accepted than if you didn’t invest that commitment. I will invest time, energy and skill in understanding your needs, proposing solutions and helping implement them. In return I want a customer who I am going to work well with, who I can help to be successful and who I then hope will pass on word of mouth to other companies and recommend me for future work. Occasionally the answer to that is going to be ‘No’. Which is the whole reason for doing this with no commitment on either side.

There is a catch to this though, and it comes with the comment I made above about “things which are ‘free’ are not treated with as much reverence as things which are paid for”. Obviously if we are both going to the trouble of spending time, energy and commitment in working together for a day, we need to understand that this is to be treated as a ‘proper’ day’s work. It’s not ‘Some guy’s come in on a freebie let’s give him a load of stuff to do’. You have to imagine that you are actually paying for my time even though you aren’t. In fact depending on how far away you are from my home base you could be paying something anyway as I will still need travel and other expenses reimbursed. But generally as long as you and I are clear about what we are trying to achieve, you have a definite objective for me, and we are both clear about what success looks like, you should be able to get a lot of value out of a days free consultancy from me

What kind of consultancy do I offer?

Well let’s imagine you are thinking of outsourcing some of your work to a third party. It could be a department or a function or just a block of work you don’t particularly see as being core to your business. Prior to doing this you will need some sort of understanding of what that function/department/work actually is, what the steps are that are involved in it and what, exactly, you wish to outsource. This will involve some process discovery and documentation. I can help with that.

Or maybe you’ve decided that you are needing to find some efficiencies in your existing workflow and want to start by documenting your current state process map. I can help with that.

Maybe you have already done that and are looking to understand what changes will need to be made to create your future state? I can help you with that.

Maybe you are looking at bringing in a tool to help with your BPM project. I can help with that.

Maybe you’re completely lost, you know you need to do something about your processes but don’t know what, I can help with that.

Or maybe you are right in the middle of a major project and just need some extra resource to help in documenting, or interviewing, or designing or any of the other project related items. I can help with that

Perhaps you’ve implemented a BPM system and need somebody who can come in to design and code the automation part of the software: Sorry, you’re out of luck - I don’t do that!

Are you looking for a fully fledged project manager to come in and take your project by the scruff of the neck and push it forward to completion? Well I used to do that, but not anymore. You probably need to look somewhere else for that

So the summary of all of this is that I have a specific skill set which I am happy to come and speak to you about. I won’t try to fleece you with claims of ‘Yes I can do that, no problem’ when clearly I can’t, for the same reason as downloading a piece of video editing software that doesn’t actually deal with High Definition video is not useful if HD editing is what you want to do. You’re not going to end up buying are you?

So contact me at the details above and let’s see if we can do some business.

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Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.

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For more about me check out my "About Me' page

All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

The Free Consulting Offer: It's back!

"When you're up to your a*s in alligators it's sometimes difficult to remember that the objective was to clear the swamp"

Yes, It's back again.

The GCP Consulting free consulting offer. For a limited time only.

Here's the deal:

I consult to organisations that want to get better. Companies who are in the grip of an economic downturn and who want to reduce their costs and overheads to increase and improve their bottom line. A lot of companies know how to do this (or think they do). But a lot of them don't know how to do it and need help.

According to Gartner, BPM is the most important business initiative on CIO and CEO's plates this year - maybe in a big way, maybe in a small way. Presumably this means that a lot of these executives are looking to get started in this. I believe that this is not just big businesses, but smaller ones too: the companies who are, say, mature businesses with less than 50 people. Or it could be the larger companies that are spread across different locations etc. Either way there is a lot of confusion about what needs to be done, what the potential problems are and how they can be approached.

So here's what I am offering:

If you are either:

a) Thinking about putting some sort of process improvement project together
b) In the middle of a process improvement project and seem to be stalled
c) Wondering what you can do to reduce costs and increase profit
d) Trying to document your processes and need someone to help with facilitating a process discovery session

then let me know. I will come in and provide one day's consulting for you to help you understand what you need to do to get things started or what you need to do to make things better in your current project. In fact anything you want to do with respect to process and BPM.

And I will do all this for free! (Considering my daily rate for this is approx £750, this is quite a deal). All you pay are travel expenses - and I'll travel just about anywhere to do this. Globally.

I'll even throw in a copy of my ebook "The Perfect Process Project" for you to keep and use as you see fit.

What's next?
If you want to take advantage of this offer then let me know via an email to G_comerford at GCP-consulting.com. Let me have your name, contact details, and some information about what you're trying to achieve and - if I think I can add some value to your efforts - I'll be in touch to help you.

That's it. No strings attached. No obligation. Obviously I would like it if you decide later on to bring me on board your project for some paid work, but there is no obligation to do so. Yes, your details will be added to my mailing list, but that's spam free and is only used to keep you up to date with developments in the BPM world. But that's it.

Think about it. Do you have anything to lose? Does anyone you know need something like this? Tell them too!

I look forward to hearing from you

P.S. Contact me now and see whether we can get something worthwhile moving in your organisation

Image courtesy Daquella Manera

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Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.

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For more about me check out my "About Me' page

All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

Distilled Wisdom - A free business process e-book

Over the last couple of years I have been keeping this Business Process focused blog. The articles that are posted here cover the whole range of BPM subjects from process facilitation to interviews with key vendors in the discipline and almost everything in between.

I have selected 22 of my more important and interesting posts and compiled them here into this small e-book which I am providing free-of-charge to you.

The book is called 'Distilled Wisdom Thoughts and Musings on the Art and Science of 'BPM' and it can be downloaded directly from my company web-site at GCP Consulting.com (UPDATE: If you downloaded and ended up with a load of garbage text, please try again)

My hope is that if you are starting to look at processes in your organisation, or you have a project underway that attempts to either document, review or update your existing processes, you will be able to glean some useful information from the 'distilled wisdom' in these pages.

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Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.

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For more about me check out my "About Me' page

All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

A year in the process world - Some quick thoughts.

2008 draws to a close and gives us the opportunity, once again, to review what has happened over the last twelve months in the world of business processes.

Economically the last twelve months have shown a lot of change. The bail-out of the financial markets, coupled with the potential issues with the Big 3 car manufacturers, along with what we Brits refer to as 'The Credit Crunch", has caused a lack of consumer confidence. Already this last three weeks, 3 major British high street retailers have gone into administration and one - the venerable Woolworths - will disappear totally from the high street after almost 100 years of business.

Naturally all this uncertainty has caused ructions in the general world of business. Companies are no longer willing to spend a lot of money on things that think they can do themselves, or to 'waste' money on non value-added expenses. Travel budgets are being cut. Advertising is being cut. Conference budgets are being cut. Outsourcing is being stopped.

Looking at business process management specifically one area that has been in the news a lot is the loss of outsourcing contracts in places like India and the Philippines. Every week in the last half of the year appeared to bring news that some company was withdrawing its outsourcing contract from one of those two places. Not much information was given about how these companies were going to actually deal with BPM work in their organisations? Presumably a lot of companies were looking at bringing in a third party software provider to implement a tool to do this (and you know my opinions on having the right tool for the job)

Amongst major vendors there has been some business success with their products with demand for Business Process Management solutions at an all time high. Metastorm also managed to gain a big hold on the BPM market by releasing V6.1 of it Metastorm/Provision tools set.Iit also released plans for an IPO to raise money and then pulled out of that in November due to market conditions.

There were, as usual, many conferences this year. The big one, obviously, was the Gartner BPM conference in September as well as the events by IRM and Management Events in the UK. one of the things that did come out of gartners research this year related to BPM was the fact that in the economic downturn few companies are actually cancelling BPM projects. This must mean they are obviously seeing the long term benefit of running something that will improve efficiency and cut down waste (hurrah!). For coverage of the Gartner conference the best blog is Sandy Kemsley's Column2.

2009
What's in store for 2009? I'm sure the market will continue to recede as it is doing at the moment. Companies will continue to look for ways to increase their efficiency, decrease their costs and increase their sales. BPM will become a major part of that. Companies will also have to decide whether having some sort of large BPM tool with lots of whistles and bells is better than actually doing something simple such as looking at their processes with a view to appropriately managing them? I am of the opinion - as has been expressed in these pages before- that if all you have is a hammer then every problem is a nail. This means that companies without BPM or EA tools will start to look at their problems in light of what tools they have.This is not necessarily a good thing.

GCP Consulting will - in the new year - launch a brand new offering to the world. This is tentatively called the Small Business Review and is aimed at businesses which are mature businesses with 10 - 100 employees. The primary function of a Small Business Review (SBR) is to identify and remedy issues that are causing process management to be overlooked, ignored, or badly managed. Basically this is looking at the creation of a process management capability within an organisation. Initially this will be released in a workshop format with attendees being talked through a detailed workbook that will identify their key business processes, the issue surrounding them (badly designed processes, inadequately documented processes, no process owners etc) and then identify a set of tasks needed to remedy these issues. This will result in an action plan at the end of the workshop that each attendee can take with them to start moving down the path towards having a process capability. The principles of the workshop are all linked into the concepts behind The Perfect Process Project, my ebook which was release last year.

Keep an eye out for more information about this workshop offering early in the new year. If anyone is interested in helping promote this, or even wants to work with me to fine tune the workshop session and the workbook, then please get in touch with me. I'd love to hear from you.

Finally I would like to wish you all a good new year and let's hope 2009 is better then 2008!

The competition has winners!

Recently the Process Cafe and The Process Ninja have been running a joint competition.

If you sign up and confirm your subscriptions to both our blogs you will be placed in a draw to win 1 of 10 copies of my ebook "The Perfect Process Project"

Well, the competition ran throughout the month of November and - after reviewing the entries - Craig at the Process Ninja and myself have chosen 10 subscribers to receive the book.

If you have won the book will already be in your in-box.

Congratulations to all the winners.

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Promote your company!

In related news, the Process Cafe is teaming up with a Swiss multinational EA organisation to promote EA/ BPM and "The Perfect Process Project". I have written an article which will be included in the next newsletter produced by this group. The newsletter goes out to over 6000 decision makers in medium to large organisations. It will include a link to my eBook. On this revised page you can see that I have added a number of testimonials I have received about the book. If you wish your name to appear in the testimonial section (along with a link to your site/company/product) all you have to do is write a few words about "The Perfect Process Project" that I can add in the testimonials section. Send it - along with the appropriate URL - to me at G_Comerford (at) GCP-consulting.com. I will review it and - if appropriate - add it to the web-site. In order to determine if this is valid testimonial (i.e. it comes from someone who has actually read the book rather than someone just trying to game the system), you will also need to provide the following piece of information from the book:

One page 28 of the book (In the section entitled "If everyone owns the process no-one owns the process") there is a quote in white text in the blue sidebar on that page. What is the number that appears in the quote?

I hope to hear from you soon.
P.S. If you want to buy a copy of the book so you can check the answer click here. Only £5.99!

Reminder - The Competition is still running...

Craig at The Process Ninja is still running the competition to win one of 10 copies of "The Perfect Process Project". Click here to see how to enter.

NOTE: For those of you who have already entered, please make sure that you have followed the instuctions carefully. In order to be considered in this competition we have to have your
express approval to share your e-mail details between both blogs. In
order to gain this approval you should have entered 'The Process Ninja' into the "Surname" field on the subscription page. A number of people have not done this.

This means either:

a) You do not wish to be entered for the competition and do not wish your details to be passed to The Process Ninja Blog
b)You ommitted to add the correct entry but did intend to be entered for the competition and did want your details to be passed to The Process Ninja Blog

If it is a case of b) above please resubscribe to the Process Cafe with "The Process Ninja" in the appropriate field and I will ensure your details are forwarded and you are entered into the competition.

Welcome to the new subcribers.

The Process Ninja reviews "The Perfect Process Project"

Craig over at "The Process Ninja" has published a nice little review of "The Perfect Process Project".

We are also working together on a chance to win a copy of the book by signing up to our blogs.

Check out his post for more details. While you are there, read a couple of his other posts. He has a distinct take on process which you will find refreshing.

Thanks for the review, Craig.

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For more about me check out my "About Me' page

All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

Changing your business process: "Why do process projects fail?" A few answers!

I recently posted a question on Linked-In which asked "Why do so many projects that change processes fail?". This is, of course, connected with the subject of "The Perfect Process Project" and hopefully would unearth additional information for the next edition.

The responses came in thick and fast until - after about 5 days - I closed the question to allow me to review them. Overall I had 20 responses which ranged from "Us and Them thinking gets in the way" right through to a 500 word mini essay which included a copy of a media interview given by the respondent.

All the answers were interesting in their own way, and they all gave me food for thought. However, a number of the respondents didn't specificaly address the issue I was raising (which was probably because I wasn't clear in my original requirement). My question was specifically related to why processes implemented by projects don't work, NOT about why projects per se fail. A lot of answers addressed the second facet.

Of those that answered the first question there did seem to be a common theme. I had comments such as "Successful process change must be rooting [sic] in the real need for change", and "lack of a true commitment from Senior Management", and "Good communication is an essential element".

Other comments included

• One is that change, in general is difficult for most people. The other is that very often the person suggesting or promoting the change is different to the person who needs to implement the change
• The people designing the updated process don't take the time to learn the who, what, when, where, and why of the current process
• It is important for us to remember that key players aren't necessarily those who hold formal power, but also those with informal power. It's great if a VP signs off on my project, but if a key manager from a different organization is not committed to the change the entire project may fail.
• Lack of accountibility if the new process is not followed
• The answer is sadly very evident -they're 'done to' projects. The people who do the work today are not seriously involved
• Last but not the least: None of the managers have an end-to-end process view & they all have a narrow departmental view. So structure of an organization also plays a crucial role in process improvement projects
• Few processes are isolated. Every process intersects other process. If one does not understand those intersections and their impact, a changes process will be useless

Thanks to everyone who contributed a thought or comment to the discussion.

The top answer I picked, however was from Lisa Matthews, Vice President at GMAC Insurance, who said

"A wise Coach taught me an equation that proves particularly true in this scenario: P (Process) x D (Dissatisfaction or Pain with the Current Process) x V (Clear Vision) > R (Resistance to Change).

It has proved true time and time again. One can always map back the lack of success for process improvement efforts to one of the three components against a company’s or team’s resistance to change. The resistance can show up in a myriad of ways from lack of governance to no buy-in to scope trot."

She then went on to talk about some of the factors that equate to points I raise in the book regarding ownership and measurements of results. In my subsequent e-mail conversations with her she mentioned a further issue which was

". . . the basic A.D.D. of corporations today. It is very difficult for large corporations to FOCUS long enough to see and embrace the positive changes the process may fulfill."

Thanks, Lisa for those insights. I will look at merging these into the next edition of "The Perfect Process Project" and in the meantime a complementary copy is on its way to you.


How do these issues link in with your experience of implementing process change as part of a project?

(Photo courtesy apesara. Released under a Creative Commons Attribution licence)

Technorati Tags: business process, change, BPM

So what's in the ebook?

You will have seen the press release and the teaser's I've put out about my eBook, but before you buy it you'll probably want to know a little more about what you'll be getting, won't you?

I've worked in IT for over 20 years - usually in big projects. One thing that struck me as I worked through all these projects is that there are key failure reasons running through them all. The Gartner Group estimate that the majority of IT projects do not deliver the value they were supposed to deliver, and this is equally true for projects involving business process work.

Why?

Because people do not manage business process projects correctly!

There are several definitions and objectives one must understand to optimize the process project:

A) You must understand the key reasons a process project fails.
From the time a lot of projects are first presented to the users, right to the time the project team finishes and leaves the final product in a live environment, there are failure factors that occur. Learn what these are and how to avoid them.

B) You must understand the key items to be used to make a process project succeed.
Understand the few key items that must be in place to ensure your process project works appropriately. Learn about Comerford 3 Laws of Metrics and how they apply to your process. Understand the key role to be held by a Process Owner (and who that process owner must be), and learn the one HUGE factor that will make the difference between success and failure.

C) You must have the right people in the right roles on the project
Pretty straightforward eh? Makes sense? It is sense. In fact it's common sense. but the problem with common sense is that it's just not that common This book will identify who needs to be in what key role.

The book will look at what currently happens in a lot of projects, why the current projects are failing, and the subject of TLA's (Three Letter Acronyms) and what to do with them. It will discuss what an ideal process will look like and talk about the ideal project to implement the ideal process.

There are lot's of other goodies in the book as well as some freebies thrown in for purchasing it.

This really is a book you should be reading if you have any involvement at all in running or managing processes and process projects. If you have a project budgeted at £5000/$10000 or more it's probably the best £5.99/$9.95 you'll spend

Find out more at the book's web page.

http://www.gcp-consulting.com/ebook.html

I hope you purchase and I hope you enjoy the book and find it useful.


Technorati Tags: ebook, process, bpm

"The Perfect Process Project" is released

Hampshire: England - GCP Consulting today announced the release of the new eBook "The Perfect Process Project". The book - the culmination of over 20 years experience working with and running projects - helps to identify the key success factors required to make a process definition or modification project run correctly.

"Most projects today will, in some way, affect the underlying processes in an organisation." says the book's author Gary Comerford, "Process change is fraught with difficulty if not dealt with appropriately. The book identifies where projects like this go wrong and proposes solutions. Did you know, for example, that the Gartner Group expect business process management efforts to grow by 35% this year? That's a huge number of projects that need to be appropriately managed."

Success for a project that defines or updates processes is mostly a result of what happens after the project itself has been completed. In many cases the organisation doesn't understand how best to either manage the process, measure the process or change the process.

The eBook will address these issues as well as showing the key mistakes that project managers make when running the actual projects.

The book is available from the following URL

http://www.gcp-consulting.com/ebook.html

About the company: GCP Consulting is a boutique process management consultancy formed to help companies identify and define process issues within their organisation. The company works in 2 modes: a) Contract: This is when you have a defined block of work with identified deliverables, and wish to engage GCP Consulting to help you achieve these goals. b) Ad Hoc: If your needs are less well defined and you are looking for someone to come in and provide consultancy on an ad-hoc basis (say during the project definition or "pre-sales" part of your project life-cycle) then GCP Consulting can be engaged on an this basis from as little as 1/2 day.

Contact can be made through the company website http://www.gcp-consulting.com

Technorati Tags: ebook, process, BPM

The eBook is almost here!

I know I've been promising it for a while, but the ebook is finally ready.

The Perfect Process Project will be released at the beginning of next week with a price of £5.99 ($12).

As with a lot of these things there will be a couple of extras and freebies to go along with it and it will have some insight into managing process projects that I have picked up over the years.

I'll be posting the link at the start of business next Monday but - for those of you who want to get ahead of the curve and get the book for free, everyone who is on the Process Cafe mailing list by Friday evening (Midnight, BST) will receive a complimentary copy.

That's right, a whole free eBook just for making sure you're on the mailing list!

What's more, whenever I update the book with new research or feedback from readers, everyone who is on the mailing list will get the updated version. For free and gratis!

Subscribing to the mailing list couldn't be easier. Just enter your e-mail address into the box on the right hand side of the screen here.

I'll send you the pdf on Monday.

Doing Business Process Work in your Organisation - A White Paper

For those of you who are interested there is a new white paper out called 'Doing Business Process Work in your Organisation: A Practical Guide to Success'.

It's the first in a series of papers I'm doing leading up to the release of my eBook 'The Perfect Process Project' which is now complete and ready to go.

Click this link to read more about it and request a copy through email. It's a 5 page PDF that should take you about 10 minutes to read.

PLUS: If you do read the white paper it will tell you how to get a separate document called 'The Art of Process Facilitation' which gives you lots of tips about running facilitated sessions to define processes.

For more about me check out my "About Me' page

All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford


Technorati Tags: bpm, process, processes, business process, tips

e-Book on the way!

I'm working on an e-Book at the moment.

It's called 'The Perfect Process Project' and it is a distillation of the years of experience I have working with companies trying to run business process projects (or, more usually, IT projects with an element of business process improvement in them). It details some of the pitfalls, issues and errors that I have encountered and proposes a new approach and some reasonably off the wall ideas to make this happen.

So bear with me while I complete this over the next couple of weeks and then I'll put it onto this site and see what folks think of it.

The main reason I've posted this entry is to spur me into completing it. Now that it's out in the blogosphere I have to commit to finishing it! (and running my other blogs and working for a living. . . . .)