Have you ever noticed the gap between where your organization is and where it needs to be widening every day—especially when workflows are undefined or changing?
In this episode of Lean by Design, we sit down with Liam O’Neill of BPM‑D to tackle the big question: do you invest in building process capabilities internally or lean on outside consultants? We’ll walk you through evaluating your readiness, embedding process ownership in leadership, and starting with a real business challenge so you can create sustainable, scalable process excellence rather than just putting out fires.
Learn more about BPMD at https://bpm-d.com/
Connect with Liam at https://www.linkedin.com/in/l-oneill/
Ready to assess your organization’s efficiency? Connect with us at leanbydesign@sigmalabconsulting.com to uncover high-impact improvement opportunities. 🚀
Learn more about us by visiting: https://sigmalabconsulting.com/
Want our thoughts on a specific topic? Looking to sponsor this podcast to continue to generate content? Or maybe you have an idea and want to be on our show. Fill out our Interest Form and share your thoughts.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We're back with another episode of Lean by
Design podcast.
I'm your host, Oscar Gonzalez,alongside my co-host, Lawrence
Wong.
We're excited today because wehave a guest, Liam O'Neill,
director of BPMD in the UK.
It's a London-based boutiqueconsultancy specializing in
business process management, andwe're going to have a
(00:20):
conversation with him to seewhat is it like on the other
side of the pond.
What are they doing and whatare they seeing in this industry
?
By using the latest tools andtechniques, BPMD is leaving
behind perceptions about processbeing bureaucratic and boring.
He has worked with companieslike BBC, MSC and Lego to get
value from process, fromaccelerating audits to
(00:42):
delivering digitaltransformation.
Liam, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Thanks so much for having me.
That was a lovely introduction.
Oscar Really appreciate it,Really excited to talk to you
guys today.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
I got to hand it to Lawrence.
He's been really knocking outthese introductions.
So, thank you, lawrence, fortaking on that task.
So I want to get us moving inthe right direction.
The main challenge that we seeis understanding and recognizing
that there are manyorganizations that don't
necessarily have clear workflowsor processes.
(01:15):
They face that crucial questionof should they invest in
building internal processcapabilities or should they rely
on external consultants.
And I'm sure that you have beenalso sort of understanding what
the perception is for externalconsultants that we might come
(01:37):
in and they're going to give ussomething and then they're going
to leave and then nothingactually changes as opposed to
internally.
They may have more of thetechnical knowledge of things
that are happening, but maybenot that setup to deliver a new
process, to drive a new designof the process, to drive the
adoption.
So I'm hoping in thisconversation we're going to
(01:59):
start to explore how do youevaluate if you're ready to take
on and make that next move inoptimizing a process or
delivering operationalexcellence and building out new
processes at these organizations.
So I want to start with thiswhen a company is not clear on
building or buying processsupport, what starts to happen
(02:22):
at an organization?
When they can't determine ifthey're going to try to tackle
this internally or reach out toa consultant such as yourself.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
The fundamental problem why you want process
internal or external is thatthings change and they're
changing really quickly.
There's lots of new systems,new capabilities, changing the
market and you've got to adapt.
Things change so quickly.
If you're not shifting yourbusiness model, if you're not
evolving, then you're gettingleft behind.
So that ability to understandwhat you're doing, understand
(02:53):
what you can be doing and thenbridge a gap between the two is
really critical, now more sothan ever before.
Having a process excellenceteam, having an operational
excellence team who can help totake you from where you are to
where you want to be is a reallyemerging critical capability.
So, understanding that needingto change is absolutely
(03:14):
paramount to being successful,organizations have to ask a
question how do we want tochange?
Do we want to rely on anexternal agency to come in?
Do that to us, do it for us,and then great, we'll get to
where we're want to rely on anexternal agency to come in?
Do that to us, do it for us,and then great we'll get to
where we're going to go.
But then we need to gosomewhere else after that.
So you need to go back tomarket again versus.
(03:35):
Do we want to do thatinternally?
Build that team in ourorganization, go through the
hard knocks, take the hard lumps, take the learnings, but get
something internally where youcan make and bridge that gap
yourselves.
Maybe you change a little bitslower initially as you're
trying to do that with yourinternal team, but long-term you
have this more sustainablecapability.
And that's the questionLong-term, do you want to keep
(03:56):
this really critical capabilityto change?
Do you want to keep thatin-house or out-house?
Do you want to have it whereyou've got the risk of it
failing, sitting with yourbusiness or sitting externally?
And that's a question everyonehas to find the right answer to
for themselves and very oftenit's not black or white, it's
shades of gray.
You might have some internalteam.
You might need to bring on somecapacity just to bridge that
(04:19):
gap.
As you get over the biggestkind of jump from point A to
point B and then flex it down,have your Intel team keep it
ticking over until you get tothe next major transformation.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You know, I love how you started off with that
response where you reallyhighlighted that there is
constant change.
You know the old adage sayingof there's only two things that
you can guarantee guaranteetaxes and change.
Well now, who knows what taxesare going to be going on in our
(04:59):
space, in organizations?
It has been our experience thatin the earlier days of your
career, you are not thinking ofthis space that you're working
in as a company as you beingpart of the fuel for this
business.
You are looking at this as likeit's a job.
It's a part of my career, it'syou know I'm developing myself,
(05:23):
but I think it's.
There's this lens, thisentrepreneurial lens that you
start to see is being required,at least desired by
organizations, to have thisinternal understanding that this
is also a business and toconduct business and secure the
future of your business.
We need to adapt.
(05:45):
And it's not just adapt nextweek, it's not just adapt next
year, it's a daily adaptationinto the changing environment.
We don't know what's going tohappen from year to year we
think we do so.
We create five-year plans,10-year plans that in the first
six months are already not goingin the right direction because
(06:06):
there have been some otherexternal forces that we were not
ready to take on.
I love the idea of reallysitting, taking a look and
saying is this something thatwe're prepared to grow
internally and be a part ofthose bumps in the roads and
those learnings?
Or can we trust enough that wecan work with an external party
(06:31):
that has made those bumps in theroad, that understands why you
would or would not go into acertain direction to really
spearhead that organization intothe next stage of their?
What have been those earlywarning signs that there's
trouble working, that a companyis struggling because they took
the wrong approach?
(06:51):
Maybe they tried to take itinternally.
They tried a Tiger Teecomprised of four different
departments, but then when youlook at it, it's not in their
job description, it's not reallya part of their corporate goals
.
It's sort of a side quest that,in my personal and professional
opinion, demands more time.
You need to put more thoughtand effort into doing change
(07:12):
than a quick band-aid.
What are some of those earlysigns that you've seen?
Speaker 3 (07:17):
I think one of the biggest misdirections is you're
literally full.
People have their ownmotivations and their own
drivers and it's going to bedifferent for everyone across an
organization.
What a CIO wants is differentto a CFO, is different to the
receptionist on the desk.
(07:37):
We're all looking for differentthings and there's a nice
separation area of kind of thebusiness, the broader business
and everyone who does the corekind of operations, or even some
support team like finance, andthen you really core
transformation processexcellence team.
If we look at the core processteam first, some of the
(08:00):
challenges you see wherecompanies have set this up but
it's not yielding the results.
That you're expecting is thatthey have a view on what they
want to do, what they need to do.
Let's model all the processes,let's run these continuous
improvement surveys and getlists of issues and they're
doing task and point great, butwe're not looking at the bigger
(08:21):
picture.
If you're a BPM team and you'rejust modeling processes and no
one's using them, you're nothelping anyone.
If you run in endlesscontinuous improvement surveys,
find an issue after issue, butthen none of them are getting
fixed, how many people spendtime filling in the survey?
There's a bigger picture thatyou've got to look at and that
(08:41):
bigger picture is makingeveryone in the business's life
a little bit better.
If you're a process team, great.
Do your models, but only ifthey've got a purpose.
Maybe.
People spend months and monthspreparing for audit, writing
reams and reams of documents andthen having to revisit this
dusty old Word document everytwo or three years to stay
accredited.
Take that pain away.
(09:02):
Do that with your process tool.
Change it so that people don'thave to do that part of the job
that they hate.
If you've got to do continuousimprovement surveys, make sure
you actually see that changethrough.
You give them all the toolsthey need.
You're helping the business tomake that switch so that
annoying little quirk isactually fixed and you don't end
up with just a list ofirritated people who keep going
(09:24):
on about the same problems butnever see any results.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
So it's that little shift from.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I've been told to do something.
Let's do that to.
Instead.
What is it that's going toyield some results for business,
that's going to make people'slives better on a micro level,
but also a micro level.
You know, looking at what thecxos wants in broad
transformation terms, when youget into the business side, I
(09:50):
think one of the biggestsuccesses is when you've got a
real process culture, live in anorganization where people
they've got a day job, you'vegot your head of accounts
receivable, you've got your S&OPlead, you have all these
seniors across your business.
They're making sure a bit of thebusiness is ticking along just
right, but they're recognized asa process.
Underneath that there's anapproach to doing accounts
(10:11):
receivable, accounts payable,whatever it is across the
business, and they need to beaccountable for that.
They need to be accountable forhow that process is done, how
people understand it, howeffective it is.
So I like to think of processownership not as a discrete role
, but as a role that's implicitin being a leader in a business
that people take accountabilityfor how it works, how effective
(10:33):
it is and making change happen.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I feel like now, just even hearing that the next time
I put in a job description, itis going to be process ownership
, because I think you, younailed it.
I think there has been this.
Initially, there was this realbig shift in anything technology
related lives with your it team.
(10:59):
I did not come through theranks with that assumption.
If this is my function, if thisis my role and this is the tool
that I'm being given, I need tolearn about this.
I had a mentor that told mewhen I brought on, when I
onboarded a new technology, hesaid you now need to understand
(11:20):
this technology more than anyoneelse in the company.
This is going to be what you usein your role.
You should know it more than IT.
You should know it more thanthe people that are consumers of
the information, and you shouldhave that emphasize that enough
(11:45):
that it's not enough for us tocome into the workplace and just
do the one thing that was asked, the actual, the tangible thing
that was asked of us.
We need to think about thebigger picture.
How are we doing this?
Why are we doing this?
And what you alluded to earlier, which I love, how is this
(12:08):
going to affect other people?
Because if you develop aprocess and we are selfish
beings I want to say by nature,but I don't even know if that's
human nature we are selfishbeings when we come into work.
I want my work to be easier, soI'm going to do it this way.
Even if our link in the processcreates a kink downstream, well
(12:34):
, why do I have to change it forthem?
Well, now you're not talkinglike you're a part of the
company, you're talking likeyou're a party of one and really
recognizing that your picturethat this involves all of us.
We're you're not part of thisproject team, you're a part of
this organization.
The smoother you can make yourwork and everybody around you,
(12:58):
the better the engine is goingto run, you know.
So I love your diving intothere.
And just to make sure that we'regetting our listeners on board
BPM business process management.
You know, understanding yourcompany's BPMD, I believe it's a
business process management.
Discipline is what that was.
(13:18):
When I saw that I read in mymind I said business process
doctor, bpmd.
I thought that was fantasticgenius, because you are there in
essence to diagnose a littlebit more of what their problem
is and create those solutionswhere, in some cases, you may
have a client that is going totell you to your point what they
(13:43):
need, but the execution doesn'tquite follow.
They have an idea of what theywant in the future, but they
don't really know how or whatthe appropriate path forward is.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
In that sense, Oscar, I was just going to add too.
You know we've been talking alot about the driver for the
change.
I was just going to add to youknow we've been talking a lot
about the driver for the changeand also you have different
business functions that have adifferent, I would say,
application of a certainsoftware for their own process,
and so sometimes I think in alot of work that we do, people
get confused with process beinglike this is the way that I do
(14:12):
things for my department versusthis is the IT application and I
don't own the actualadministration of that.
And so there's a little bit oflike entanglement between the
two, right, because there may bethings that you want to change
in, like an enterpriseapplication, but you don't
necessarily have theadministrative privileges or
rights to do that, and so, likeyou said, if you change
(14:33):
something here, you're actuallyimpacting other people that may
be using a similar functionelsewhere.
I'm curious, liam, in what yousee with your clients, why does
that tension happen where yousee organizations misjudging
their ability to build theseinternal capabilities, when you
have people obviously usingapplications in a different way,
but also the person who'sactually using the process is
(14:55):
not the one who's the IT ownerof that software?
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yeah, there's definitely a disconnect.
And I talk process ownershipand a really emergent kind of
topic now is product ownership,and you've seen product
management come more and morebefore in a lot of thinking
organizations and it's almostlike there's a little bit of
juxtaposition there.
You can have someone owning theproducts and someone owning the
(15:20):
process.
In a lot of companies that'snot the same person.
Great, someone's going to shapethe product, shape the IT,
shape the systems behind it, butthat person isn't the person
who's going to take ownership ofhow that process works.
There's something of adisconnect there.
For me, I think ultimately itcomes down to what's your
perspective on the organization.
If you're taking a veryIT-centric view, you start to
(15:44):
look at what are my systems, howdo I get someone on each system
?
If you're taking a verytraditional, functional view,
you start to put people onfunctions.
You have your head of supplychain, head of finance, whatever
that may be, and it cascadesdown in traditional seniority.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
But what?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
that does is it stops people thinking across the
boundaries, and it's usually theboundaries where the problems
really lie, oscar, before youmentioned, when you have people
who are doing their own thingand it's causing problems up and
downstream.
You see this all the time.
I worked for an upstream energycompany a little while ago and
(16:23):
we were brought in to work withthe finance team, work with the
finance IT team, to automate alittle piece of a backend using
an RPA bot on invoice matching.
We had a high invoiceauto-match failure rate and we
had this big backlog building.
We wanted to build a bot toquickly pass some information
and do the match.
We said great, okay, we can dothat, we can manage this backlog
(16:45):
.
Why is it happening?
What's the bigger picture?
What's causing this backlog tohappen in the first place?
We can fix it, but sure you'vegot to look at the problem.
You've got to be a doctor anddiagnose it.
And it wasn't finance causing itand it wasn't customer services
, it wasn't fulfillment.
It was way upstream.
(17:05):
It was right at the very frontend.
It was when the procurementteams were logging in their
details.
Some were logging in thedetails, perfect.
Some were skipping a few fieldsand filling some things in not
quite right.
Tiny tiny tweak in datavalidation and data control at
that upstream point was causinga hell of a lot of pain
downstream.
(17:26):
So, looking at it from a purelyproduct management perspective,
you're looking at a silo,you're fixing a problem, you can
be very quick and agile andfixing it, bringing automation,
bringing everything you need.
But you've got to look at thebigger picture, the broader
process, the broader business.
So that's one of the big fan ofprocess ownership as a concept
Try to bring it out, to look atit across functions, across
(17:49):
systems, so you don't have theselittle silos of excellence and
massive chasms in between.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I love that description in between.
I love that description.
I mean, you're one of theexamples that I would give.
You know, my son, who's threeis that you have this big train
with multiple cabooses attachedto it and you're finding that
it's not really running the waythat you wanted it to.
(18:14):
And you find out that veryfirst one actually has like an
anchor hanging behind it becausesomething wasn't quite done,
something wasn't.
You know, it was really lazy.
And when you're oh, it's just adate.
You know there's when, whenyou're disconnected from the
bigger picture, everything isjust a little data point, it's
just a-paste.
(18:36):
Oh, this was just a littleissue here.
But that thing continues tosnowball because as these
processes move from step to step, inevitably they not only
change hands into otherdepartments and other.
We're not going to get awayfrom being cross-functional by
nature across multiple domainswithin these organizations.
(19:00):
These projects are now becomingmore complicated.
They're involving moreindividuals and more functions
from functions that didn't evenexist.
You know, now we have AIfunctions, now we have
leadership in AI andtransformation, et cetera.
So I get it.
It is hard.
You come into an organizationand you're told to just
(19:22):
basically stay in your lane andyou say what does this even have
to do with the bigger picture?
You should start asking,because understanding that
bigger picture provides morevalue to what you're bringing to
the table, and I think thatthere's also a responsibility
for leadership, whether it'sleadership within that team or
that function, or leadership forthe organization, so that
(19:43):
people truly understand yourwork that you're starting down
here.
At the ground level, there issome sort of input that is
happening by the people.
It's not going to magicallyjust manifest itself.
It's being recorded, it's beinguploaded.
Somebody at that organizationis inputting this initial
(20:04):
information, this initial data,this initial data point, and
making sure that you understandthe criticality of all of those
things and if you find thatthings are not really critical
to the end, get rid of it.
That's just an extra step thatyou're adding.
You're finding out now that, nowthat you understand the high
level picture, there's a subsetof things that you're doing
(20:28):
early on that have no value.
You know the idea of collectingdata for the sake of data Not
something that's useful here.
I love looking at if it'sfunctionally managed, if it's
managed through an IT-centricsort of system or organization.
You're going to have differentpros and cons.
You're going to have challenges, and I think that for me,
(20:50):
functionally is where it makessense, because you are a subject
matter expert and now you havesystems and processes in place
specific to the unique function.
That is the work that you do.
Not somebody that has atechnical background in systems
(21:10):
and software necessarily cantell you what is good or what is
not.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I'm more thinking about this from what Liam said
about functional versus like theIT.
I would say expertise is morecommon, that we actually see
internal capability being builtaround people that actually own
the process within theircompanies, versus, if you do
need expert help with some sortof software application, that
you bring in externalconsultants to really understand
(21:35):
the vision that you have forhow the company is supposed to
work.
And maybe that's where you dothe split and deciding when to
bring somebody in, because youhave an idea of where you want
to go but you just maybe youdon't necessarily know how to
configure the software to kindof build that feature in.
And I would imagine that somecompanies maybe they think they
are the experts in configuringthe IT application and they just
(21:57):
royally screw it up and thenthey bring in consultants to
advise on how they should runtheir process from a functional
level and then you leave otherpeople to influence how you
should run your business, versusthe other way around.
Do you see that often and whatdo you tell people when they get
into that situation?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
So I think the whole kind of birth of consulting came
from that whole space wherethere was a lot of corporate
mergers back in the 60s-ish andwhat ended up was a lot of kit
builders being brought intosingle organizations.
People who'd done new, exciting, different things were all
being in the same homogenousorganization but wasn't the same
(22:39):
kind of spread of experiencewithin single entities.
So then broken this gap upwhere there's companies who
haven't done things they need toask to talk to some people,
work with some people who havedone those things, who have that
experience and can bring thatto the fore.
That's where consulting is kindof birthed out of and being
able to take your experience asan individual, as a group of
(23:00):
people, and take it to companieswho've not had that experience
before.
If you've been through an M&A,how do you take that to an
organization who's not yet donethat and make sure that they're
learning from those bumps, fromthose scripts, from those
mistakes that you've made?
And that same sharing ofexperience, sharing of
capability that organizationsdon't have, is still where I
(23:20):
think the most valuableconsulting services are today.
So if you take BPMD, forexample my company we have set
up 70, maybe 80 differentorganizations now in helping
them to build a process team,helping them to implement the
tools that support that.
And when we did our first oneand our second one and our third
(23:41):
one not best, but they werethey had a lot of areas we could
do better.
There's a lot of room forimprovement and you know, as you
get to 10, you start getting abit better.
When you get to 20, even betterstill by the time you get to 78
, to really have that naileddown to a fine art, you've taken
all those learnings, all thosethings that can go wrong and
(24:03):
have gone wrong, and you'vebaked those into your capability
, into your approach.
You bring it to an organizationwho it might be the first time,
second time or third time, butit's definitely not going to be
the 70th time they've done thistype of program and they can
learn from your capability andthey learn from your experience,
all those hard-fought lessons.
They don't need to fight thosebattles, they can just pick
(24:31):
those up and build off theshoulders of that experience.
No-transcript, I don't think youshould have a really core
critical capability like theability to change, be entirely
outsourced in perpetuity.
It's a really key capability.
Companies do have to have someability to do that themselves.
(24:54):
They can't have this massivelycritical differentiator for them
just sitting outside of theirteam, even if they only have one
, two, three people who knowwhat they're doing in that space
and they use externals tosupplement that with capacity.
I think that's the directionyou're heading.
You have to recognize change iscritical.
Recognize you might not be theexpert at doing it.
(25:15):
Bring in the experts to buildyour capability.
Keep that little piece in-houseand when you do need to
supplement that with capacity ora new skill, again look outside
.
Bring that in and use that forwhat it's worth.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Amen to that.
I want to be able to put thaton a nice placard and just put
it on the interstate so folksunderstand that it's not trivial
to make this change, to succeedin it, and there's more than
just understanding a software orthe bigger picture.
(25:48):
How do you get people on boardwith that change?
Even in my recent experience,there's a shift from Zoom to
Microsoft Teams and the numberof people that are essentially
up in arms with it and it'sclunky, it's going you know
these, when we're doing changelike nothing is going to fit
like a glove right away, and Ithink that there are
(26:10):
expectations that need to changein the mindset of people that
are in this space that like, hey, things might be a little bit
bumpy for one quarter, maybe two, but then at the end of it
there's no more manualgenerating reports, there's no
more manual generatingpresentations.
We have a system set up thatprovides a dashboard, that
(26:30):
provides a notification, thatsends this, that does this, that
connects that department's worknow to your work, so that you
have this direct line ofinformation that you don't have
to go back and search and try tocall.
Who was the one working on it?
Can I get in touch with them.
I don't understand this blah,blah blah.
You know there's so manyaspects to getting through that
(26:53):
fix.
So I'm in line with you in thefact that this is a capability
build that has to happen inorder for you to start really
taking those things internally.
What you do end up seeing isreally smart people.
They probably know thetechnology and they're tapped to
fix something.
We need you to come and fixthis.
Now what they have done, maybein their group, is probably
(27:16):
specific to that.
It's their people, it's theirlanguage.
They understand each other more.
They've been working togethermore and this was just a little
side project.
I could kind of massage itwhenever I got through, but now
you have certain issues thatyou're trying to resolve that
are not in your group, that arenot with the people you've been
working mostly with that do notspeak the same language.
(27:39):
You do that are not in the samefunction.
Getting through that in and ofitself, you have to build that.
You have to understand whatthat challenge brings outside of
just a technology.
The idea of cross-functionalwork is not just being at a
meeting with people fromdifferent functions, it's
bridging these chasms, as youput it, that have grown so large
(28:01):
.
It's actually slowing theorganization.
Before we start to wrap up, doyou have a story that you could
share where a company wasdeciding should we do this
internally or should we get Liamto come in with his team and
rock this?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
So we use Process Spotlight big digital
transformation programs at themoment and there's a few similar
clients I'm working for at themoment Some I can name, some I
can't A little bit sensitivesectors, but what I'm thinking
about I can't really go into toomuch detail on One of the big
blockers this is certainly truein the UK market I absolutely
(28:38):
couldn't speak to the US isacross businesses.
As you said, there's this bigresistance to change, especially
in some of the more traditionalindustries and this
organization I was working with.
They have bucket loads of thisresistance.
They tried to launch a digitaltransformation program.
They had to change it the wholeERP and they tried to go and
talk to the business and shapewhat that change looked like,
(29:01):
get the requirements, get peoplebought into a new way of
working, shape what that changelooked like.
You've got the requirements.
Get people bought into a newway of working.
And it's really hard.
You go with this list of thingsthat are new, great and
different about the systemyou're bringing in, about the
transformation going to beinflicted, and people get scared
.
If you go in with a 300-pagefeature list, if you go with a
system blueprint, it's quiteintimidating.
It sounds like there's thismassive quantum of change.
(29:23):
Everything's going to beshifting.
Your whole wave of working isgone, and one organization I was
working with tried to launch adigital transformation program
and it failed because theycouldn't get that buy-in.
So what we wanted to do was useprocess to get that buy-in
right from the outset.
So what do we need to do that?
Well, we need to make peopleunderstand what that change
(29:43):
looks like, and not from a listof all the different bits that
are going to change Practically,how is your process going to
change and what's in that foryou.
So let's work with them.
Let's understand the currentprocess and what we can do in
that new system.
Let's translate it from asystem blueprint into a process,
into something they can engagewith, and the change feels much
more real.
And we're working through thiswith them.
(30:03):
Now.
We're creating this landscapeof what the current process
looks like, showing the changein real terms.
What's actually going topractically change for you?
Not every single feature,function button, but instead,
how is that going to affect yourway of working?
What's a benefit for you?
What's it going to take offyour plate?
What are those pain in the assmoments that you have but you're
not going to have tomorrow.
And you get such betterengagement, you get people to
(30:26):
buy into this new way of working, get people to approve this
shape of the process, and theydon't need to approve every
single technical requirement.
So we're on this journey withone organization right now.
We've done it for others, likePhilips and a toy manufacturer.
We're on this journey with aswell, and the best moment you
can get is you have that momentwhere the tricky stakeholder
(30:50):
gives your approval, thumb goesup, they're happy with it, they
understand what the change lookslike and they're now an
advocate for it.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yes, I can echo that this is something that is very
prevalent in our industry in theStates.
I've even had some clients thathave referred to themselves as
converts because after workingwith them they're you know,
Oscar, you've converted me.
This is amazing, and you'reexactly right that there's
(31:19):
software, there's hardware,there's systems out there that
are absolutely magnificent, butwow they are feature, feature,
feature, feature, feature,feature, feature, and what
you're describing is featureversus solution.
Take them on the journey for thesolution.
(31:40):
This is where we are now, andyou hate this.
You don't like it here, here,here and here.
This is what introduction ofthis system is going to allow us
to do.
We're not, and I think what's alittle bit challenging too and
this is something that I'mcurrently writing in a book that
(32:00):
will be launched later thisyear that you're seeing
leadership that is so excitedabout the potential, the
possibilities, but thatimmediately takes them out of
the lens of who this is reallysupporting.
Yes, you want it to support thebusiness, but who's going to do
anything for your business?
It's the people.
(32:21):
If this is not directlyaffecting their work.
Now, if you're going to tellthem, oh, it's going to look
like this later and then it'sgoing to have this and these
bells and whistles, and you'llbe able to see and slice and
dice the day like that is a lotto take in for something that we
cannot see that will occur insix, nine, ten months.
(32:47):
I love that approach.
Take the process, get themaligned on the process, do you
agree?
This is what it is, and I havecreated some processes that go
end to end, that were so large.
99% of the folks involved inthat process just sat there with
their jaws open and said Ican't believe this is what we
actually do.
(33:08):
Yeah, you guys have let it getto here and this is why things
are slow.
You have bottlenecks one, two,three, four, five, six, seven
across nine different functions,because research is not just
one team.
Research is many differentdisciplines, many different
people and individuals,administrative, scientific,
leadership level, et cetera.
(33:29):
Like this is why it takes solong to get from here to here,
and I think the power to bringpeople along really sits in
showing them.
Showing them on paper on acanvas, digitally, showing them
on paper on a canvas, digitally,whiteboard, whatever.
This is where we see your pain,we see the challenges, we see
your pain and what we're goingto do is leverage this system to
(33:54):
alleviate this pain.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
And it's going to look like this the only thing
I'll say and I'll push back alittle bit is the them part.
You really have to beconvincing the right people,
because, liam, you mentioned atricky stakeholder right About
there are people that are in theprocess, but they're not
necessarily improving theprocess.
They're just in this thing atwork and they're driving this
particular business process toget their stuff done, and so, in
(34:18):
our experience, what's beenmore effective is, once you
start an engagement where youare working with a client that
is looking to modify theirproduct or processes, who are
what we would call the keyperson of influence in this
engagement.
There are going to beindividuals it may be the
project sponsor, or it may besome other executive who has a
(34:40):
lot to gain from a potentialimprovement, who has a lot to
gain from a potentialimprovement, and they're
probably very enthusiastic aboutdriving this whole thing.
And then you have a lot ofother people that are maybe
resistant to change and they canreally drag down your project.
And so what we try to do isreally, once we get there, to
figure out who are those peoplein the game and who are the
(35:00):
players involved, and you haveto make sure that the people
that are going to reallycatapult your project to new
heights is the person you wantto be best friends with, and
then the people that are goingto drag you down.
You got to make sure that.
Okay, what is the problem here?
Why aren't you coming alongwith us?
And you kind of have to becompassionate to some extent to
understand what it is thatthey're resistant of, because a
(35:21):
lot of it is just it's a fear of.
I just learned how to do thisand now you're changing this way
of doing something and you haveto build some sort of alliance
to make sure that they're alsogoing to support this initiative
that you're going to do, orit's going to be a very painful
next couple of months foreverybody, right and I see
you're laughing at this becauseyou probably have many stories
(35:43):
of situations like thisdefinitely.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
I think you always find there's always going to be
some blockers.
What you don't want is thoseblockers to be the ones who are
accountable for the process, theones who are driving the way
it's shaped, the way it performs.
I mentioned process ownershipbefore and I really like that as
a concept because, yeah, youhave someone who approves
(36:09):
changes.
You have someone you're holdingto account for it working.
So if this digitaltransformation fails, it doesn't
change the way this area runs.
They're going to fall behindthe market.
It's them who are going to beheld accountable for that
performance.
So, process ownership they knowthey need to do better, they
need to make that process betterand if they're still blocking
digital change, then that'sgoing to raise massive questions
(36:31):
over whether we're quite theright fit for that kind of
position.
Ideally, you want to get to aprocess culture where you have
people accountable for change,wanting to change, wanting to be
excellent and not being thoseblockers Preach preach.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
I love that.
So, as we're getting toward theend, what have you seen from
these organizations?
And we all have to recognizesomething too that change
doesn't exist just in the build.
It's the consistency thathappens afterwards.
You can't just pull in majorsystems and expect that one to
two trainings or an email blurbor maybe a Slack message that
(37:06):
goes to the company is going tobe enough to make people feel
comfortable and confident thatthey can execute this with the
new version.
So, for those organizationsthat, to your experience, really
been successful in driving thechange and continuing this
engine to excellence,productivity, what have you seen
(37:28):
, is a feature of thoseorganizations and teams that are
successful.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
To get change rolled out.
You mentioned before, you know,appealing to the individual.
When you get people to adoptnew way of working, let's get it
so that people see what's in itfor them.
Let's make sure that it's alsoeasing there's get it so that
people see what's in it for them.
Let's make sure that it's alsoeasy.
There's good guidance.
Or, if you're really on thecutting edge, you can look at
some interesting tools likedigital adoption platforms.
We don't have to come out ofthe system to find your guidance
(37:55):
Things like onscreen andwalk-in fantastic tools.
But you've got to make it easyso people know what it is that
they need to do.
I think that community aroundthe process where people might
need a bit of guidance and theyknow who to go to.
They have that open channel toraise questions, raise concerns
and have that back and forth.
It's really important buildingthat community where people want
(38:17):
to help others do things in theright way and then, if you want
to make sure that it's stayingexcellent.
We did some work with PhilipsDomestic Appliances and they're
a superb case of this.
They are the most excellentprocess and quality team and
what they do is they use processto support a whole host of
things across the business.
They were part of the major ERProle and they had fantastic
(38:40):
coverage of the business anddescribing the new way of
working.
And now they've taken all thepain from the audit and they
resolve that through process.
Now that manages documentationthat gets from that audit
accreditation and they have thisfantastic platform to go and
tweak and evolve the process.
They have a good mechanism forengaging the business and
finding where there's problemsand affecting that change and
(39:01):
evolving the process around it.
So it's about people engaging,building a community, being
valuable for them and makingsure that when you are trying to
affect change, you're doing itin a way that is actually useful
and not change for change'ssake.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Make it easy, folks.
This is the industries thatwe're working in are already
complicated.
Don't make it overlycomplicated.
Make sure people know who isthe subject matter expert.
Make sure that your processownership whether it's a single
person within a function or afunction in and of itself they
should all be on the same page.
When we look for opportunitiesto upskill our workforce, it's
(39:40):
these.
It's these opportunities thatallow the people at our
organizations to grow alongsidethe growth of the organization,
and it will pay back individends.
So, Liam, what's one piece ofadvice you would give to leaders
navigating this now?
What's one thing that you wouldtell them to help them through
whether or not they should takeon or tackle smaller exchange,
(40:01):
process improvement, or theyshould seek external expertise.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
You can't start a process team because you need a
process team.
You can't start operationalexcellence because you need
operational excellence.
It's an enabler.
What's your problem?
Find your challenge in thebusiness and build a team to
solve that challenge.
If you're bringing process intothe process, they're going to
create models, not going to beuseful.
If you're bringing them in todrive better engagement across
(40:29):
your organization and customerexperience if you bring them in
to make onboarding moresuccessful, less painful.
If you're bringing them in toaccelerate audits, fantastic,
right from the get-go.
Everyone knows why they'rethere.
It's valuable.
Start with your problem, startwith the value and build from
there.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Yeah, that's an excellent point, and I think a
lot of people, like youmentioned before, end up
starting these things for thesake of starting these things,
and then they wonder why didn'tthis work?
And it's because, well, what'sthe problem that we're solving?
And they get into a situationwhere you're wasting all this
time, money and resources andeverybody is questioning well,
(41:07):
this is just as painful as itwas before and nothing has
actually changed um, you getstarted on something that is not
a sprint and you get peoplehitting mile six going.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Where are we going again?
What is the?
What is the point?
Speaker 2 (41:24):
of this.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
I'm tired, I'm going to go on vacation and I got
other work to do.
This isn't even my real job.
You nailed it.
Find the problem.
Find the problem that hasenough value for you to care
about and approach that.
Liam, how can our listenerslearn more about you and the
work that BPM does?
Bpmd excuse me.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
So best place is on LinkedIn.
So I try and post fairlyregularly by process and all the
things that go around that.
Otherwise, we've just rebrandedto our website.
It's looking a little bitprettier than it was a few
months ago.
So that would be BPM-Dcom orLiam O'Neill on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Thank you so much for joining us Fantastic
conversation.
I look forward to the next one.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Thanks for having me Cheers.
We're back with another episode of Lean by
Design podcast.
I'm your host, Oscar Gonzalez,alongside my co-host, Lawrence
Wong.
We're excited today because wehave a guest, Liam O'Neill,
director of BPMD in the UK.
It's a London-based boutiqueconsultancy specializing in
business process management, andwe're going to have a
(00:20):
conversation with him to seewhat is it like on the other
side of the pond.
What are they doing and whatare they seeing in this industry
?
By using the latest tools andtechniques, BPMD is leaving
behind perceptions about processbeing bureaucratic and boring.
He has worked with companieslike BBC, MSC and Lego to get
value from process, fromaccelerating audits to
(00:42):
delivering digitaltransformation.
Liam, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Thanks so much for having me.
That was a lovely introduction.
Oscar Really appreciate it,Really excited to talk to you
guys today.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
I got to hand it to Lawrence.
He's been really knocking outthese introductions.
So, thank you, lawrence, fortaking on that task.
So I want to get us moving inthe right direction.
The main challenge that we seeis understanding and recognizing
that there are manyorganizations that don't
necessarily have clear workflowsor processes.
(01:15):
They face that crucial questionof should they invest in
building internal processcapabilities or should they rely
on external consultants.
And I'm sure that you have beenalso sort of understanding what
the perception is for externalconsultants that we might come
(01:37):
in and they're going to give ussomething and then they're going
to leave and then nothingactually changes as opposed to
internally.
They may have more of thetechnical knowledge of things
that are happening, but maybenot that setup to deliver a new
process, to drive a new designof the process, to drive the
adoption.
So I'm hoping in thisconversation we're going to
(01:59):
start to explore how do youevaluate if you're ready to take
on and make that next move inoptimizing a process or
delivering operationalexcellence and building out new
processes at these organizations.
So I want to start with thiswhen a company is not clear on
building or buying processsupport, what starts to happen
(02:22):
at an organization?
When they can't determine ifthey're going to try to tackle
this internally or reach out toa consultant such as yourself.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
The fundamental problem why you want process
internal or external is thatthings change and they're
changing really quickly.
There's lots of new systems,new capabilities, changing the
market and you've got to adapt.
Things change so quickly.
If you're not shifting yourbusiness model, if you're not
evolving, then you're gettingleft behind.
So that ability to understandwhat you're doing, understand
(02:53):
what you can be doing and thenbridge a gap between the two is
really critical, now more sothan ever before.
Having a process excellenceteam, having an operational
excellence team who can help totake you from where you are to
where you want to be is a reallyemerging critical capability.
So, understanding that needingto change is absolutely
(03:14):
paramount to being successful,organizations have to ask a
question how do we want tochange?
Do we want to rely on anexternal agency to come in?
Do that to us, do it for us,and then great, we'll get to
where we're want to rely on anexternal agency to come in?
Do that to us, do it for us,and then great we'll get to
where we're going to go.
But then we need to gosomewhere else after that.
So you need to go back tomarket again versus.
(03:35):
Do we want to do thatinternally?
Build that team in ourorganization, go through the
hard knocks, take the hard lumps, take the learnings, but get
something internally where youcan make and bridge that gap
yourselves.
Maybe you change a little bitslower initially as you're
trying to do that with yourinternal team, but long-term you
have this more sustainablecapability.
And that's the questionLong-term, do you want to keep
(03:56):
this really critical capabilityto change?
Do you want to keep thatin-house or out-house?
Do you want to have it whereyou've got the risk of it
failing, sitting with yourbusiness or sitting externally?
And that's a question everyonehas to find the right answer to
for themselves and very oftenit's not black or white, it's
shades of gray.
You might have some internalteam.
You might need to bring on somecapacity just to bridge that
(04:19):
gap.
As you get over the biggestkind of jump from point A to
point B and then flex it down,have your Intel team keep it
ticking over until you get tothe next major transformation.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You know, I love how you started off with that
response where you reallyhighlighted that there is
constant change.
You know the old adage sayingof there's only two things that
you can guarantee guaranteetaxes and change.
Well now, who knows what taxesare going to be going on in our
(04:59):
space, in organizations?
It has been our experience thatin the earlier days of your
career, you are not thinking ofthis space that you're working
in as a company as you beingpart of the fuel for this
business.
You are looking at this as likeit's a job.
It's a part of my career, it'syou know I'm developing myself,
(05:23):
but I think it's.
There's this lens, thisentrepreneurial lens that you
start to see is being required,at least desired by
organizations, to have thisinternal understanding that this
is also a business and toconduct business and secure the
future of your business.
We need to adapt.
(05:45):
And it's not just adapt nextweek, it's not just adapt next
year, it's a daily adaptationinto the changing environment.
We don't know what's going tohappen from year to year we
think we do so.
We create five-year plans,10-year plans that in the first
six months are already not goingin the right direction because
(06:06):
there have been some otherexternal forces that we were not
ready to take on.
I love the idea of reallysitting, taking a look and
saying is this something thatwe're prepared to grow
internally and be a part ofthose bumps in the roads and
those learnings?
Or can we trust enough that wecan work with an external party
(06:31):
that has made those bumps in theroad, that understands why you
would or would not go into acertain direction to really
spearhead that organization intothe next stage of their?
What have been those earlywarning signs that there's
trouble working, that a companyis struggling because they took
the wrong approach?
(06:51):
Maybe they tried to take itinternally.
They tried a Tiger Teecomprised of four different
departments, but then when youlook at it, it's not in their
job description, it's not reallya part of their corporate goals
.
It's sort of a side quest that,in my personal and professional
opinion, demands more time.
You need to put more thoughtand effort into doing change
(07:12):
than a quick band-aid.
What are some of those earlysigns that you've seen?
Speaker 3 (07:17):
I think one of the biggest misdirections is you're
literally full.
People have their ownmotivations and their own
drivers and it's going to bedifferent for everyone across an
organization.
What a CIO wants is differentto a CFO, is different to the
receptionist on the desk.
(07:37):
We're all looking for differentthings and there's a nice
separation area of kind of thebusiness, the broader business
and everyone who does the corekind of operations, or even some
support team like finance, andthen you really core
transformation processexcellence team.
If we look at the core processteam first, some of the
(08:00):
challenges you see wherecompanies have set this up but
it's not yielding the results.
That you're expecting is thatthey have a view on what they
want to do, what they need to do.
Let's model all the processes,let's run these continuous
improvement surveys and getlists of issues and they're
doing task and point great, butwe're not looking at the bigger
(08:21):
picture.
If you're a BPM team and you'rejust modeling processes and no
one's using them, you're nothelping anyone.
If you run in endlesscontinuous improvement surveys,
find an issue after issue, butthen none of them are getting
fixed, how many people spendtime filling in the survey?
There's a bigger picture thatyou've got to look at and that
(08:41):
bigger picture is makingeveryone in the business's life
a little bit better.
If you're a process team, great.
Do your models, but only ifthey've got a purpose.
Maybe.
People spend months and monthspreparing for audit, writing
reams and reams of documents andthen having to revisit this
dusty old Word document everytwo or three years to stay
accredited.
Take that pain away.
(09:02):
Do that with your process tool.
Change it so that people don'thave to do that part of the job
that they hate.
If you've got to do continuousimprovement surveys, make sure
you actually see that changethrough.
You give them all the toolsthey need.
You're helping the business tomake that switch so that
annoying little quirk isactually fixed and you don't end
up with just a list ofirritated people who keep going
(09:24):
on about the same problems butnever see any results.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
So it's that little shift from.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I've been told to do something.
Let's do that to.
Instead.
What is it that's going toyield some results for business,
that's going to make people'slives better on a micro level,
but also a micro level.
You know, looking at what thecxos wants in broad
transformation terms, when youget into the business side, I
(09:50):
think one of the biggestsuccesses is when you've got a
real process culture, live in anorganization where people
they've got a day job, you'vegot your head of accounts
receivable, you've got your S&OPlead, you have all these
seniors across your business.
They're making sure a bit of thebusiness is ticking along just
right, but they're recognized asa process.
Underneath that there's anapproach to doing accounts
(10:11):
receivable, accounts payable,whatever it is across the
business, and they need to beaccountable for that.
They need to be accountable forhow that process is done, how
people understand it, howeffective it is.
So I like to think of processownership not as a discrete role
, but as a role that's implicitin being a leader in a business
that people take accountabilityfor how it works, how effective
(10:33):
it is and making change happen.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I feel like now, just even hearing that the next time
I put in a job description, itis going to be process ownership
, because I think you, younailed it.
I think there has been this.
Initially, there was this realbig shift in anything technology
related lives with your it team.
(10:59):
I did not come through theranks with that assumption.
If this is my function, if thisis my role and this is the tool
that I'm being given, I need tolearn about this.
I had a mentor that told mewhen I brought on, when I
onboarded a new technology, hesaid you now need to understand
(11:20):
this technology more than anyoneelse in the company.
This is going to be what you usein your role.
You should know it more than IT.
You should know it more thanthe people that are consumers of
the information, and you shouldhave that emphasize that enough
(11:45):
that it's not enough for us tocome into the workplace and just
do the one thing that was asked, the actual, the tangible thing
that was asked of us.
We need to think about thebigger picture.
How are we doing this?
Why are we doing this?
And what you alluded to earlier, which I love, how is this
(12:08):
going to affect other people?
Because if you develop aprocess and we are selfish
beings I want to say by nature,but I don't even know if that's
human nature we are selfishbeings when we come into work.
I want my work to be easier, soI'm going to do it this way.
Even if our link in the processcreates a kink downstream, well
(12:34):
, why do I have to change it forthem?
Well, now you're not talkinglike you're a part of the
company, you're talking likeyou're a party of one and really
recognizing that your picturethat this involves all of us.
We're you're not part of thisproject team, you're a part of
this organization.
The smoother you can make yourwork and everybody around you,
(12:58):
the better the engine is goingto run, you know.
So I love your diving intothere.
And just to make sure that we'regetting our listeners on board
BPM business process management.
You know, understanding yourcompany's BPMD, I believe it's a
business process management.
Discipline is what that was.
(13:18):
When I saw that I read in mymind I said business process
doctor, bpmd.
I thought that was fantasticgenius, because you are there in
essence to diagnose a littlebit more of what their problem
is and create those solutionswhere, in some cases, you may
have a client that is going totell you to your point what they
(13:43):
need, but the execution doesn'tquite follow.
They have an idea of what theywant in the future, but they
don't really know how or whatthe appropriate path forward is.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
In that sense, Oscar, I was just going to add too.
You know we've been talking alot about the driver for the
change.
I was just going to add to youknow we've been talking a lot
about the driver for the changeand also you have different
business functions that have adifferent, I would say,
application of a certainsoftware for their own process,
and so sometimes I think in alot of work that we do, people
get confused with process beinglike this is the way that I do
(14:12):
things for my department versusthis is the IT application and I
don't own the actualadministration of that.
And so there's a little bit oflike entanglement between the
two, right, because there may bethings that you want to change
in, like an enterpriseapplication, but you don't
necessarily have theadministrative privileges or
rights to do that, and so, likeyou said, if you change
(14:33):
something here, you're actuallyimpacting other people that may
be using a similar functionelsewhere.
I'm curious, liam, in what yousee with your clients, why does
that tension happen where yousee organizations misjudging
their ability to build theseinternal capabilities, when you
have people obviously usingapplications in a different way,
but also the person who'sactually using the process is
(14:55):
not the one who's the IT ownerof that software?
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yeah, there's definitely a disconnect.
And I talk process ownershipand a really emergent kind of
topic now is product ownership,and you've seen product
management come more and morebefore in a lot of thinking
organizations and it's almostlike there's a little bit of
juxtaposition there.
You can have someone owning theproducts and someone owning the
(15:20):
process.
In a lot of companies that'snot the same person.
Great, someone's going to shapethe product, shape the IT,
shape the systems behind it, butthat person isn't the person
who's going to take ownership ofhow that process works.
There's something of adisconnect there.
For me, I think ultimately itcomes down to what's your
perspective on the organization.
If you're taking a veryIT-centric view, you start to
(15:44):
look at what are my systems, howdo I get someone on each system
?
If you're taking a verytraditional, functional view,
you start to put people onfunctions.
You have your head of supplychain, head of finance, whatever
that may be, and it cascadesdown in traditional seniority.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
But what?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
that does is it stops people thinking across the
boundaries, and it's usually theboundaries where the problems
really lie, oscar, before youmentioned, when you have people
who are doing their own thingand it's causing problems up and
downstream.
You see this all the time.
I worked for an upstream energycompany a little while ago and
(16:23):
we were brought in to work withthe finance team, work with the
finance IT team, to automate alittle piece of a backend using
an RPA bot on invoice matching.
We had a high invoiceauto-match failure rate and we
had this big backlog building.
We wanted to build a bot toquickly pass some information
and do the match.
We said great, okay, we can dothat, we can manage this backlog
(16:45):
.
Why is it happening?
What's the bigger picture?
What's causing this backlog tohappen in the first place?
We can fix it, but sure you'vegot to look at the problem.
You've got to be a doctor anddiagnose it.
And it wasn't finance causing itand it wasn't customer services
, it wasn't fulfillment.
It was way upstream.
(17:05):
It was right at the very frontend.
It was when the procurementteams were logging in their
details.
Some were logging in thedetails, perfect.
Some were skipping a few fieldsand filling some things in not
quite right.
Tiny tiny tweak in datavalidation and data control at
that upstream point was causinga hell of a lot of pain
downstream.
(17:26):
So, looking at it from a purelyproduct management perspective,
you're looking at a silo,you're fixing a problem, you can
be very quick and agile andfixing it, bringing automation,
bringing everything you need.
But you've got to look at thebigger picture, the broader
process, the broader business.
So that's one of the big fan ofprocess ownership as a concept
Try to bring it out, to look atit across functions, across
(17:49):
systems, so you don't have theselittle silos of excellence and
massive chasms in between.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I love that description in between.
I love that description.
I mean, you're one of theexamples that I would give.
You know, my son, who's threeis that you have this big train
with multiple cabooses attachedto it and you're finding that
it's not really running the waythat you wanted it to.
(18:14):
And you find out that veryfirst one actually has like an
anchor hanging behind it becausesomething wasn't quite done,
something wasn't.
You know, it was really lazy.
And when you're oh, it's just adate.
You know there's when, whenyou're disconnected from the
bigger picture, everything isjust a little data point, it's
just a-paste.
(18:36):
Oh, this was just a littleissue here.
But that thing continues tosnowball because as these
processes move from step to step, inevitably they not only
change hands into otherdepartments and other.
We're not going to get awayfrom being cross-functional by
nature across multiple domainswithin these organizations.
(19:00):
These projects are now becomingmore complicated.
They're involving moreindividuals and more functions
from functions that didn't evenexist.
You know, now we have AIfunctions, now we have
leadership in AI andtransformation, et cetera.
So I get it.
It is hard.
You come into an organizationand you're told to just
(19:22):
basically stay in your lane andyou say what does this even have
to do with the bigger picture?
You should start asking,because understanding that
bigger picture provides morevalue to what you're bringing to
the table, and I think thatthere's also a responsibility
for leadership, whether it'sleadership within that team or
that function, or leadership forthe organization, so that
(19:43):
people truly understand yourwork that you're starting down
here.
At the ground level, there issome sort of input that is
happening by the people.
It's not going to magicallyjust manifest itself.
It's being recorded, it's beinguploaded.
Somebody at that organizationis inputting this initial
(20:04):
information, this initial data,this initial data point, and
making sure that you understandthe criticality of all of those
things and if you find thatthings are not really critical
to the end, get rid of it.
That's just an extra step thatyou're adding.
You're finding out now that, nowthat you understand the high
level picture, there's a subsetof things that you're doing
(20:28):
early on that have no value.
You know the idea of collectingdata for the sake of data Not
something that's useful here.
I love looking at if it'sfunctionally managed, if it's
managed through an IT-centricsort of system or organization.
You're going to have differentpros and cons.
You're going to have challenges, and I think that for me,
(20:50):
functionally is where it makessense, because you are a subject
matter expert and now you havesystems and processes in place
specific to the unique function.
That is the work that you do.
Not somebody that has atechnical background in systems
(21:10):
and software necessarily cantell you what is good or what is
not.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I'm more thinking about this from what Liam said
about functional versus like theIT.
I would say expertise is morecommon, that we actually see
internal capability being builtaround people that actually own
the process within theircompanies, versus, if you do
need expert help with some sortof software application, that
you bring in externalconsultants to really understand
(21:35):
the vision that you have forhow the company is supposed to
work.
And maybe that's where you dothe split and deciding when to
bring somebody in, because youhave an idea of where you want
to go but you just maybe youdon't necessarily know how to
configure the software to kindof build that feature in.
And I would imagine that somecompanies maybe they think they
are the experts in configuringthe IT application and they just
(21:57):
royally screw it up and thenthey bring in consultants to
advise on how they should runtheir process from a functional
level and then you leave otherpeople to influence how you
should run your business, versusthe other way around.
Do you see that often and whatdo you tell people when they get
into that situation?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
So I think the whole kind of birth of consulting came
from that whole space wherethere was a lot of corporate
mergers back in the 60s-ish andwhat ended up was a lot of kit
builders being brought intosingle organizations.
People who'd done new, exciting, different things were all
being in the same homogenousorganization but wasn't the same
(22:39):
kind of spread of experiencewithin single entities.
So then broken this gap upwhere there's companies who
haven't done things they need toask to talk to some people,
work with some people who havedone those things, who have that
experience and can bring thatto the fore.
That's where consulting is kindof birthed out of and being
able to take your experience asan individual, as a group of
(23:00):
people, and take it to companieswho've not had that experience
before.
If you've been through an M&A,how do you take that to an
organization who's not yet donethat and make sure that they're
learning from those bumps, fromthose scripts, from those
mistakes that you've made?
And that same sharing ofexperience, sharing of
capability that organizationsdon't have, is still where I
(23:20):
think the most valuableconsulting services are today.
So if you take BPMD, forexample my company we have set
up 70, maybe 80 differentorganizations now in helping
them to build a process team,helping them to implement the
tools that support that.
And when we did our first oneand our second one and our third
(23:41):
one not best, but they werethey had a lot of areas we could
do better.
There's a lot of room forimprovement and you know, as you
get to 10, you start getting abit better.
When you get to 20, even betterstill by the time you get to 78
, to really have that naileddown to a fine art, you've taken
all those learnings, all thosethings that can go wrong and
(24:03):
have gone wrong, and you'vebaked those into your capability
, into your approach.
You bring it to an organizationwho it might be the first time,
second time or third time, butit's definitely not going to be
the 70th time they've done thistype of program and they can
learn from your capability andthey learn from your experience,
all those hard-fought lessons.
They don't need to fight thosebattles, they can just pick
(24:31):
those up and build off theshoulders of that experience.
No-transcript, I don't think youshould have a really core
critical capability like theability to change, be entirely
outsourced in perpetuity.
It's a really key capability.
Companies do have to have someability to do that themselves.
(24:54):
They can't have this massivelycritical differentiator for them
just sitting outside of theirteam, even if they only have one
, two, three people who knowwhat they're doing in that space
and they use externals tosupplement that with capacity.
I think that's the directionyou're heading.
You have to recognize change iscritical.
Recognize you might not be theexpert at doing it.
(25:15):
Bring in the experts to buildyour capability.
Keep that little piece in-houseand when you do need to
supplement that with capacity ora new skill, again look outside
.
Bring that in and use that forwhat it's worth.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Amen to that.
I want to be able to put thaton a nice placard and just put
it on the interstate so folksunderstand that it's not trivial
to make this change, to succeedin it, and there's more than
just understanding a software orthe bigger picture.
(25:48):
How do you get people on boardwith that change?
Even in my recent experience,there's a shift from Zoom to
Microsoft Teams and the numberof people that are essentially
up in arms with it and it'sclunky, it's going you know
these, when we're doing changelike nothing is going to fit
like a glove right away, and Ithink that there are
(26:10):
expectations that need to changein the mindset of people that
are in this space that like, hey, things might be a little bit
bumpy for one quarter, maybe two, but then at the end of it
there's no more manualgenerating reports, there's no
more manual generatingpresentations.
We have a system set up thatprovides a dashboard, that
(26:30):
provides a notification, thatsends this, that does this, that
connects that department's worknow to your work, so that you
have this direct line ofinformation that you don't have
to go back and search and try tocall.
Who was the one working on it?
Can I get in touch with them.
I don't understand this blah,blah blah.
You know there's so manyaspects to getting through that
(26:53):
fix.
So I'm in line with you in thefact that this is a capability
build that has to happen inorder for you to start really
taking those things internally.
What you do end up seeing isreally smart people.
They probably know thetechnology and they're tapped to
fix something.
We need you to come and fixthis.
Now what they have done, maybein their group, is probably
(27:16):
specific to that.
It's their people, it's theirlanguage.
They understand each other more.
They've been working togethermore and this was just a little
side project.
I could kind of massage itwhenever I got through, but now
you have certain issues thatyou're trying to resolve that
are not in your group, that arenot with the people you've been
working mostly with that do notspeak the same language.
(27:39):
You do that are not in the samefunction.
Getting through that in and ofitself, you have to build that.
You have to understand whatthat challenge brings outside of
just a technology.
The idea of cross-functionalwork is not just being at a
meeting with people fromdifferent functions, it's
bridging these chasms, as youput it, that have grown so large
(28:01):
.
It's actually slowing theorganization.
Before we start to wrap up, doyou have a story that you could
share where a company wasdeciding should we do this
internally or should we get Liamto come in with his team and
rock this?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
So we use Process Spotlight big digital
transformation programs at themoment and there's a few similar
clients I'm working for at themoment Some I can name, some I
can't A little bit sensitivesectors, but what I'm thinking
about I can't really go into toomuch detail on One of the big
blockers this is certainly truein the UK market I absolutely
(28:38):
couldn't speak to the US isacross businesses.
As you said, there's this bigresistance to change, especially
in some of the more traditionalindustries and this
organization I was working with.
They have bucket loads of thisresistance.
They tried to launch a digitaltransformation program.
They had to change it the wholeERP and they tried to go and
talk to the business and shapewhat that change looked like,
(29:01):
get the requirements, get peoplebought into a new way of
working, shape what that changelooked like.
You've got the requirements.
Get people bought into a newway of working.
And it's really hard.
You go with this list of thingsthat are new, great and
different about the systemyou're bringing in, about the
transformation going to beinflicted, and people get scared
.
If you go in with a 300-pagefeature list, if you go with a
system blueprint, it's quiteintimidating.
It sounds like there's thismassive quantum of change.
(29:23):
Everything's going to beshifting.
Your whole wave of working isgone, and one organization I was
working with tried to launch adigital transformation program
and it failed because theycouldn't get that buy-in.
So what we wanted to do was useprocess to get that buy-in
right from the outset.
So what do we need to do that?
Well, we need to make peopleunderstand what that change
(29:43):
looks like, and not from a listof all the different bits that
are going to change Practically,how is your process going to
change and what's in that foryou.
So let's work with them.
Let's understand the currentprocess and what we can do in
that new system.
Let's translate it from asystem blueprint into a process,
into something they can engagewith, and the change feels much
more real.
And we're working through thiswith them.
(30:03):
Now.
We're creating this landscapeof what the current process
looks like, showing the changein real terms.
What's actually going topractically change for you?
Not every single feature,function button, but instead,
how is that going to affect yourway of working?
What's a benefit for you?
What's it going to take offyour plate?
What are those pain in the assmoments that you have but you're
not going to have tomorrow.
And you get such betterengagement, you get people to
(30:26):
buy into this new way of working, get people to approve this
shape of the process, and theydon't need to approve every
single technical requirement.
So we're on this journey withone organization right now.
We've done it for others, likePhilips and a toy manufacturer.
We're on this journey with aswell, and the best moment you
can get is you have that momentwhere the tricky stakeholder
(30:50):
gives your approval, thumb goesup, they're happy with it, they
understand what the change lookslike and they're now an
advocate for it.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yes, I can echo that this is something that is very
prevalent in our industry in theStates.
I've even had some clients thathave referred to themselves as
converts because after workingwith them they're you know,
Oscar, you've converted me.
This is amazing, and you'reexactly right that there's
(31:19):
software, there's hardware,there's systems out there that
are absolutely magnificent, butwow they are feature, feature,
feature, feature, feature,feature, feature, and what
you're describing is featureversus solution.
Take them on the journey for thesolution.
(31:40):
This is where we are now, andyou hate this.
You don't like it here, here,here and here.
This is what introduction ofthis system is going to allow us
to do.
We're not, and I think what's alittle bit challenging too and
this is something that I'mcurrently writing in a book that
(32:00):
will be launched later thisyear that you're seeing
leadership that is so excitedabout the potential, the
possibilities, but thatimmediately takes them out of
the lens of who this is reallysupporting.
Yes, you want it to support thebusiness, but who's going to do
anything for your business?
It's the people.
(32:21):
If this is not directlyaffecting their work.
Now, if you're going to tellthem, oh, it's going to look
like this later and then it'sgoing to have this and these
bells and whistles, and you'llbe able to see and slice and
dice the day like that is a lotto take in for something that we
cannot see that will occur insix, nine, ten months.
(32:47):
I love that approach.
Take the process, get themaligned on the process, do you
agree?
This is what it is, and I havecreated some processes that go
end to end, that were so large.
99% of the folks involved inthat process just sat there with
their jaws open and said Ican't believe this is what we
actually do.
(33:08):
Yeah, you guys have let it getto here and this is why things
are slow.
You have bottlenecks one, two,three, four, five, six, seven
across nine different functions,because research is not just
one team.
Research is many differentdisciplines, many different
people and individuals,administrative, scientific,
leadership level, et cetera.
(33:29):
Like this is why it takes solong to get from here to here,
and I think the power to bringpeople along really sits in
showing them.
Showing them on paper on acanvas, digitally, showing them
on paper on a canvas, digitally,whiteboard, whatever.
This is where we see your pain,we see the challenges, we see
your pain and what we're goingto do is leverage this system to
(33:54):
alleviate this pain.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
And it's going to look like this the only thing
I'll say and I'll push back alittle bit is the them part.
You really have to beconvincing the right people,
because, liam, you mentioned atricky stakeholder right About
there are people that are in theprocess, but they're not
necessarily improving theprocess.
They're just in this thing atwork and they're driving this
particular business process toget their stuff done, and so, in
(34:18):
our experience, what's beenmore effective is, once you
start an engagement where youare working with a client that
is looking to modify theirproduct or processes, who are
what we would call the keyperson of influence in this
engagement.
There are going to beindividuals it may be the
project sponsor, or it may besome other executive who has a
(34:40):
lot to gain from a potentialimprovement, who has a lot to
gain from a potentialimprovement, and they're
probably very enthusiastic aboutdriving this whole thing.
And then you have a lot ofother people that are maybe
resistant to change and they canreally drag down your project.
And so what we try to do isreally, once we get there, to
figure out who are those peoplein the game and who are the
(35:00):
players involved, and you haveto make sure that the people
that are going to reallycatapult your project to new
heights is the person you wantto be best friends with, and
then the people that are goingto drag you down.
You got to make sure that.
Okay, what is the problem here?
Why aren't you coming alongwith us?
And you kind of have to becompassionate to some extent to
understand what it is thatthey're resistant of, because a
(35:21):
lot of it is just it's a fear of.
I just learned how to do thisand now you're changing this way
of doing something and you haveto build some sort of alliance
to make sure that they're alsogoing to support this initiative
that you're going to do, orit's going to be a very painful
next couple of months foreverybody, right and I see
you're laughing at this becauseyou probably have many stories
(35:43):
of situations like thisdefinitely.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
I think you always find there's always going to be
some blockers.
What you don't want is thoseblockers to be the ones who are
accountable for the process, theones who are driving the way
it's shaped, the way it performs.
I mentioned process ownershipbefore and I really like that as
a concept because, yeah, youhave someone who approves
(36:09):
changes.
You have someone you're holdingto account for it working.
So if this digitaltransformation fails, it doesn't
change the way this area runs.
They're going to fall behindthe market.
It's them who are going to beheld accountable for that
performance.
So, process ownership they knowthey need to do better, they
need to make that process betterand if they're still blocking
digital change, then that'sgoing to raise massive questions
(36:31):
over whether we're quite theright fit for that kind of
position.
Ideally, you want to get to aprocess culture where you have
people accountable for change,wanting to change, wanting to be
excellent and not being thoseblockers Preach preach.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
I love that.
So, as we're getting toward theend, what have you seen from
these organizations?
And we all have to recognizesomething too that change
doesn't exist just in the build.
It's the consistency thathappens afterwards.
You can't just pull in majorsystems and expect that one to
two trainings or an email blurbor maybe a Slack message that
(37:06):
goes to the company is going tobe enough to make people feel
comfortable and confident thatthey can execute this with the
new version.
So, for those organizationsthat, to your experience, really
been successful in driving thechange and continuing this
engine to excellence,productivity, what have you seen
(37:28):
, is a feature of thoseorganizations and teams that are
successful.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
To get change rolled out.
You mentioned before, you know,appealing to the individual.
When you get people to adoptnew way of working, let's get it
so that people see what's in itfor them.
Let's make sure that it's alsoeasing there's get it so that
people see what's in it for them.
Let's make sure that it's alsoeasy.
There's good guidance.
Or, if you're really on thecutting edge, you can look at
some interesting tools likedigital adoption platforms.
We don't have to come out ofthe system to find your guidance
(37:55):
Things like onscreen andwalk-in fantastic tools.
But you've got to make it easyso people know what it is that
they need to do.
I think that community aroundthe process where people might
need a bit of guidance and theyknow who to go to.
They have that open channel toraise questions, raise concerns
and have that back and forth.
It's really important buildingthat community where people want
(38:17):
to help others do things in theright way and then, if you want
to make sure that it's stayingexcellent.
We did some work with PhilipsDomestic Appliances and they're
a superb case of this.
They are the most excellentprocess and quality team and
what they do is they use processto support a whole host of
things across the business.
They were part of the major ERProle and they had fantastic
(38:40):
coverage of the business anddescribing the new way of
working.
And now they've taken all thepain from the audit and they
resolve that through process.
Now that manages documentationthat gets from that audit
accreditation and they have thisfantastic platform to go and
tweak and evolve the process.
They have a good mechanism forengaging the business and
finding where there's problemsand affecting that change and
(39:01):
evolving the process around it.
So it's about people engaging,building a community, being
valuable for them and makingsure that when you are trying to
affect change, you're doing itin a way that is actually useful
and not change for change'ssake.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Make it easy, folks.
This is the industries thatwe're working in are already
complicated.
Don't make it overlycomplicated.
Make sure people know who isthe subject matter expert.
Make sure that your processownership whether it's a single
person within a function or afunction in and of itself they
should all be on the same page.
When we look for opportunitiesto upskill our workforce, it's
(39:40):
these.
It's these opportunities thatallow the people at our
organizations to grow alongsidethe growth of the organization,
and it will pay back individends.
So, Liam, what's one piece ofadvice you would give to leaders
navigating this now?
What's one thing that you wouldtell them to help them through
whether or not they should takeon or tackle smaller exchange,
(40:01):
process improvement, or theyshould seek external expertise.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
You can't start a process team because you need a
process team.
You can't start operationalexcellence because you need
operational excellence.
It's an enabler.
What's your problem?
Find your challenge in thebusiness and build a team to
solve that challenge.
If you're bringing process intothe process, they're going to
create models, not going to beuseful.
If you're bringing them in todrive better engagement across
(40:29):
your organization and customerexperience if you bring them in
to make onboarding moresuccessful, less painful.
If you're bringing them in toaccelerate audits, fantastic,
right from the get-go.
Everyone knows why they'rethere.
It's valuable.
Start with your problem, startwith the value and build from
there.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Yeah, that's an excellent point, and I think a
lot of people, like youmentioned before, end up
starting these things for thesake of starting these things,
and then they wonder why didn'tthis work?
And it's because, well, what'sthe problem that we're solving?
And they get into a situationwhere you're wasting all this
time, money and resources andeverybody is questioning well,
(41:07):
this is just as painful as itwas before and nothing has
actually changed um, you getstarted on something that is not
a sprint and you get peoplehitting mile six going.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Where are we going again?
What is the?
What is the point?
Speaker 2 (41:24):
of this.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
I'm tired, I'm going to go on vacation and I got
other work to do.
This isn't even my real job.
You nailed it.
Find the problem.
Find the problem that hasenough value for you to care
about and approach that.
Liam, how can our listenerslearn more about you and the
work that BPM does?
Bpmd excuse me.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
So best place is on LinkedIn.
So I try and post fairlyregularly by process and all the
things that go around that.
Otherwise, we've just rebrandedto our website.
It's looking a little bitprettier than it was a few
months ago.
So that would be BPM-Dcom orLiam O'Neill on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Thank you so much for joining us Fantastic
conversation.
I look forward to the next one.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Thanks for having me Cheers.
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