Resonance Newsletter -01

Resonance -

Striking chord with business process (Community Newsletter)

Editor : Balaji OS http://osbalaji.blogspot.com [email protected]

Resonance Newsletter January ’09

Kickstart Dear Readers, Greetings! Ancient saying goes , ‘ Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know everything ‘.In this ‘googled’ world ,where we are drowned in information and starved for knowledge , collective learning through sharing of experiences and wisdom is the need of the day .This newsletter is aimed to bring the community together to leverage the knowledge and experience of professionals in various domains. Any business is run buy a set of processes. Generally ,appropriate structure is added to these processes to develop it to a Quality Management system and more credibility is brought to them by adopting international frameworks or models. But what remains underneath is a ‘Business Process’ – whether it’s selling in a retail shop, constructing a port or developing a software. It’s all oriented towards running business effectively and efficiently, channelizing the energy of organization to meet the expectations of the ‘Customers’, both external and internal. This newsletter is a medium to share topics and themes on various business processes presented through collection of concepts, practical cases, expert opinions and happenings around the world. I look forward to your suggestions, feedback and most importantly contributions to take this medium of knowledge sharing with community more effectively.

Sighted & Spotted

Inside this issue: Sharpener

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Insight

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Just a Charla KIKP

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@ Action Known is a drop

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Turn in On

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Event Buzz Feb ‘09 SPIN Talk—Chennai www.spinchennai.org Mar ‘09 SEPG—North America Conference http://www.sei.cmu.edu/ sepgna/2009/

CMMI Version 1.3 Being Planned The Software Engineering Institute is now planning Version 1.3 of the CMMI Product Suite. CMMI Version 1.3 will include updates to the models in all three constellations: Development, Acquisition, and Services. The date of the Version 1.3 release is not yet definite, but is likely in 2010. http://www.sei.cmu.edu/news-at-sei/whats-new/cmmiv1.3.html

Peanut Butter Recalls in US U.S. Food and Drug Administration confirmed the source of a salmonella outbreak involving peanut butter, and have recalled products of various firms. This incident has again brought the attention on issues relating to food quality, safety and security .Couple of months back China

was in limelight for contamination in baby milk products. Bharti Telesoft awarded Golden Peacock award for Innovation Bharti Telesoft, has recently announced that it has won the Golden Peacock Innovation Award for its work in the field of Hub Technology and Solutions. The system designed by them enables rapid prepaid roaming service rollout and provides a much richer service experience to the prepaid subscriber base. http://osbalaji.blogspot.com

As said.. "Process makes it possible, people make it happen." - Anonymous "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader ." - John Adams

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Sharpener One of the important activities taken up by the Quality assurance function is performing ‘root cause analysis’ on problems.There are several techniques to perform root cause analysis. Given below the comparison of the various techniques.

Insight 7 wastes in Software Development Lean management is a widely accepted approach to eliminate wastes in manufacturing industry . There are lot of studies conducted to relate these and apply in software development. Here’s is the snapshot of what is typically considered as waste in manufacturing and their equivalent in software development. Any process improvement initiative should be aimed to align its efforts towards minimizing waste in activities. This is one of the critical success factors that would determine the effectiveness of a quality management system. Lean thinking approach would immensely benefit such process improvement initiatives.

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Just a Charla ! Mark McGregor is a popular speaker, a frequent writer and a published author, Mark is a recognized expert in the areas of Business Process Management, Enterprise Architecture and Modeling Tools. He has been described by Gartner Group as a "BPM Guru" and by IQPC as a "Master of Mindset". In addition to his training, coaching and analysis Mark's skill also set includes PR, Marketing, Sales and Business Management. Recently, he has been conducting several workshops in India. Interestingly he wears Kurta even during his workshops. In this chat ,Mark shares with us his expert thoughts on Business Process Management (BPM) and his experiences in India . OS : Hi Mark , Its great to get in touch with you to get some expert opinion on the area of Business process management ,innovation and operational excellence. Firstly, given the current scenario which the whole economy is going through how do you see the relevance of Business Process Management in benefiting the organizations. Mark : There is a great saying “If what you are doing is not working, then do anything else but that”. I believe that Business Process Management if executed correctly will help us to address many of the problems our organisations are facing today. The emphasis though is on executing correctly and this means first understanding what it actually is. In India as in other countries many people still see BPM as synonymous with automation, this is a mistake! Business Process Management is actually about “Doing business differently in pursuit of extraordinary results, through people process and systems” and as such it is a management discipline not an IT practice. The longer people resist the concept of empowering people and using process instead of procedure to grow their business, then the harder they are making it for themselves. In India especially the practice of controlling people and applying rigid procedures is stifling creativity and real innovation. For many people BPM could be likened to the ancient Vedic texts. They don’t like or understand them, because they are not prescriptive, instead the knowledge is passed down in story form with the receiver having to think for themselves. So instead people latch on to a single interpretation, which mat in itself have been prepared by someone with a narrow view, but these people like it because it takes no thought and can be simply read from a book and avoids having to have experiential learning. BPM success requires experiential learning and in my experience those who produce fantastic results chose to learn it that way from good teachers, just like they would learn and understand the ancient texts. (continued in next page )

Know a Industry ,Know a Process In this section, a brief of some of the critical process used in various industries are presented Industry: Retail Background : Every time you walk into a big retail store or walk by a showroom , there is something that catches your attention .The window display , the colors , store design ,product displays or a attractive mannequin. Have you thought of what goes in to make this appealing claim to attract the customers ? So ,welcome to the world of Visual Merchandising. Process /Function : Visual Merchandising The process of determining how to merchandise products by figuring out how to create and arrange visual displays so they are likely to appeal to customers and influence buying. For more info on VM refer www.studioatomium.com http://osbalaji.blogspot.com

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@ Action SUBWAY introduces Food Ordering via SMS ‘ Every process is designed to yield results. Successful companies have always been highly process driven complimenting them with right blend of technology . In this section, we try to spot some interesting business processes across domains. One such newly launched service is the ‘Food Ordering via SMS ‘by the famous food chain SUBWAY. To execute this they have launched the SUBWAYNOW service. These are the steps that make up the process: 1) Users of Subway Now begin by entering their address online to find the Subway shop nearest them. 2) They then create and save their favorite orders, each of which is assigned a number. To order by text message, they simply text the word "menu" to Subway's shortcode, and the service sends back a list of their favorites. 3) They reply with the number they want, and Subway Now responds with a text confirmation and pickup time. 4) All orders are paid via credit card information saved on the Subway Now site, so customers can skip the line entirely when they pick up their food, and the service itself is free. With the time savings and special service to customers it is definitely bound to increase the order intake. Sure other food chains would have spotted this service from Subway ! http://www.subwaynow.com

Just a Charla

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OS : You have been visiting India and been meeting Corporate Heads. What is your opinion on how Indian companies approach their business from process perspective ? Mark : Yes, you are right that I have met several business heads, many of whom are not interested in the ideas around process or some of the other things that I talk about. However what I find interesting is that others are very interested and in fact in many ways are living the ideas, not just talking about them. Two that I will mention would be Kishore Biyani of Future Group and R. Santhanam of Hindustan Motors, these are very successful companies, but also companies where the employees work out of love and joy and not out of fear. Other CEO’s I have met with talk a good story, but unfortunately in dealing with their staff you realise that they don’t actually live the story.

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OS : In your book on ‘Winning with Enterprise Process Management ', you had written about ‘Next Practice’ and the ways to look for them in businesses. Can you shed some light on it and what do you see as the difference from what generally is claimed as ‘Best Practice’ Mark : Best practice in your industry simply says that you are only as bad as the company next door! The whole concept behind Next Practice as I created it was to make people stop and think, to see their business differently and then when they do this to look away from their own industry and see what other people are doing. For example a car dealer wanting greater footfall in a showroom might look at a bookstore and borrow the idea of running a coffee shop – I know because it has already been done. Or perhaps the bank that by thinking like a bookshop created an internet only bank with no ATM’s or branches of their own. I have been collecting many of these stories. Next Practice is about thinking differently and then creating your own path, just as with our spiritual teachings. We are all looking to reach the same goals or destination, but the path has to be our own one. How many people have just followed blindly in footsteps only to find that they did not find the enlightenment they had hoped for. OS : .Generally it is a belief in the community that BPM always is implemented through tools and it calls for huge investment .Today ,the buzz word is Cost Optimization. In this context , is there a disconnect on the BPM approach Mark: Again we see that this is caused my misuse or misunderstanding of what BPM is. Certainly in going down the automation route there can be significant investment in tools and technology. Unfortunately most organizations in India are not looking at cost optimization. They instead are carrying out cost cutting and this is a serious mistake. This is how businesses in the UK crippled themselves during the recessions in the 80’s and 90’s . You can’t grow market share by cutting marketing or revenues by cutting sales. Instead you have to focus on waste. Looking at how you can reduce waste in your organization. This is what I teach in my own BPM trainings, how to analyze and design processes that remove waste and thus are more effective. To do this no technology is required. So again an effective BPM program will massively help to take waste out of your company or system and requires very little by way of investment. If you so chose you could then chose to automate e.g. systemise some of the remaining process if you felt it to be worthwhile economically. OS : Thanks a lot, Mark. Its been great source of information you had shared and I am sure the community would be more interested in the area of work you are into. Thanks again. Mark can be reached at [email protected] .His website http://www.markmcgregor.com/

Known is a drop Some of the interesting resources to learn and refer : www.thequalityportal.com - Good resource on quality management concepts www.freequality.org - collection of good quality tools http://elsmar.com—good resource for automotive quality ,measurement tools Books :

http://osbalaji.blogspot.com

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Turn it On Okay folks ,its time to just relax and do some light mind exercise..

News Connection These are some recent news making the headlines. Fill in the blanks with ‘terms’ that are frequently used by the quality and process world. Clues to find the word are given in italics.

Barack Obama sworn in as US President Barack Obama today took oath of office as 43rd US President .In his address to the nation, he reiterated the message of _ _ _ o _ _ to bring back America to a powerful economy. (an essential aspect for growth and innovation)

Main suspect in Mumbai attacks questioned Ajmal Kasab, who was captured live during the Mumbai attacks, has been interrogated by a special team of police. Early investigations, reveal this roots from Pakistan and Indian police are trying their best to establish _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ o of his origins with official records. (essential practice to ensure control over documents and records)

Miracle of Hudson US airplane crash-landed in Hudson river with nearly 155 passengers on board. There were no casualties reported. Investigation agencies are in look out of the plane’s black box to start their investigation to determine the _ o _ _ _ _ _ _o for the incident. (activity to unearth real problems) ‘Mozart of Chennai’ – A.R.Rahman wins Golden Globe A.R.Rahman won the Golden Globe award for the best original score in Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. He said he was elated to receive the award and credited the success to _ _ _o _ _ _ _ of the entire unit. (a basic quality to for any successful group) Unjumble the letters from the boxes: One of the M’s – a very important resource for every organization ooooo For answers ,zoom this section to 300 % of page view !! ( Answers :Change, Traceability, Root Cause, Team work WORD :MONEY )

Comments & Contribution Hope you enjoyed reading ! Now ,don’t sit back :-) Drop in a mail with your feedback and suggestions. Your views are highly appreciated. If you are interested in contributing to the next edition ,your are most welcome. Lets share ,learn and empower ourselves ! Mail ID : [email protected] http://osbalaji.blogspot.com © All images and illustrations are copyrights of original sources referred.

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