Businesses are using digital applications to quickly manipulate big data to better understand their customers, markets and internal processes. While access to data is an emerging enabler, the value of data is only realized when timely and focused team decisions are turned into actions that improve performance. Business Performance Management (BPM) is the art and science of using data to make decisions that improve performance. In our experience, there are four elements that significantly impact the effectiveness of implementing BPM systems:
“The most important characteristic of the scorecard is that it focuses on the results individuals can control…not summaries of the company’s financial performance. A targeted scorecard allows the group to identify problems before they show up on the bottom line.”
Source: “You May Not Need Big Data After All,” Harvard Business Review, December 2013 Issue
Waypoint helps clients install BPM systems that support their process improvement priorities. We understand that what gets measured gets managed; and what gets managed gets improved. Performance review meetings are transformed from unfocused talk-shops into a nexus for team-based decision-making.
BPM implementation is a journey, not an event. Abundance of data is confusing without a purpose. We start by engaging users to clarify what results really matter and what data we should be capturing to deliver them. We develop a system of visual management boards that quickly identifies where the process does not meet expectations.
This Information provides a content backbone upon which the meeting cadence is built to apply the appropriate skills and experience to the process anomalies. The analysis and problem-solving meetings apply wisdom to convert knowledge into informed actions that deliver results: the ultimate test of the system’s effectiveness.