Many organisations are facing a shortage of the skills required for business process management (BPM) success. Although most organisations have some basic expertise in business process improvement tools and methodologies, using BPM to achieve strategic business outcomes requires more sought-after skills, which are in short supply.
Ahead of the Gartner Business Process Management Summit 2014, to be held in London on 19-20 March 2014, Gartner has identified 15 skills critical to the success of any BPM project. They can be grouped into three types of critical competency: transformational, operational and technical (see Figure 1).
In today's blog post, Samantha Searle, research analyst at Gartner, said that organisations often focus on the obvious skills for BPM, such as process modelling, without considering other crucial skills, such as those relating to organisational change.
Ms Searle said:
Based on the results from our latest five-level BPM maturity model - the ITScore for BPM - we found that 27 per cent of respondents said that employees were given training in business process modelling. In general, only 4 per cent of employees were comfortable using graphical process models to understand how their business works, so there is a clear need for further training in this area. Few offered training in other key areas, such as process analysis, discovery, benchmarking and methodology (68 per cent responded "not at all" or "minimally").
Regarding the amount of staff skilled in communicating process-related issues, most replied "few" (39 per cent) or "some" (45 per cent). While it is encouraging that 73 per cent of respondents indicated that employees were given project management training, only 46 per cent were also provided with training in organisational change techniques, which is also critical to project success.
It is the transformational competencies, including knowledge of organisational change techniques and the ability to build a compelling business case, that are most important for achieving strategic business outcomes. Without the ability to articulate and communicate business value and process-related issues, most BPM efforts will fail.
Business process directors and senior IT managers need to conduct a BPM skills gap assessment within their organisations to determine what skills they lack. This means looking beyond IT or the business area where BPM is focused, since there might be suitable skills elsewhere in the business. Once this is done, they should develop an action plan to train their BPM team in the required skills.
More detailed analysis is available in the report "15 Skills Critical to Business Process Management Success." The report is available on Gartner's web site at http://www.gartner.com/....
Ms Searle will also present on BPM skills and programme maturity at the Gartner Business Process Management Summit 2014, 19-20 March, in London. More information is available at www.gartner.com/eu/bpm or by following news on Twitter using #GartnerBPM.
About Gartner Business Process Management Summit 2014
The Gartner Business Process Management Summit will help BPM practitioners exploit the forces of digital disruption to improve organisations' performance, prioritise investments toward projects that will drive growth and innovation, and build the skills to establish them as a leader for digital process transformation.
Ahead of the Gartner Business Process Management Summit 2014, to be held in London on 19-20 March 2014, Gartner has identified 15 skills critical to the success of any BPM project. They can be grouped into three types of critical competency: transformational, operational and technical (see Figure 1).
In today's blog post, Samantha Searle, research analyst at Gartner, said that organisations often focus on the obvious skills for BPM, such as process modelling, without considering other crucial skills, such as those relating to organisational change.
Ms Searle said:
Based on the results from our latest five-level BPM maturity model - the ITScore for BPM - we found that 27 per cent of respondents said that employees were given training in business process modelling. In general, only 4 per cent of employees were comfortable using graphical process models to understand how their business works, so there is a clear need for further training in this area. Few offered training in other key areas, such as process analysis, discovery, benchmarking and methodology (68 per cent responded "not at all" or "minimally").
Regarding the amount of staff skilled in communicating process-related issues, most replied "few" (39 per cent) or "some" (45 per cent). While it is encouraging that 73 per cent of respondents indicated that employees were given project management training, only 46 per cent were also provided with training in organisational change techniques, which is also critical to project success.
It is the transformational competencies, including knowledge of organisational change techniques and the ability to build a compelling business case, that are most important for achieving strategic business outcomes. Without the ability to articulate and communicate business value and process-related issues, most BPM efforts will fail.
Business process directors and senior IT managers need to conduct a BPM skills gap assessment within their organisations to determine what skills they lack. This means looking beyond IT or the business area where BPM is focused, since there might be suitable skills elsewhere in the business. Once this is done, they should develop an action plan to train their BPM team in the required skills.
More detailed analysis is available in the report "15 Skills Critical to Business Process Management Success." The report is available on Gartner's web site at http://www.gartner.com/....
Ms Searle will also present on BPM skills and programme maturity at the Gartner Business Process Management Summit 2014, 19-20 March, in London. More information is available at www.gartner.com/eu/bpm or by following news on Twitter using #GartnerBPM.
About Gartner Business Process Management Summit 2014
The Gartner Business Process Management Summit will help BPM practitioners exploit the forces of digital disruption to improve organisations' performance, prioritise investments toward projects that will drive growth and innovation, and build the skills to establish them as a leader for digital process transformation.
