Selling LOB and getting them onboard with IT

[SeanIT]

One of the issues that I am dealing with is trying to get the business side of the house to agree that we want to invest in this area. Any ideas?

[bluedevil]

One of the issues that I am dealing with is trying to get the business side of the house to agree that we want to invest in this area. Any ideas?

LOBs care about how business results. It's important to tie back any IT initiative to how it is going to drive business value. IMHO, BPM is all about finding ways to improve business performance. So how do you show business value? ROI from projects?

[CDM]

One of the issues that I am dealing with is trying to get the business side of the house to agree that we want to invest in this area. Any ideas?

Sean,

Another key option towards getting the Business side on board would be to host an assessment workshop with both IT and LOB to expose and explore areas where BPM / SOA can provide key business improvement opportunities and potential ROI. Of course IBM has a number of services & mechanisms that can help bridge the IT/LOB gap and show the expected value that each side could gain via a an effective BPM/SOA strategy. Just as a small start, here is a link to the BPM w/SOA assessment tool that can at least provide an idea of how and where to begin. http://www-306.ibm.com/software/info/bpmroitool/index.jsp

CDM

[Ann]

I work in IT as a business anaylst and we just kicked off a BPM project. One thing that helped us is setting up 'interviews' with the business process owners. In these interviews we learned what their pain points were and what they needed to fix. Then we came back with a proposal (using BPM) to fix their issue. We found that if we started small, we got it funded. We are hoping that after this success, we will get more funding.

[KRBPM]

As mentioned, ROI is the key...but how do you show that? Simulation is a great way to show the Business side of the house what the impact of the change will be. First, it's important to select the right process based on the associated risk involved with the project. Focusing on high-impact processes may not be the best way to go for some companies but others may be ready to tackle important improvement projects and optimize processes in that area.

Either way, it's critical to simulate the change to generate time, resource, cost estimates and savings invovled in the project. Capturing the "as-is" process and showing the business line where the bottlenecks occur, where there are inefficiencies and how automating a process will drive value is one way to get the business side's attention.

Many tools provide this feature, select one that has advanced simulation capabilities and features that tie to "deployment" so if the project is accepted, you can then move toward execution.

[ms1mm0]

I would also mention that BPM creates visibility of what is actually happening in the business as opposed to what they think is happening.

One of the key benefits on BPM is creating the operational visibility and understanding of what is happening. Then and only then can you begin achieve process improvements and ensure that processes are more aligned to meet the goals of the business and Key Performace Indicators (KPIs).

BPM can be a revelation or discovery for many embarking on their first project.

I recommend a simulation of a current process and how that could be improved to show direct financial (and other) benefit for your line of business people.

Let them know that by the LOB driving BPM solutions that they drive the priorities for the IT department based on business needs. This means IT becomes vital to the business success and creates a stronger bond in achieving those goals.

regards

Mark S