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During mapping, the IT project team will discover that most explicit process knowledge and best practices are captured in the templates and tools employed as part of that process. Typically, the team's business analyst identifies those templates and tools already in place, as well as those required to streamline and enable the process further. As part of IT platform design, these components are linked to their respective process steps for ease of reference, retrieval, and reuse. Do not be surprised if mature business processes possess numerous duplicate templates, style sheets, and the like. As part of its value proposition, the IT project team will identify how best to rationalize this body of work, distilling and promoting best practice and enterprisewide standards. In many instances, manual processes with various associated paper forms will be replaced by more uniform, paperless, online workflows.
Here is what the HG & Co. consulting firm's IT project team uncovered by way of existing solution selling process templates and tools:
Opportunity/problem assessment
Product/service diagnostic tools
Assessment templates
Previous working models and sizings
Case histories and related deliverables
Client qualification
Qualification questions
Qualification techniques
Buying criteria
Buying questions
Buying techniques
Project scoping
Templates
Scoping questions
Client/prospect information
Pricing guidelines
Project/delivery methodologies
Pricing
Models, rate sheets
Work plans
Proposal templates
Contract templates
Kickoff template(s)
In the course of subsequent analysis, some of these components will be retained and others discarded, redesigned, or replaced.
In building a new IT-enabled platform, the payoff will come in linking standardized templates and tools to the business process itself; when a stakeholder comes to a given process task, the appropriate templates and so forth are automatically presented for use. When multiple options exist, the user should be directed to the correct form; when no tools are in place, the IT business analyst will collaborate with the working client(s) to create standards. There is nothing particularly difficult about this IT task. It merely requires a thorough understanding of the business process and its stakeholders, as derived from the mapping effort itself, and a disciplined, objective sense of best practice in building automated workflows and decision trees.
The greatest challenge will come in selling new practices to those who are wedded to old ways. By aligning performance metrics with these new practices and demonstrating positive outcomes in line with these measures, the project team well be in a strong position to sell the value of these process changes to stakeholders. As is always the case with any business process transformation, however, getting the actual participants to embrace new standards and practices is the real challenge. Here, it is best to remember why your team has taken such pains to involve your project's sponsor and working clients in your efforts. It is up to the line-of-business leadership to bring its team along.
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