Jim SinurI am receiving more calls from organizations that are concerned about how quick things change in the world and how quickly organizations are forced to respond quickly. Some of them describe the environments they are in as “punching in the dark”. You can’t see where to land your best business punch. In light of environmental shifting and the power of goal driven flows, why not link pre-planned scenarios to thought out responses in goal directed flows? Let’s examine some arguments for and against. See the following for some background:
http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/04/20/oh-process-how-do-you-flow/
![MPj04387140000[1]](http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/files/2009/07/windowslivewriterscenariodrivenprocessesafuturereality-6bdempj043871400001-2.jpg)
Pro:
We are living in a fast changing world where markets, geo-political, partner networks and competitors are in constant change. The Internet powered by cloud will allow for the creation of competition quickly. This calls for the institution of creative scenario planning and the listening for signals that might lead to the cataloged response to these scenarios. Even if these scenarios are not planned and events dictate change, goal driven flows will be necessary going forward. This will put a premium on rapid response, acute listening and creative scenario creation. These are skills that are starting to emerge in organizations today. Ignore this trend at your own peril.
Con;
Just because most of were surprised by events like the financial adjustment and several switches in business environment should not lead to huge problems. Business value chains are still in tact and we have plenty of time to adjust. We are working our way out the latest financial crisis. We will learn and adjust our policies to deal with things. Yes, we may have to make better forward looking decisions (more up tempo), but why waste all this time planning for conditions that may never happen? There is no need to be paranoid and business will always find a way to survive.
I believe that it may take another round of events to shake the “Con view” towards scenario planning linked to process responses to environmental changes, but there is an increased premium on searching for potentially impact laden events and planning for outlying conditions
Category: BPM Business Process Improvement Business Rules Green Optimization Simulation Tags: BPM, Business Process Improvement, Business Rules, Green, Optimization, Simulation
2 responses so far ↓
1 Process for the Enterprise » Blog Archive » If BPM is so Great, Why isn’t Stanford Doing it? August 13, 2009 at 8:11 am
[...] The processes Stanford seeks to address require agility. Lee’s team can’t predict how their processes will change, because much of the process change is driven by external factors (e.g. The Federal Government). Stanford needs to be prepared for both the changes they are planning, and the changes they haven’t anticipated yet (Jim Sinur would call this Scenario Planning). [...]
2 Savoring Simulation: Recent Encouragement December 22, 2009 at 11:48 am
[...] http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/07/27/scenario-driven-processes-a-future-reality/ [...]