Schlagwort-Archive: Rating

Out of the dilemma

It is a difficult balancing act to filter one out of two unpleasant solutions. The choice between pest and cholera only gives hopes that both will not happen – although fate could still pass you by. And then, because of the different interpretations, additionally many have the public hounding them. There seems to be no way out for the favorable representation of one’s intentions. No matter which solution you choose, you will always be shown that it is the wrong one. A good example is the current debate on the sponsorship of events by political organizations, such as the EU. Can a soft drink producer support an event financially without being under general suspicion of trying to influence?

This is a dilemma for the organizers. If sponsoring takes place, it is assumed that the companies buy favorable decisions from politicians. If the organizers renounce the funding by the industries, it could result in the fact that somebody is accused of wasting public funds. Where is the way out of this dilemma? The following steps will help you find your way out of this desperation.

  • Understanding
    Nowadays, news are almost simultaneously in the media. The immediate consequences often only become clear afterwards. The experienced reporter has a sharpened eye for interesting matters. If then the logo of a soft drink manufacturer is emblazoned on the event sign of a political association with the note “sponsored by”, then speculations start. It is important to understand the situation. Sponsor or not? Influenced or not?
    The real dilemma should be clear; otherwise you will make the wrong conclusions.
  • Rating
    After recognizing the dilemma, you should work out the pros and cons. What speaks for one perspective and what for the other? What are the reasons against it? With this ProCon list you can classify the different options – by the way also the possibility of choosing none of the alternatives. This way you choose the lesser evil.
    The real dilemma resolves by itself, since a reasonable decision is prepared.
  • Dissociating
    The consequences resulting from the dismantling of the dilemma unfortunately still remains fatal. For this reason, the risks are separated into factual consequences and undesirable impressions. Factual consequences are physical or human damages. Damage can be minimized by means of preventive risk limitations or short-term crisis management. Public evaluations are opinions that damage one’s reputation. A coherent reasoning and comprehensive publication can help the audience to better understand their own point of view. However, in the end, the public still values at its own discretion based on the mediated “reality”
    If the dilemmas are not practical emergencies, such as natural disasters, economic threats or war, then these are often political reasons that should be confronted politically with clarifying statements.
  • Accepting
    The decisive factor of a dilemma is the fact that the predicament is not under control, but that somebody has to choose one of several undesirable alternatives. Doing nothing by shock-induced paralysis is only the last option. Through the above steps you understand better, which possibilities exist with which consequences. Since it is not possible of safely getting out of this clamp, it is important to accept the insolvability and to decide on one of the alternatives. You are aware of the consequences and initiate appropriate countermeasures.
    The dilemma disappears, when you adopt the chosen solution – and above all when you are convinced that you are doing the right thing.
  • Explaining
    The most important part of the solution is the justification. Since everyone is always the victim of a limited range of vision, we should always explain our solutions in such a way that others can develop their own opinions based on the available arguments. However, poor processing throws oil into the fire. For this reason, well prepared public relations are indispensable.
    The dilemma is mitigated by proactive media work.

Bottom line: With the sensory overload in the media, attention is becoming an increasingly scarce commodity that everyone is ripping off – with the aim of selling products, services, or themselves. In this context, clever expressions about decisions that can be evaluated differently are a good way to fight for one’s share of attention. This means that all kinds of decisions are always placed on the gold scale. Starting point are mostly dilemmatic situations, such as sponsoring political events. If you get sponsored, you get suspected of being impressionable. If you pay, you waste taxpayers’ money. This desperation is solved by choosing an alternative, usually the one with the least damage. For this purpose you should understand the dilemma and estimating the advantages and disadvantages. As soon as you dissociate the consequences, you select a solution and explain it to the public. Do the least bad thing and talk about it. That’s how you get out of the dilemma.

The essential reason for BPM

Time flies and the employees are working step by step until they are finished. Being finished means that the customers, who are willing to spend money for the result, receive the deliverable. Very few, who collaborate on it, are lucky enough to be in direct contact with the paying customer. Mostly they have internal “customers” who contribute their part of the value chain to the deliverable. The entire process is determined by the involved people. Over the past decades, we have learned that deliberately designing these procedures, the business processes, has many benefits for everybody: the employees know what to do and the people in charge can control the process. In some cases, companies are taking care of the processes for the first time. In other cases, the design is done for the umpteenth time. Why do they make this effort for Business Process Management (BPM)?

There are many justifications for the development of business processes.

  • Toppling silos into tunnels
    Overcoming the silo boundaries is a major reason for BPM – double work disappears, delays in crossing the border are eliminated, silo-egoisms will be dissolved. The tunnel also has its boundaries, but they are aligned to the results and the customer. Nevertheless that’s not the main reason for BPM.
  • Letting the data flow
    In the future the floods of information will continuously rising, since more and more processes will be digitally transformed – automation of processes; digitization of deliverables; network-based access to everything, anytime, anywhere. Nevertheless that’s not the main reason for BPM.
  • Getting a neutral rating
    It is hard to estimate how strongly individuals engage into their work. It gets even more difficult when it comes to all employees of a large company. The solution of the past years is the certification by a neutral third-party. The processes are a favorable goal for all people concerned – and as soon as the processes are described, they are also practiced – or not. Nevertheless that’s not the main reason for BPM.
  • Enabling IT solutions
    A specific manifestation of the processes can be found in the IT systems. Since the procedures are encrypted in executable program code, at this point in time clear procedures must be available at latest. Nevertheless that’s not the main reason for BPM.
  • Redistributing resources
    The organizational structure will continue to be the most important tool for distributing means and raw materials. However, the proximity to the value creation suggests assigning employees and resources of the production more likely to the business processes, because they can be better aligned with the results. As long as both approaches are pursued, decision makers have to accept that they will not get consistent figures for their decisions. Nevertheless that’s not the main reason for BPM.
  • Describing processes
    Without the description of the processes, all business players lack an objective basis for discussion, evaluation or changing the processes, to make clear allocations of resources and data, to be certified and to realize the IT. Only something printable is valuable. Nevertheless that’s not the main reason for BPM.

As apt as all these reasons are, they are always only means to an end. Eventually it’s not about the process description, it’s about actual business. The essential reason for BPM is:

Deliver
customers reliably
adequate deliverables
based on applied best practice.

This only works, if the wishes of the customer are known along the value chain and the best practices are consistently applied to deliver the service that customers are willing to pay for. The following aspects support the essential reason for BPM.

  • Only do what is required – not less
    Every process has customers: internally the neighboring department, which benefits from flawless inputs even if it does not pay for it; external institutions that are eligible for reporting; and above all the customers, who finance the whole thing with their payment.
  • Meet the requirements with minimal effort
    In all cases, it is only necessary to do what the recipient of a deliverable actually needs: all employees must do their part to avoid errors, so that there is no need to constantly rework; the tax office and the shareholders are entitled to accurate reporting; Customers determine the required quality with their payment and sustained loyalty.
  • Carpe diem
    Above all, processes are characterized by their speed. It is not about maximum acceleration, as this would lead to situations which would be hard to control. Also, the vanishing flow is not desirable because it makes timely results impossible. The goal is to adjust the gradient so that as many results as possible are delivered quickly and punctually.
  • Being able to recognize what is worth seeing
    As early as possible being able to react to an obstructive incident requires visibility of the current situation. Even the soloistic craftsman has several workpieces in progress at the same time. In business it is an indescribably large number of processes that take place simultaneously. The only chance for an overview is the designed process – together with a contemporary approach of the resulting flood of data.
  • Again and again and again
    Not the number of processes is crucial, but the fact that these processes run repeatedly – preferably always the same way. On the one hand, the effort of designing the processes pays off that way. On the other hand, repeating the same process always creates routine and safety for the employees, what improves the quality of the results.

Bottom line: While in the past the value chain took place predominantly inside the factory fence, today we have an intense, global network of companies of all sizes. The connecting element is the business process that starts and ends with the customer. The process does not become important with the printable description, but with the applied practice that is shared between man and machine. People are the deciding factor because even machines need the human operator. Without involving the employees, only the offices are decorated with A0 plots and the process design happens far from the business in the ivory tower. Do not undermine the essential reason of BPM with the wrong focus: Deliver customers reliably adequate deliverables based on applied best practice.