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How Do You Conduct a Process Map?
Process maps are an excellent way to bring clarity to how work gets accomplished in the organization. Maps make processes tangible which helps visualize how a process plays out and interacts with other processes and systems. This visibility helps you coordinate improvement projects, choose measures…
Productivity Reimagined for the 21st Century
It’s going to take more than traditional productivity for organizations to thrive in the post-Covid 21st century. Customers, employees, investors, and our communities are now more than ever asking us to consider other “big picture” societal and environmental outcomes we produce. APQC has always…
Starting Small with Sustainability – an APQC Story
APQC is small in terms of our physical footprint and number of employees. We deliver services; we have no products that require manufacturing or shipping. So how can we be more sustainable? The go-to idea would be to donate money – and we do donate to charitable causes – but what else could we do…
Strategic Alignment Paves the Way to Sustainable Process Value
Corporate strategy is how organizations assess their capabilities and business environment, determine what’s important to them, set meaningful goals, and develop a roadmap on how to achieve success. Without strategy, the organization can easily fall into disarray, mismanage conflicting priorities,…
3 Reasons Your Organization Isn't Agile
About a month ago we discussed the need for organizations to reassess their strategic planning process to stay flexible and get ahead of the “unexpected”. More pointedly that organizations struggle with adjusting to changes in their business environment because they do not assess the…
3 Ways Process Improvement Gets Sabotaged
We all had to pivot and improvise this past year. But now what? As the world tries to find a new normal, this is a unique window of opportunity to re-create how we work. I am not just talking about work from home—virtually every important process could be a target. The timing couldn’t be better.…
What is The Goal of BPM Governance Models?
Think about how often, as a child, you asked your parents “why can’t this or that happen?” How often was the response, “because it is the rules.” Maybe that is why I like the governance tenet so much. Like so many, I need to know the boundaries of the sandbox that I am playing…
Unprecedented Freeze Shows Strategic Preparedness is Critical
A short two weeks ago—which feels like a lifetime ago—Texas was hit with another of those “unprecedented” events that have started to become commonplace since early 2020. The entire state was proverbially frozen in its tracks due to the worst winter storm since 2011. Millions had to find creative…
Seven Tenets to Improve Your Process Management Effectiveness
Process management programs/departments are often developed or gain prominence because of an organizational need. Some of these needs could include, standardizing across business lines, urgent improvement, or to support a new technology project. As a result, organizations often fail to establish a…
7 Ways Smart Business' Use Benchmarking
At APQC, we define Benchmarking as the practice of being humble enough to admit that someone else is better at something and being wise enough to learn how to match and even surpass them at it. Webster defines it as “to evaluate or check (something) by comparison with a standard.” The origins…