It may sound strange to say, but one of the most important priorities for an organization embarking on a new BPM initiative is to identify the first process to implement.

Lets say that you’ve selected and implemented the chosen Business Process Management solution within your infrastructure and your now ready to begin building and rolling out workflows. You may have a number of processes in mind that you wish to implement straight away, but careful consideration needs to take place on which one to begin with. Its important to achieve a positive impact from the first, newly implemented process; it needs to show added value to employees and the business as a whole, and gain positive feedback. As a result, users will propel the BPM initiative forwards, creating a real impact on the organization. In a previous blog post I’ve mentioned that the success of a BPM project is influenced by the speed at which employees embrace the new technology, reaffirming that the project is there to benefit all.

If the wrong process is selected, the positive impact won’t be felt. Disappointment, backlash or objections to using the solution can lose the business buy-in, stall embracement from a wider community, or even cause the whole BPM initiative to stall or be cancelled!

The key principles for deciding on the first process for implementation are:

• A process which demonstrates a high level impact, with low risk to the business
• A well defined process that covers all bases
• A process with low complexity

Simple processes that involve approvals are usually good candidates such as holiday requests, expense approvals etc… Other good starting points are processes which can aid management teams especially if the workflow can eliminate any of the insufficient visibility or traceability issues found prior to the BPM solutions implementation.

I would suggest avoiding complex, inter-departmental scenarios for the first process. These types of processes normally involve too many opportunities for political infighting, delays and increase the project risk.

So when starting out, keep it simple, or in the words of Dr. Koichi Kawana ‘Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means.’