Business Process Assessments – Stakeholder Interviews

While there are numerous business process assessment methodologies, this article will cover an ‘interview’ type assessment.  This approach is very high-level and perhaps anecdotal, but it is based on “seek first to understand”, ideally performed by an objective observer or outside consultancy

First let’s list a few fundamentals that might be considered as part of the planning strategy:

• Identify business process focus areas
• Plan to speak to functional leadership as well as resources executing the process or projects
• Have a prepared list of open-ended questions reviewed by the assessment project sponsors
• Questions should ask about process performance (outputs) but also key inputs including infrastructure / IT- enablement

If performed by an outside consultant, the assessment/report should not be “self-serving” (no hidden agenda to ‘upsell’ initiatives or software solutions).  If acceptable to the project sponsor, suggestions for initiatives can be provided in the appendix of the assessment report or separately. 

Beware of the agenda-driven business process assessment – data and objectivity is paramount  

A goal/objective of the assessment should fundamental ‘blame” the process, not the people (therefore the discovery can be very process focused).  Let’s look at some high-level processes from previous articles that might be considered. Very-high level could include (or exclude) the following functions: 

A selected sub-process could be the supply chain process:

The product lifecycle process:

The project management process:

With some prior knowledge of problem areas, the interviews can be focused on:

• How well certain processes are executed
• Plan to speak to functional leadership as well as resources executing the process or projects
• Have a prepared list of open-ended questions reviewed by the assessment project sponsors
• Questions should ask about process performance (outputs) but also key inputs including infrastructure / IT- enablement

Some qualitative data can be obtained by simply having the interviewee rank the companies’ ability to effectively execute a sub-process (1 = best, 5 = worst). Of course, some reframing or clarification of topics during the interviews might be helpful.  Upon completing the interview, a summary can be reflected back to the interviewer to ensure accuracy.

 A good goal for the findings report is to consolidate and summarize keywords or key phases provided by the interviewees.  What were the actual keywords or key points used the most that establish a consensus?  (In other words, what interviewees actually say is the data, not the opinions or interpretation by the consultant.)

The findings can lay the groundwork for implementing more quantitative or criteria-based assessments, which can be conducted regularly to track progress toward goals like operational excellence.