Business Process Re-engineering

It's What We Do.

When "what we always do" just won't do...

My to-do list never stops. With every ping on Teams, every email that plops into my inbox, every step in my project plan, and even every school project my kids should have started days before and left until the last minute… I am constantly looking for ways to organize my world more effectively, to evaluate and reconsider the way I operate as an individual and collectively with my team, to use the technology at my disposal to accelerate and amplify my actions… and to reengineer my processes for getting everything done. It just so happens I have the good fortune to work at a company that does all of this and more every day for some of the most important organizations in the Federal government. Before I get to that, a quick flashback:

When I was earning my MBA in 2015, I read a book that transformed my understanding of how an organization succeeds: The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt. This is a fantastic study of business process reengineering (BPR), via a hypothetical scenario of a plant manager dealing with low production and morale, high inventory costs, long delivery times, and declining worker effectiveness. By applying BPR principles, he reinvents how the plant operates, leading to an unprecedented explosion of productivity and throughput. By holistically mapping out how the plant (or agency or organization in the case of our clients) operated in the as-is state, a new way of seeing the organization emerges from the muddiness. Working with stakeholders to walk through the processes step-by-step helps identify bottlenecks and friction – these are opportunities to tweak or redesign processes for radical improvement.? The plant manager analyzed these improvement opportunities with a big picture perspective, involved his whole team in designing and implementing new workflows to prioritize bottleneck resolution, thereby increasing throughput and reducing costs.?

The example described in The Goal is very much a real-world scenario that we at Iberia Advisory encounter across many of our Federal clients, whether directly or indirectly. Most recently, we supported the U.S. Coast Guard with evaluating the alignment of their as-is processes to their new Financial Systems Modernization Solution (FSMS) system to understand why they were experiencing operational and financial challenges in several major process areas. For each issue, we worked with key stakeholders from the staff level all the way up to leadership to map out their current state (baseline). We identified the process breakdowns and their impacts and proposed, designed, tested, and validated solutions for each. Accompanying these solutions was a future state process map that clearly laid out (in detail) how the solutions would be operationalized. As a result, the Coast Guard can realize dramatic cost and time savings, reduce the potential for human error, and take full advantage of the FSMS system’s capabilities.

Our approach to BPR is tried and tested, and it is all about helping our clients rethink how they do their work to improve outcomes, cut operational costs, and support their workforce in service of the mission. Here’s a peek under the hood:

1. Identify Processes for Redesign: Map the existing workflow from end-to-end for complete picture to contextualize issues. Focus on processes that have the most significant impact on the organization's performance.
2. Understand Existing Processes: Conduct a thorough analysis of current processes to identify inefficiencies and areas for improvement.
3. Identify and Analyze Improvement Opportunities: Look for opportunities to innovate and improve, considering best practices and technological advancements, such as generative AI and robotic process automation (RPA).
4. Design New Processes: Develop new process designs that streamline workflows, eliminate unnecessary steps, and leverage technology for automation.
5. Implement New Processes: Put the new process designs into action, which may involve significant changes to organizational structures, roles, and technology.
6. Monitor and Optimize: Continuously monitor the performance of the new processes and make adjustments as necessary to ensure ongoing improvements.

I know a six-step process sounds so simple and, if you’ve ever faced a process needing re-engineering, you know it’s anything but simple. But rest-assured, the right team of experienced BPR-ers (yes, I coined that one myself) can make all the difference. Reach out to us any time and we’d love to talk about the challenges you face.

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By: Ben Jones , Iberia Advisory Director of Operations

This is the ninth in Iberia Advisory's It's What We Do series, where Iberians share their perspectives on what we do best. Next Thursday, we’ll hear 美国军队 veteran and Iberia Contracts Manager Jessie C. 's perspectives on Acquisitions.