How to build effective BPM programs

Process improvement is of huge importance. APQC found that 97 percent of surveyed firms prioritize process improvement, but how successful are those efforts and what can organizations do to make them more effective?

Let’s explore several areas business process management (BPM) practitioners should consider and customize to their organization including program structure and measures, best practices to drive value and change management considerations.

BPM structures and measures

APQC categorizes BPM structure as centralized, decentralized, federated or ad-hoc:

Centralized process work is managed through one department that oversees strategic alignment, governance and accountability and communication and implementation plans.
Decentralized structures embed staff throughout different departments in hopes of encouraging adoption of new behaviors.
Federated (or hybrid) structures combine an overall governing body plus embedded process staff.
Ad hoc process efforts occur when there are no defined program structures in place. These are not recommended – an ad hoc approach to process improvement lacks standardized measures and can result in unintended consequences and inefficiencies throughout the business.

Structured programs gain ground

Compared to a survey in 2020, APQC’s 2024 respondents reflected a shift away from ad hoc process efforts toward more structured BPM programs, with a centralized structure implemented by 44 percent of organizations and a federated approach favored by 29 percent.

Which approach is best? There are pros and cons to each:

Centralized teams provide a clear point of contact and are more likely to align strategy with process. However, they are harder to scale and require more change management.
Federated teams provide a holistic perspective, but the process improvement efforts can still be fragmented.
Decentralized teams allow for easier buy-in and engagement. However, they lack a clear end-to-end view and can reinforce silos within the business.

Organizations should look at their particular structural characteristics and the problems they are trying to solve, then pick the structure most likely to align with their goals and challenges.

Watch Madison Lundquist, principal research lead, process and performance management at APQC, discuss the state of process strategy

Why focus on processes?

Survey respondents’ top three objectives for their process teams were to understand processes through documentation (45 percent), support the execution of strategic initiatives (42 percent) and support a culture of continuous improvement (42 percent). Other reasons included a desire to gain business agility through standardization (33 percent) and to ensure compliance and supporting technology implementations (29 percent).

Select meaningful measures

To evaluate whether BPM teams are delivering on their purpose and objectives, it’s important to select meaningful measures. A well-balanced set of measures provides actionable insights into an organization’s performance, helps identify current challenges and opportunities and aligns with the organization’s culture and strategic goals.

APQC recommends the use of a balanced scorecard that spans four key areas:

Financial: Lagging indicators that track financial outcomes including cost, revenue and profitability.
Customer: Measures of how the organization is perceived by its customers; these can be leading or lagging indicators.
Internal: Measures that look at productivity, risk and compliance.
People: Organizational factors that focus on employees, infrastructure and technology and culture.

To gauge the impact of BPM efforts, our survey found that organizations use a mix of impact measures such as employee experience and productivity measures (like the number of projects). Most programs rely on financial measures and project milestones to track the impact of their efforts on outcomes like cost savings and revenue growth.

Internal customer satisfaction and the volume of projects conducted annually are other popular measures. Less frequently used metrics include the number of processes documented and updated and internal NPS scores that track the effectiveness of process programs.

In the end, your organization and its goals should drive which of these measures you select to align BPM activities with organizational outcomes. It’s important to gain a cross-section of feedback from different stakeholders throughout the organization to understand the relationship between processes and potential KPIs that should be tracked.

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Best practices to drive value

There are proven approaches to drive value from process work, including approaches to process performance measurement and strategic alignment, governance and the use of tools and technologies. Each of these factors is tied to at least one of APQC’s Seven Tenets of Process Management, a research-backed framework for establishing strong process capability.

Measure process performance and business alignment

The tenet of process performance is built on understanding how to implement a BPM program and evaluate its success. Collecting process performance data enables organizations to make data-driven decisions and identify areas for improvement.

However, organizations continue to struggle with evaluating process performance; in fact, 46 percent of survey participants use ad hoc or no process measures. The remaining 54 percent are evenly split between business performance outcomes linking to KPIs and standardized measures that are identified as part of process design. For measurement to provide real value, they should align with employees’ daily work as well as the overarching goals and strategy of the organization. Alignment ensures that process work is focused on the most important activities and also helps gain buy-in from employees and leaders.

Establish clarity through governance

Implementing governance around process work is essential for employees to have a solid understanding of what’s expected of them in each role. Governance encompasses the structural elements that allow BPM programs to function, including roles and responsibilities, accountability and oversight, sponsorship and management structure. The clearer the governance, the faster and more effectively organizations can implement and embed process management into daily activities.

The figure below illustrates an effective role structure that includes a dedicated BPM function, process roles embedded in the business and a steering committee to provide guidance around prioritization and alignment with organizational strategy and objectives.

Process roles and governance structure

This approach has proven popular. APQC’s How Process Programs Stack Up survey showed that 75 percent of respondents designate process owners and over half employ improvement specialists to execute the work.

The number of organizations surveyed that have appointed senior-level process roles has increased over the past five years. In 2024, around 40 percent of organizations leverage process sponsors, process champions and/or steering committees, showing the increased importance organizations place on these more strategic process roles.

In addition to formal process roles, other key stakeholders can also contribute to your process work, such as project team members or individuals who submit potential process projects. Other popular responsibilities for stakeholders include testing and validating new or re-engineered processes, participating in steering committees and advising in project selection.

Standardize tools and technology

Tools and technology enable automation and standardization, which in turn improves processes, thereby enhancing performance and potentially leading the organization to a greater level of process management maturity. However, technology does not replace the sound principles that drive process management.

Standardizing the use of tools and technologies across the organization is one way to leverage them toward greater BPM efficiency and effectiveness. Our 2024 survey showed that, compared to 2020 results, more organizations are standardizing across the enterprise. In addition, more firms are using formal selection criteria (47 percent now compared to 32 percent four years ago).

These positive trends toward more standard and governed approaches to tools and technologies make sense given the increased number of tools available to organizations.

Change management is crucial

An effective change management strategy is crucial for successful process transformation, yet more than a third of respondents reported they only “sometimes” or “rarely” incorporate change strategy into their BPM planning.

APQC recommends the following best practices to address change management:

How are you engaging your employes and WHEN are you engaging them? Early and often is key.
What channels are you using to deliver change communications, how often and WHO is doing the communicating? Identify your “meaningful senders” – those whose message will be most impactful to a given group of recipients.
What training are you delivering on the change so that employees feel well-equipped to make the shift?
Consider your structure and resources – APQC research suggests that the specific structure is not as important to the success of change management programs, as long as some type of formal structure is in place.
What rewards and recognition can you use to reinforce new behaviors? Not everyone is motivated in the same way, so a variety of monetary and nonmonetary incentives are recommended. Our research found that including elements of the change in performance reviews has a positive correlation with the success of change management projects.
What is the role of leadership in your change initiative? Enlist the support of executive sponsors with clear and concise messaging on how they can help drive your change in a positive way.

Embed BPM practices and engage employees

We find that organizations have the greatest transformation success when they embed process management into their day-to-day activities. Survey respondents said they most often do this by focusing on leadership support (60 percent), employee training (54 percent) and effective communications (48 percent). These are also the three methods that our research shows drive effective change management.

Other popular methods of embedding BPM work include leveraging process standards and resources (56 percent) and process champions (41 percent). Less commonly used methods include the use of communities of practice (CoPs), success stories and team meetings to communicate and reinforce change initiatives.

In addition, organizations report using the below eight methods of gaining employee engagement and buy-in for their change efforts.

Employee engagement

Each of these methods can be implemented to engage staff and encourage buy-in. By encouraging employees to become invested in and knowledgeable about the change, you will significantly boost the success rates of your transformation initiatives.

Key takeaways

Pick the approach to BPM that’s best for your organization after analyzing the benefits and challenges of a centralized, decentralized or hybrid structure. Any type of structure is preferable to none.
Spend some time to find out what type of measures are most relevant for your goals, ask internal stakeholders for their perspective and use their feedback to create a balanced scorecard.
All process programs will benefit from the clarity that is provided by governance. Consider which roles and governance structure are most suitable to your organization.
Remember that tools and technology provide the most value when they are standardized across the enterprise.
Leverage the six drivers of effective change management, with an emphasis on the who, what and how of communicating changes.
Find ways to embed process improvement into daily operations and engage employees to increase their sense of ownership and improve the odds of success of your organization’s BPM initiatives.

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