Greetings from Evian, France! I am with my colleague Steve Towers here for the FST Summit and we can tell you that Evian is a truly beautiful location that is refreshing for both the mind and the soul.

Yet what I want to talk about has nothing to do with the peaceful French countryside. The subject at hand comes from observations from the previous two conferences in Belgium and Barcelona, and that subject is the time (effort, expense, commitment) required to make BPM create real organizational value.

What I have observed is that the “leading” thinkers, analyst firms, and “experts” are completely mired in the inside-out, old world, flat-land perspective. They are marching about telling us about the enormity of what we must commit to and accomplish before we recoup business value from our Business Process Management initiatives. They show us charts, graphs, reams of statistics and complex diagrams that “support” their assertion that it takes 2 years to get to that “place” where the NEXT 2 years start creating value. That’s their story, and it is more extreme in its non-reality than even the most ridiculous science fiction books that have ever been written.

Meanwhile what we know reality to be is that by two simple techniques - focusing on Causes and Customer Alignment - we can affect immediate benefits (Increased Revenues, Decreased Costs and Enhanced Customer Service) in 90 days or less. It’s that straightforward, that simple, and that powerful. It’s doing the right thing for the right reason at the right time - and it’s stopping doing the “dumb stuff.”

So why are so many people still actively - even aggressively - resisting this?

Well for starters it’s because this understanding embraces a degree of change that leaves the flat lands in the past, a historical artifact for us to muse on in academic studies. Like the idea that the world is round, it changes everything and refutes much work and effort that has gone in to building out the vision of the flat lands that these people make their living from.

And people don’t like that, some people don’t like it so much they refuse to except that it is possible. They refuse to accept that change can occur and doggedly stand on their island of ignorance as they shift the chairs on the Titanic that is sinking underneath them.

But those who desire to achieve success have an entirely different view. They welcome the opportunity to have the understanding and activities to achieve marked new business success in 90 days or less. They grab eagerly at the chance to embrace concepts, methods and techniques that are the key to Market Leadership and ongoing business growth. They revel in the ability to adopt true agility enabling them to make changes in days, weeks or months while their competitors view of agility remains stuck in the concepts of years.

For those of you that have not been able to attend any of these events I leave you with the most important take-away you could possibly have.

Eliminating the Causes of Work and Process Points of Failure, getting that all important alignment with the customer is something we can all immediately adopt to produce immediate success. Those who don’t can’t compete with us and will even deny that we can “do those things” while their business erodes right out from under their plodding feet.

90 days or less is the answer folks. If you think its years then you aren’t going to have a challenge playing the game, you’ve already lost.

Terry Schurter
Director - International Process and Performance Institute
www.ipapi.org