A Rather Interesting Debate on "Whose Business Is Process Improvement Anyway?" Mon 27 Nov 06

Kent Blumberg was kind enough to pass along a link to a story on CIO.com that has generated a rather interesting debate judging by the reader comments.  Meridith Levinson's article, Whose Business Is Process Improvement Anyway? discusses the issue of whether IT or the business unit should lead the Business Process Management (BPM) efforts.  Levinson's premise is that although it is difficult to do, CIO's can lead BPM to the benefit of the company.  She states:

CIOs who seek an active leadership role in BPM have their work cut out for them. But if they can earn the trust of the business and take charge of BPM, the payoff is big. Doing so will boost their profile and that of their IT organization. It will also facilitate their SOA plans, says Burlton, [Roger Burlton, Process Renewal Group] because process management initiatives identify the business services common across the enterprise that IT can then program and package for reuse as part of its SOA strategy. "If companies do process management properly across the board, IT can do service-oriented architecture properly," he says.

Although CIO's can lead BPM, I believe the better question is should CIO's lead BPM.  I think it is sad state of affairs if the Business Unit (BU) leaders delegate something of such significance and something that will determine their future method of operating to others.  Furthermore, (and I hope I'm reading too much into Burlton's comments) the danger is that the BPM will be designed to support an IT strategy rather the vice versa.

In his blog posting, IT Led Business Process Improvement?  Andy Dabydeen points out the success stories cited of CIO leading BPM all have non-traditional IT departments and correctly suggests that you have to evaluate the structure of your IT organization before attempting this.

Personally, I have to go with the BU as being the one that has to take the lead in and BPM initiatives.  This doesn't mean that IT isn't involved, isn't actively engaged or doesn't lead many of the activities.  What it does mean is that the BU is the one that is ultimately responsible for making sure the BPM effort succeeds and they are the ones that have to live with the results.

I liken it to building your dream house. The architect may lay out the plans, supervise the contractor and sub-contractors, and basically manage the activities on a day-to-day basis. etc. However, it is the homeowner that has ultimate control.  It is up to the homeowner to outline the vision, define the scope, review and approve the architects suggestions, fund the project and ultimately live with (or in) the results.  In terms of BPM, I see IT as the architect and the BU as the homeowner.  Both the IT/architect and the BU/homeowner "lead" albeit in different areas.  So although I feel that the BU/homeowner is the ultimate leader I can see how others feel IT is the leader.

To truly answer the author's question perhaps it comes down to a Clintonesque paraphrase: "It depends what the definition of 'leads' is".

What do you think?