BP Trends Article Demystifying the Relationship Between Processes and Capabilities: A Modest Proposal
BP Trends Article Demystifying the Relationship Between Processes and Capabilities: A Modest Proposal
Description
The BPM and BA fields were in quite the lather in 2014 about the topic of capabilities vs. processes. We recently printed out 196 pages of commentary about this by members of the popular BPTrends discussion group on Linked-In, triggered by several articles written by Paul Harmon, Bill Ulrich and others, and the debate is still raging. BPM and BA folks are generally a contentious bunch anyway, but this this string of opinion-swapping has set some kind of record for invective, snide retorts, supercilious corrections, hairsplitting, scalpings, pronunciamentos and other rhetorical flourishes. It's like an episode of “When Animals Attack,” only with pundits as said attackers.
So we have some trepidation about joining this circus, but we do believe the subject is an important one and that we may be able—at the risk of being attacked ourselves—to make some useful points...
A simple approach you can recommend to clients:
- Capabilities are about the potential an organization has (or should develop) to accomplish its strategies.
- Identify those few capabilities that give competitive advantage.
- Then define not just processes but all pieces of the infrastructure necessary to carry out the strategy.
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