Neil Ward-Dutton has a great post about BPM vendor results that moves into a discussion of process improvement approaches:

The distinction between “old school” and “new wave” process improvement approaches (I’ve called these “high church” and “low church” before) is just continuing to get stronger. 10 years ago, the vast bulk of process improvement activity used to be driven by the “high church” crowd: lots of ceremony, burning of incense, and so on. Scientific improvement efforts driven by highly-qualified specialists are essential in situations where there’s a lot at stake (for example when you’re reengineering an auto manufacturing line: get it wrong and it’s going to cost you a lot to put it right). And don’t get me wrong: there’s definitely a place for this.

This description and the ensuing thoughts reminded me of our early experiences with BPM at Lombardi.  Lance and I (and others at Lombardi) were often running into process improvement experts with a grounding in Six Sigma or Lean (or less often, IDS Scheer, or Enterprise Architecture modeling).  We were sometimes supported by these folks, and sometimes they resisted our approach (and “BPM” in general).  On the whole, there was a lot of resistance, as our approach to process improvement was somewhat heretical.

So Lance (now CEO of BP3), embarked on a journey to get behind the curtain, to understand the vestments of the Six Sigma and process improvement community so that we could better work with these folks.  After going through the first rounds of training at the Green Belt level, he started to get others of us to go through the training as well.  And what we found was that you didn’t have to adopt the religion of Six Sigma to get the value.  The statistical tools are just that :  great tools you can use.  The “high church” trappings are wholly unnecessary but they do create an aura of authority for those who exercise them.  Lance went on to become a certified Master Black Belt, but we continued to apply what we learned from Six Sigma in an eminently practical way.  The point isn’t to be “pure” – the point is to get to value faster.  If statistics can do that for your business, then you use them.  In our mind, if a BPMS can do that for your business, then you use it.  Make the best of the tools at your disposal to get the maximum benefit.

Still, there are those whose self-interest is aligned with keeping the “high church” ceremonies and orthodoxy firmly in place.  The challenge is to keep it in perspective – scientific approaches can inform the “new wave” way of thinking without slowing things down.

One of the ironies now is that some of the newer entrants to the Business Process space now see BPM as the high church (old school) and their own approach as the new wave.

We are pleased to announce the availability of Lean Six Sigma/BPM training for IT organizations and professionals! In today’s Information Technology environment the need to build, manage, and sustain companies’ information assets is of critical importance; as is the notion of “doing more with less.” This class is designed to provide as much practical understanding of how to incorporate Lean Six Sigma tools and methods to increase the capability of any Information Technology organization. From governance frameworks such as ITIL to software development using Lean and Agile techniques. Lean Six Sigma is a very powerful model that will provide a tremendous value to IT.

This class is in partnership with SixSigma.us, the nations premier training and education company for Six Sigma certification. Their customers include Kaiser-Permanente, Pepsi, AOL, Nokia, BankOne, Motorola, GE, Johnson & Johnson, and many others.

This is a 4 day class that will provide practical hands-on experience in integrating Lean Six Sigma and BPM with IT. Most if not all other Six Sigma for IT training that is on the market is only a day or two long and incredibly high level. We are bringing a true practioner’s course to market and one that doesn’t necessitate that the student already be Lean Six Sigma knowledgeable.

The agenda looks like this:

As you can see from these modules, this course aims to provide not only the education content but also various activities where you will put this knowledge to use and be able to go home to immediately begin receiving value from the week spent in the training.

You can get more information and register for the class here.

First class is in Dallas, Texas, Dec 8-12th. Hope to see you there!