Outcome-Driven Process Thinking

Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.

  Strategy  

Ever wonder why some organizations have breakthrough success rates with their business process improvement efforts while others languish with ways to find improvement opportunities and produce mediocre results? If so, you are not alone. In the 1990s after GE’s amazing success with Six Sigma, the race was on to achieve similar results and BPI took a leap into the limelight.

Unfortunately, like most popular movements, everyone wanted to grab onto the train and--in so doing--begin to dilute the methods and frameworks that yielded success. Instead of focusing on improving on tools and techniques, the implementation of BPI as a discipline in organizations became bogged down with administrative overhead and often laden with bureaucracy. The same happened with reengineering, TQM (Total Quality Management) and other attempts to improve the way organizations produce value.

However, a remnant remained of those who did not lose sight of the promise and continued down the BPI path--and in doing so have helped many organizations grow and prosper along the way. Those finding the greatest success learned early on that BPI yields the best result when initiatives are driven by the organization’s strategic goals and objectives. They have learned that the big payback BPI opportunities are not hard to find, but rather revealed in understanding how to translate organizational…

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