Business Process Management for Non-Profit Organizations: The other side of IT.

Each process can be defined visually! 

Business Process Management (BPM) is a term borrowed from the for profit sphere to describe the definition of work processes within an organization, especially around technology systems.  If you have applied BPM techniques within your organization, you will find that your staff are working efficiently and productively, you will have data at your fingertips on program outcomes, and you will have no trouble complying with any standards you need to meet.  

BPM is the other side of IT.  Because all non profit organizations use technology, process management and technology are inseparable.  But, your IT consultants don't do this work for you. They are in the business of implementing software solutions and maintaining your technology infrastructure. Then they leave it to you to make that technology work for your organization.  

However, at the typical non profit organization the definition of process is usually not polished and there may be many areas where staff are not working efficiently.

Below are some of the common problems associated with unfinished process definition around technology.  If your organization can relate to a number of these issues, it may be time to put some time and energy into defining your processes around technology use.

Project Management:

• When working on editing a document together, we send it to each other on email, resulting in may versions in many places.
• Time spent on a contract by staff is done manually and handed into the project manager weekly for tallying.

Sheduling:

• It's hard to schedule meetings because we have no idea who is busy when and no way to figure it out except for emailing them or going to their office.
• Rooms are booked out using a paper calendar at the front office.

File Sharing:

• It’s hard to find documents that I need when I want them.
• Staff save documents wherever they like.
• We have documents in our drives from 10 years ago.

Client and Program Management:

• Our files are paper-based and it’s hard to pull data from them.
• All our files are electronic but they have repetitive data fields and staff find them difficult to fill out.
• I only have some of the program data that I need for reporting to stakeholders or the board.
• The data we have to report on our programs are simple client utilization numbers and not outcomes-based data that shows effectiveness of programs.

Inter-organizational communications:

• It’s hard for me to find important emails in my inbox.
• Staff are unaware of trainings and events in different programs.

But don’t despair, if any of these problems ring true for your organization, things can get better!  

Your "techie" and your best detail person are best matched to work together to define work processes within your organization. Your "detail" person is the person to whom details like policy and procedure, are important. This is typically not a clinician! Your “techie” is the person that just gets technology more than anyone else in the agency.  And sometimes your techie and your detail person are the same person, or two people with similar skills. If you don't have people with these skills internally, or you cannot divert staff from essential job functions, you will then need to pull in outside help.

Focusing on business process management will bring great gains to your organization.  Increased productivity for your staff, data at your fingertips on all aspects of your organization, and increased ability to integrate new programs and close down old ones are just some of the benefits.  

photo credit: Jinho.Jung via photopin cc